Re: Explaining sister's divorce to my boys

annie wrote:

> I would love to hear some thoughts on how to explain my sister's
> divorce to my 2 older sons (ages 9 and 7). We aren't very close to
> my sister's family, so it won't have much of an effect on them
> personally, but we will be seeing my sister and niece (also 9) on
> Thanksgiving and I want to talk to them about what is/is not
> appropriate to say to them. My 9 year old is very compassionate and I
> know his first thoughts are going to be for his cousin and he's going
> to want to do something to make her feel better. I'd like to have
> some ideas ready to suggest.
>
> I also want to choose my words carefully so that there's assurance
> that this won't happen to our family, so any suggestions on how to
> communicate that would be great.

IME, of slightly younger children, is that they don't tend to notice
much if adults they don't see often don't turn up at family events.
In addition, divorce is sufficiently common (at least where we live)
that it doesn't need a great deal of explaining, as they have already
come across it in books and TV programmes.

What we have said to our kids is something along the lines that "Daddy
and I think it is very important to stay married, and that we choose
the person we married to very carefully." Of course that only works
if you did choose your spouse carefully :-).

--
Penny Gaines
UK mum to three
.