Author’s practical guidance
Telling daycare, telling grandparents, telling nobody else
Source named in the book: coparenting research (Feinberg)
Coparenting research treats the surrounding adults as part of the arrangement rather than an audience for it.
Say this now
“His dad and I have separated. He's in two homes now.”
One sentence for daycare. No reasons attached.
“We're asking everybody to say the same thing to him.”
Sets the expectation before anybody improvises.
Do this
- Tell daycare in the first week, in writing.
- Give them the two sentences you are using at home, word for word.
- Ask for a note if something changes there, rather than a verdict.
- Brief grandparents on both sides with the same message, on the same day.
- Say plainly what is not for discussion in front of the child.
Avoid this
- Telling nobody, so daycare reads a difficult week as bad behavior.
- Telling everyone the reasons. It travels, and it travels back to the child.
- Letting a grandparent break the news to somebody you have not told yet.
If it repeats
If somebody keeps adding their own version, ask them once, privately, for the sentence you use. People repeat what they have actually been given; most improvising happens where nobody supplied the words.
Why the book suggests this
Coparenting research treats the surrounding adults as part of the arrangement rather than an audience for it. A child who hears four versions of what happened is managing four versions, and at this age they cannot tell which one is the official one.
Daycare is the exception worth handling first. They see your child for more waking hours than you do that week, and they are the ones who will notice a change before you have the perspective to see it.
Related prepared situations
What happened next?
From this collection
Same Words: Two Homes
45 prepared situations in this family area.