It may seem easier, when breaking the news about divorce to your children, to have a lot of one-on-one conversations. So you have four kids, for example, and you sit each one down individually to discuss what’s going to happen.
Your reasoning for this does make sense. You want to give each child enough time to talk, and you know that you may want to explain things a bit differently to each one. But the truth is that most experts believe you should actually have a conversation with all of the children at the same time. Why is this?
You want them to find out from you
First and foremost, you want to be sure that the children find out about the divorce from you and you alone. You don’t want them to hear it through the grapevine. You don’t want an older child to tell a younger sibling just because they found out first. This can lead to a lot of complications and can be fairly traumatic for the kids, so telling them at once is better.
You do still want to have those one-on-one conversations. You can just have them at a later date. Give the kids time to talk and make it clear to them that you’d be willing to talk with each of them individually in the days or weeks to come. Just don’t start that way, so that you can make sure that all of the children hear the news for the first time in a more controlled fashion.
Of course, talking to your children about divorce is just the first step in the process, so make sure you also consider your legal options carefully.
