# When to tell your child?



## time4 (Apr 17, 2009)

Not that big of a question, just looking for advice. Wife and I married for 17 years, have a 9 year old daughter. We finally decided a little over a month ago that we need to separate if we still want to remain friends, because together we were making each other miserable. If everything works out, my wife will be moving into a new house in about 3 weeks. We're planning on telling our daughter either this weekend or the following (giving her either 2 or 1 week notice before any changes). We're doing 50/50 shared custody. Just wondering what time frame you may have used, is two weeks too long, is one week too short? We're still living together as a family now, and now that most of the details have been ironed out, things are going fairly smoothly.
Thanks


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## Sandy55 (Jun 3, 2009)

:smthumbup:Commend you for being concerned about your daughter.

I was a child who the parents didn't tell ANYTHING; Mom just took off, no warning whatsoever.

So, I vote for a week. That way she is forewarned but not so long before that she has so long to fret too much.

I'd let her feel like she had some control about where she wants to split her time. At 9-10 let her be as flexible as SHE needs; no hard and fast rules. Don't be jealous and competitive over her choice of who she will pick as a primary parent. 

Kids, IF allowed to do so, will migrate to the parent they feel they need most AT that point in time; it will change back and forth and you two need to be flexible and leave out anything that would make her feel guilt toward her choices.

Example: "Mom, I want to stay at Dads more than four days a week..I want to stay for two weeks..."

Mom: "Sure! Dad loves you as much as me, so I think he will be very happy with that!".

Don't make her visitation so tied to the $$$ of child support that arguments come up over "Well, I fixed her 7 meals last week and you only had her twice, so you owe me another $75.00 because that is 62.4percent of blah....blah...blah..." 

You would not BELIEVE the things I've heard in mediations.


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## Deejo (May 20, 2008)

Whatever timeframe you choose, I would recommend that you and your spouse continue to role-model healthy behavior between one another for your daughters benefit. In terms of time, I lean towards the notion of giving her more than a week to process, and discuss what is going to happen while she still has access to the both of you.


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## LilMamaSlim (May 12, 2009)

It gives me hope when I see people trying to do for their children. Keep up the good work and as for time frame, well I am unsure as I wasn't even given one. However, I'd simply suggest you both keep putting your child first, and keep working towards her well being.


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## time4 (Apr 17, 2009)

just an update, although I wanted to wait another week (reason below) we opted to tell her in what we thought would be 2 weeks. She took it about how I expected she would. Hard at first. Went into her room and processed it for a couple of hours. Later that day we all went for a bike ride and toured the neighborhood and looked at mom's new house (pending loan). She had the usual questions of how long, what the new house is like, how would she be going back and forth between the two of us.

Unfortunately, that 2 weeks now will probably be pushed to 3 or possibly even 4 weeks, as we're both trying to get loans through; hers obviously dependent on mine. I thought that might happen which is I why I wanted to wait a little longer before telling her, but I guess that extra week won't make much of a difference.

The waiting has also stretched our relationship as well. We've been trying to maintain a friendship and somewhat of a family atmosphere, but that's eroding. I think we've unofficially both decided to try to stay out of each other's hair for the remainder of the duration. 

Anyway, so far our daughter has been handling everything quite well.


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## Sandy55 (Jun 3, 2009)

Good deal. I am truly impressed :smthumbup: how well you two are keeping her in mind. She has no control, so putting her first for her own sake is so wonderful. She is blessed.


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## baissier (Jun 21, 2009)

My parents divorced when I was 8, 9 or 10. It really didn't impact me that much. I actually felt happier for my mom since I felt she was happier. Wasn't really mad at my dad either. When I was younger, I thought my dad was taking long business trips...and when I was old enough and knew what was going on, all I thought was "oh...they got divorced...is my mom coping alright?"

I think the important thing is don't bad mouth your spouse. Don't put restrains on visitation. Don't fight in front of them. And most important, don't be sad in front of them. As long as you both appears to be happy in front of them and take care of yourself, they will be happy.

And the things about children being incomplete growing up without a dad or mom...bull****. As long as I know my mom loves me, I don't see what's the big deal without a dad.


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