How to tell your children, according to the people who study it

Parents ask us this more than they ask us about money, and it is the question we are least qualified to answer on our own. So this is drawn from what child and family therapists consistently recommend, plus what we have watched work over thirteen years.

Do it together, once, and rehearse it first

Both parents, in the same room, saying the same sentences. If you cannot manage a civil twenty minutes, do it separately and agree the exact wording beforehand, because children compare notes and a mismatch reads to them as a lie.

Write the first three sentences down and say them out loud to each other before you say them to your children. Not because it is a performance, but because the sentences you improvise under that much pressure tend to be the ones you regret.

Say the four things children actually need to hear

• This is not because of anything you did. Say it explicitly. Children of every age quietly assume it is, and the assumption does not surface for months.
• Both of us still love you and that is not changing.
• Here is what is happening to your week. Where you will sleep, which house has your things, who picks you up on Thursday. Concrete beats reassuring.
• You can ask us anything, any time, and you will get a real answer. Then honour it.

What not to say

Four things, and they are harder to avoid than they sound.

• Any version of what the other parent did. Even a mild one. Even a true one.
• "We will still be a family" as a substitute for "here is what changes." Children hear the second sentence and need it.
• "What do you think we should do?" A child put in a decision-making seat carries that weight for years.
• Anything about money. It converts into fear almost instantly and there is nothing they can do with it.

By age

Three to five

Very short, very concrete, and expect to repeat it roughly weekly for a couple of months. They will ask the same question again not because they did not hear you but because repetition is how they check the world is still stable. Two houses, both with their things in them, is the framing that works.

Six to eleven

This age group most often blames themselves, and most often tries to fix it. Watch for the child who becomes suddenly, unnervingly well behaved. Give them the calendar. A visible schedule on a fridge does more for a nine year old than any conversation.

Twelve to seventeen

They will be angry, or they will be flat, and both are normal. Teenagers often want to negotiate the schedule, which is reasonable, and they should have real input without being handed the decision. Expect one of them to become a confidant for one parent. Do not let that happen, however much you need it.

The part nobody warns you about

The reaction on the day is very often nothing at all. A shrug, and then a question about dinner. That is not resilience and it is not indifference; it is a child putting something enormous away to look at later. The real conversation usually arrives three weeks afterwards, sideways, in a car.

We keep a longer version of this as a printable guide, written with a Portland child and family therapist, in our resources.