#103 - How to tell your children about the separation

Speaker 1: 0:23

Welcome everybody. We are continuing this March forward through. I don't know. I'm going to give up on having introductions because I feel like they're never good. Maybe next time you should start.

Speaker 2: 0:40

You know I'm not a good start.

Speaker 1: 0:42

Hey guys. Well, we're a little punch strong because we have been recording for a while now, as we're doing our course, that we're making for parents in Oklahoma who are going through a divorce or separation, and I'm not going to say that foul words have been said, they may have been thought, never communicated no, not once.

Speaker 2: 1:03

Not even thought Never.

Speaker 1: 1:07

As someone I know would say tell the truth and shame the devil. I'm just kidding, you know. This is me. Today, in this episode, we're going to talk about how to discuss the separation with your kids, which is, you know, a perennially difficult conversation that I think folks get wrong more often than they get right.

Speaker 2: 1:26

Right, it's just. I mean, with the exception of what we're doing here, it's very rarely ever taught or talked about, or I don't know when you, when you first get a because you see these people before I do so when you first get a new client who is separating, do they ask you about how to do this or do you automatically talk to them about this?

Speaker 1: 1:56

Normally what I tell them. Well, let's see. So if they you know what I don't always automatically talk with them about it. Very often by the time they come to me the kids already know, because I know I'll very often say to them you know, so what did the kids know? Or that's the way I'll start, and usually it'll turn out that one or both of them has been talking to them about it and they're usually very confident that they've done it very well.

Speaker 2: 2:26

Yes and quite opposite, and usually casting blame on the other Right.

Speaker 1: 2:31

I mean in the limited occasions when they haven't said anything to the kids yet. What I say depends on how old the kids are. But even for older kids, I have a general line which is to say that yes, you know we're not going to be living together anymore. This has really nothing to do with anything that you've done. This is an adult decision. We both love you very much. We're both going to be here for you. That's never going to change. And even when it's a teenage kid and the parents are like, well, my kids not going to accept that, you know he's 15 years old, he's going to want more. What I tell them is I understand he wants more than what you tell him is. It's an adult decision. We both love you very much and everything's going to be okay.

Speaker 2: 3:20

Yeah, I think probably one of the most disturbing things I've heard for many years a parent say about the honesty part of the not only this conversation, this initial conversation, but the others to take place over years to come is I don't lie to my child, be honest with my child, which almost always says in parentheses I tell my child way too much about the court process and adult information.

Speaker 1: 3:54

Yeah, and I think a lot of parents. I think all right, this may be, this may not be right. I think you have two groups of parents one group of parent who says to themselves if they're doing it wrong, not the ones who do it right, who are saying themselves I'm going to tell my child everything now, because they deserve to know right now and I'm not going to lie to my kids. And the other group of parents who look down on, those parents who say to themselves when my kids get older, I'm going to tell them everything, but it depends, but it doesn't matter, they're going to. That group of parents who does it wrong is always thinking to themselves. At some point my kids are going to know that it was their other parents fault and not mine.

Speaker 2: 4:38

Quite often, yes, do I hear that second group say the minute they turn 18,? I'm going to let them read everything not just tell them everything, but I'm going to pull out all the paperwork and let them read it for themselves, Like they're suddenly going to understand all the legalese which I still don't even understand after working with it forever.

Speaker 1: 4:59

Worse than that deposition transcripts, child transcripts. I've had people tell me they're going to show them the deposition transcript and my typical response is if you show them the deposition transcript, the only thing you're actually showing them is that you're a jerk who can't be trusted.

Speaker 2: 5:16

Wow, I never even heard that one oh yeah, I've heard that multiple times. Wow, or at least, maybe what I assumed was that they were talking about just showing them the court filings and so forth, which, of course, those things don't necessarily always have to be true, do they, just because they're in a filing?

Speaker 1: 5:36

They're very often not true. I had this conversation twice yesterday with different clients where the person said well, I mean, they're lying, isn't the judge going to do something about the fact that they're lying? And I say to them the judge is going to care that they're lying when making a credibility determination. But early in my career, when I was doing both criminal and family law, I would ask family law judges to refer parents who got caught lying on the stand to the prosecutor for prosecution for perjury. And the judges uniformly would say to me if we referred every parent who lied on the stand in a custody case to prosecution for perjury, prosecutors would be doing nothing but prosecuting perjury cases and family law cases.

Speaker 2: 6:29

I've never heard that, but I believe it.

Speaker 1: 6:31

Yep, wow, I used to get so indignant about it because it's such a travesty of justice, but it is so frequent that the courts just can't be bothered, I think.

Speaker 2: 6:44

Well, what about the same thing with protective orders?

Speaker 1: 6:47

Oh, my goodness, yeah, well, see, and here's, yes, and this is getting a little tangential, but with protective orders in Oklahoma seeking attorney's fees, you can only seek attorney's fees if there was no victim. So you could have a person who exaggerated what happened to them, but they are still potentially a victim. But it's not sufficient to get a protective order and you could be precluded from getting your attorney's fees even if the protective order was denied. In my perspective on exaggerations has always been that an exaggeration is a lie to the extent that it expands on what the truth is.

Speaker 2: 7:29

Wow.

Speaker 1: 7:30

There's no difference in my mind between an exaggeration and a lie.

Speaker 2: 7:33

So is that, then, a reason to exaggerate, to get a protective order so that your attorney's fees will be paid by the other? No, okay, so that's not the agenda in getting a protective order, no, no.

Speaker 1: 7:49

So yes, I mean people often lie in protective orders because they just want a stop gap.

Speaker 1: 7:54

They just need a protective order long enough to get the other person out of a house and have to stop their new residents to get them to a temporary order hearing so that they can get that advantage.

Speaker 1: 8:04

But it can be really hard to get attorney's fees and protect order cases in Oklahoma because of that language that says there has to be no victim, and the reason they do that is they want to incentivize people to seek protective orders. If you make it, if you say that, if you were to say that if you sought a protective order and it got denied, then the other party gets attorney's fees, then it may be the case that someone who is legitimately a victim and needed a protective order that had counsel that wasn't sufficiently capable, they could wind up being victims and paying attorney's fees, wow. And so I think they want to produce the incentive to have people seek protective orders if they feel that they actually need it. Goodness, and sometimes you don't have proof. Sometimes it's a he said, she said there's no recordings, there's no documentation, but the abuse actually happened, and so that would also create a difficult situation for folks.

Speaker 2: 9:07

Well, and then you're back to what the children are thinking. Someday, if they read about what's on a protective order that was exaggerated, or if you are a child and I mean children will tell me that they have participated in filing a protective order.

Speaker 1: 9:27

Oh yeah, I've seen. I see kids at the courthouse in line with their parents as they're filing the protective order.

Speaker 2: 9:33

Or they're at some advocacy center or you know a safety center or something, and they are participating in it. I've read a few protective orders that quote the child, which really have surprised me.

Speaker 1: 9:49

Such sad topic? Yes, that visual of people at the courthouse in Tulsa County getting married, getting their marriage licenses, and then, 20 feet away, yes. People getting protective orders with their kids in tow yes. And then they're getting a life cycle of difficult marriages.

Speaker 2: 10:07

Yeah, I've thought about that before. I've seen that.

Speaker 1: 10:10

So, getting back to the sort of the topic at hand, although that was a, that was a worthy departure, I feel like that was interesting to me.

Speaker 2: 10:16

Well, that's why I was trying to bring it back around to the fact of what the kids are knowing and at what point do they know it Right? Because that has. And then when I do get the case, they always know. And what they know may or may not be correct or may or may not be primarily one-sided, or sometimes they're not even. They're not even telling me the same thing as either parent. Their viewpoint on something may be bigger or more intense than what either one of the parents has said All right.

Speaker 1: 10:53

So here's, if you're looking for, you know, a few handy, handy, well-packaged tips for how to talk with your kids about separation. We're going to give you some bullet points here that may be helpful. One it's really important to let them know that it's not their fault. That's part of what we said earlier, where we said, hey, there's nothing to do with you, it's nothing that you did, it's an adult decision. And just letting them know it's not a although it affects them, it's not because of them.

Speaker 2: 11:19

And don't assume that they know from an adult standpoint who's going where and what's going to happen. You know, make sure you say hopefully you already know at this point before you're telling them. But let them know. If someone's going to stay in the marital home, let them know. If both of you are moving out somewhere else, let them know anything about those new spaces that might be interesting to them. Let them know, for example, if they're going to have a new bedroom at each house. You know, let them know maybe that they'll be living close to a friend, or you know there's all sorts of things that you could look at at a child level. I know a lot of times when one parent moves to an apartment, there might be a swimming pool or a basketball court or something where they could enjoy what's going on. Because if you're the parent choosing that place, you're probably going to choose a location that's close to something that they would developmentally enjoy.

Speaker 1: 12:22

And, as you're telling them all this, you're not doing it just on your own. If you're doing this right, you and your co-parent have gotten together, talked about how you're going to talk to the kids and if you can be talking with them about this together, so that they know that you guys, even though you're going to be living separately, you're going to be parenting together, that, even though there's two different houses, that both parents are still going to work together for the kids and that sense of stability and security that they had, although different, can still be there.

Speaker 2: 12:53

And the main reason for that and I know it's very uncomfortable, awkward, weird, sometimes even scary for both sides to talk at the same time with their children. But what happens then is you get to see the children's reactions, you get to hear their questions, and I can tell you almost every child of separation or divorce that I've ever talked to will tell me at some point in our conversation that they are so confused because the parents are not saying the same thing to them about anything and they don't know who to believe, and so that frequently starts with this initial conversation that's really a point and as a trial attorney, I will never put on two witnesses for the same piece of information, because you could have two people both telling the truth but because of their distinct perspectives they can say it differently, which can create confusion and make it seem like one or both of them is not telling the truth.

Speaker 2: 13:54

So imagine what this child thinks.

Speaker 1: 13:55

Right For years to come. Exactly, wow. And while you're having that meeting with them together, it gives you both the opportunity at the same time to validate their feelings, and kids can have a wide range of feelings about the situation. Very much so. So what's a good way, lynette, to validate the children's feelings when you're having this conversation?

Speaker 2: 14:19

Well, I think any time a parent this comes up a lot in the reconciliation therapy that I do anytime a parent reacts with defensiveness that tells me they're not thinking like the child and not thinking about the child's feelings and not validating the child's feelings. So what's your defensiveness? What's your tendency? To blame yourself or the other parent or both of you, because it's that will raise your defensiveness. Just simply stay focused on how old your child is, their developmental stages, their personality, and think what are they really saying? And it is okay to ask a question. Are you worried about this? Or if you ask the child a question to clarify, say, well, correct you if you're thinking wrong, you know, like, if you say are, are you afraid that you'll have to change schools? The child might say, well, maybe, but I'm more afraid that I'm gonna move too far away from my friends. Or, you know, because they may know that they could still go to the same school with their friend but not be next door to them anymore or something right.

Speaker 1: 15:39

And before anyone takes that piece of advice too far, it would not be okay to say are you're afraid that your daddy's gonna take you away To a different country? This is so true. Make sure that when you're at talking with them about things that they may be anxious about, that you're not implying, either Implicitly or explicitly, that the other parent is a problem.

Speaker 2: 16:00

That's. That's not a clarification of what the child said. That's like that's a ticket. It to a way different level, but I can hear it.

Speaker 1: 16:08

I know what you mean here it happening All right and, as you're having that conversation, it's important to just can continually reassure them that, no matter what happens, what's never gonna change is that that is your child and you were their parent. You're both their parents and that's you're gonna love them, no matter what exactly, and that that will need to be reinforced and and continued.

Speaker 1: 16:36

Probably they've been into adulthood, yeah one way that you can show that ongoing love for them that's unconditional is to keep doing the same things that you've been doing, even though you're a different household. So you know, providing that stability, providing the routine that they've always had, even if there's, you know, tweaks on it because you're in a different place, you can still have some routines that work, like in my house what is, of course? If anyone's ever seen me, they know that I like to eat, and so in my house we have Friday night pizza night. That is a routine. And on Sunday we have Spatia cocked chicken.

Speaker 1: 17:15

Oh, did I say that right? Yes, I think so. Yeah, with Just whatever else we put with it, and we all love having that. It's a whole experience of making the pizzas together on Friday and on Sunday. By the time we've torn the chicken apart, it hardly makes the plates. It's pretty much always gone before it hits it. So just having those kinds of routines so you can be small things but you keep them the same at both houses it gives the child a sense of continuing support and knowing that they are still loved and cared for.

Speaker 2: 17:47

And even if your child is just with you every other weekend. You know, I remember with my stepdaughter many years ago I didn't realize that we even had a routine, but just on Friday nights, when she got there, it was just kind of hectic, you know, everybody had been working, going to school and we were just, you know, converging all at once for for a meal and and it just was easier to run, get pizza, you know. And One Friday night, suddenly we didn't do that, I can't remember why, and Ashley was like what? It's pizza night, why are we doing this? And that taught me a lot at that time said oh wow, she was counting on that.

Speaker 1: 18:30

Oh, yeah, Well, also it's pizza.

Speaker 2: 18:33

Yeah, it's pizza.

Speaker 1: 18:34

I mean always love that pizza, okay, and then I think, to round it out, don't feel like you have to be perfect and know everything. None of us do so. If you run into some trouble, if you're having difficulty and understanding what your child is going through or how to Express things, reach out for help. You know, maybe you need some counseling so that you can have the emotional Support and tools that that you require to be what your kids need from you. Don't be afraid to reach out to folks who have some experience with this. When you're reaching out for help, stay away from advice that you receive from folks who you know are just kind of caddy Gameplayers. Stick with advice from professionals and folks whose heart you know is Just good through and through. You want to say something to close it out?

Speaker 2: 19:24

I don't know why, but the phrase Less is more kind of comes to mind too when we're talking about what to say to children. I Think if you say less and you May think to add to it in the future about something that you think else the kid is maybe confused about, and you can reassure them and in a way about another little Topic in there, that's better than telling them way too much upfront that they weren't ready to hear perhaps, or that was not Appropriate for them and I'm gonna roof on what you just said because it made me think of something Say less and do more.

Speaker 1: 20:06

Oh, so, the less you say and the more that you up the support, you up the time that you're spending with the kids, you up the.

Speaker 2: 20:14

Fiscal with them exactly.

Speaker 1: 20:16

Yeah so, instead of trying to give them the perfect message with your words, maybe show them how you feel through your actions, providing even additional comfort and support for them.

Speaker 2: 20:27

Yes, definitely, I agree with that I.