Author’s practical guidance
What you say about their other parent on a bad day
Source named in the book: long-term research on families after divorce (Hetherington)
Long-term research on families after divorce keeps finding the same thing: what predicts how a child does is not the separation but what the adults say about each other in front of them.
Say this now
“He does it differently. That's allowed.”
Covers most of what you are tempted to say.
“That's for Dad and me to sort out. Not for you to worry about.”
Declines without loading it onto them.
Do this
- Say one true warm thing about him each week, in an ordinary voice.
- Notice your face before you notice your words.
- Move the complaint to an adult the same day, so it has somewhere to go.
- Never say it in the car. They hear everything and you cannot see them.
- Assume they hear you from the next room.
Avoid this
- "Your father is always late." A true sentence that costs them more than it costs him.
- The sigh when his name comes up. They hear this as clearly as a sentence.
- "I'm not going to say anything." said pointedly, which says it.
If it repeats
If you slip, repair it directly and briefly: that was mine to say, not yours to hear. Children handle a corrected remark far better than a pattern of remarks nobody ever names.
Why the book suggests this
Long-term research on families after divorce keeps finding the same thing: what predicts how a child does is not the separation but what the adults say about each other in front of them. This is the single most controllable factor in the whole arrangement and the hardest one to control.
The difficulty is that it is rarely a speech. It is a tone, a pause, a look at the ceiling when his name comes up. A four-year-old reads all three and does not have the words to ask about any of them.
Related prepared situations
What happened next?
From this collection
Same Words: Two Homes
45 prepared situations in this family area.