How to Talk to Your Child About Separation or Divorce
How to Talk to Your Child About Separation
When it comes to explaining separation or divorce to young children, it’s important to approach the conversation with care, clarity, and calm.
1. Start by Asking Yourself: What Does My Child Know or Want to Know?
Before diving into the conversation, pause and consider what your child might already be sensing. Often the first question on their mind is something like:
“Why aren’t Mommy and Daddy sleeping in the same room anymore?”
Kids are perceptive. They may not have the language for it, but they can feel when something is different. Your job is to meet them at their developmental level — not yours.
2. Check in With Yourself First
Before you speak to your child, check in with your own emotions. Ask:
Am I calm? Am I regulated?
Kids take emotional cues from their parents. If you’re upset, they may feel unsafe or confused. The goal is to be a calm, grounded presence — not to bring your own emotional turbulence into the conversation. When you are disregulated its harder to bring balance to your child’s emotions. You want to be the calm emotional anchor for your child. When you connect with them it helps cooregulate their emotions.
3. Less Is More
When we over-explain, we can end up overwhelming or confusing kids. You don’t need to give every detail up front. In fact, less is more. Avoid intellectualizing the situation. Keep it simple and age-appropriate.
You can always add more information later if they ask or if the situation evolves.
When they ask a question and you’re unsure of the answer or how to respond appropriately, you always say that’s a really good question. Let me think about it and I’ll get back to you. This way it gives you more time to answer more appropriately and not feel forced in the moment to respond.
4. A Sample Scriptt for Talking to Your Child
If possible, it’s helpful for both parents to be present during this conversation. You might begin by saying something like:
“We wanted to talk to you about something important. You might have noticed that Mommy and Daddy haven’t been sleeping in the same room lately. We thought it was time to talk about that together.”
Then, you can gently introduce the idea that families can look different:
“Families come in all different shapes and sizes. Some families have a mommy and daddy who live together. Some have a mommy in one home and a daddy in another. Some families have just a mommy, or just a daddy, or even grandparents or other caregivers.”
Pause here and give your child time to process. You don’t need to explain everything all at once — and it’s okay to leave space for their questions.
If they ask something you’re not quite ready to answer in the moment, you can say:
“That’s a really good question. I want to think about the best way to answer it, and I’ll talk to you about it soon.”
If you’re ready to share more about the changes ahead, you might continue with something like:
“Mommy and Daddy are going to be living in two different homes. But one thing that will never change is how much we love you. We will always be your parents, and we will always take care of you.”
You can then offer some simple, clear structure:
“You’ll spend [X] sleeps at Mommy’s house and [X] sleeps at Daddy’s house. We can make a calendar together so you always know where you’ll be. And whenever you’re missing one of us, you can draw a picture or send a message. We can even FaceTime if that helps.”