We Don't Know Yet, But We Will Figure It Out

Some of the most meaningful moments in my work happen quietly, in a room where two people are ending a marriage but starting to co-parent.

I recently sat with a couple who, in the middle of dividing assets and working through the financial logistics of separation, paused and said the thing that was really weighing on them: "I don't care about any of this as much as I care about how to tell our kids."

That's the moment I love most in mediation. Underneath all the paperwork, most parents share the same quiet hope: that their children come through this feeling loved, secure, and unshaken in who their family is, even as its shape changes.

These are things we've come to believe deeply over years of doing this work, and they're echoed consistently by family therapists, including Erica Komisar, in whose book The Parent's Guide to Divorce I was honored to be quoted:

Tell your children together, if possible. There's something powerful about your kids seeing you sit down side by side, even now. It tells them, without a single word, that you're still their parents, still a team where it matters most.

Don't tell others before you tell your children. You don't want them hearing life changing news secondhand, from a relative, a sibling's friend, or a slip at school.

Keep it simple, age appropriate, and let them feel how loved they are. They don't need every detail. They need your arms around them and to hear, as many times as it takes, that none of this is their fault and that both of you will always love them.

You don't have to have every answer. When the kids ask "where will we live?" or "where will I go to school?", some of the most honest, comforting words you can offer are, "We don't know yet, but we will figure it out." It is honest and builds trust with children. They need to be reassured that you're steady enough to hold the uncertainty, and that is OK.

Hold on to the small, familiar things. The same bedtime story. Pancakes on Saturday. A hug at the door. When so much else is shifting, these little rituals become the quiet proof that home is still home.

Every family is different, and there's no single right way to walk through this. If you're navigating it yourself, please don't hesitate to lean on the people around you: a pediatrician, a therapist, a trusted teacher or school counselor. You don't have to carry it alone, and neither do your children.

Watching parents move from fear to a plan, from "how do we even begin this conversation" to walking out with real words to say to their children, is why I do this work. Divorce changes a family's shape, but it doesn't have to break a child's sense of home.