by Chris Palmer

One can only imagine how difficult it is to explain to your children why their parents are divorcing.  The questions, the pleading, the tears, the apologies and the shattered desire of sheltering your children from life’s pain.  For a parent that puts their children first, this pain has to be right at the top of the list of unpleasant experiences. However, others use that moment not to delicately guide their children into their new existence, but to destroy the other parent in the eyes of the children.  Too often children are intentionally sucked into divorce litigation and they become the victims of their parent’s need to win at all costs.

A recent article provides a thoughtful analysis of the process of explaining to your children that you are divorcing.  There are right ways to tell the children and there are certainly wrong ways to tell the children. The article recommends the following steps as the correct way to ease your children into a divorce:

1. Tell your kids together, despite your differences.  They need to see that both of you will still be their parents.
2. Don’t blame or criticize your spouse.  Accept responsibility for the split and use this as a first step in developing a new relationship with your children as divorced parents.
3. Explain what post-divorce life will look like for the children.
4. Rehearse the conversation with your spouse.  Anticipate the questions and be prepared with responses.
5. Remind the children that they did nothing to cause the divorce.
6. Be patient and give your children time to adjust.

Anyone divorcing, with children, would do well to take the points mentioned in the article and use them in discussing divorce with their children.