Seperating - how/what do you tell a 2.5 year old?

[Downdog]

She's very bright & intuitive. She picks up when there are bad vibes between us & responds - for example on holiday recently we were driving and OH & I cross with each other (though had not argued in front of DD) and she starts singing a song we have never heard before "What do we need? TEAM WORK!" over & over again. It's happened a couple of times since - when there is a bad vibe between OH & I she sings the teamwork song bless her.

So do I tell straight, her Daddy won't be living with us anymore, and she will still see him and Mummy & Daddy love you very much?

Or .............. ?

I'm all kind of numb and not thinking straight, but will have to deal with this soon, so any pointers gratefully received.

At that age, I wouldn't go into big long explanations, just be very clear about when she will next be seeing her daddy. If she asks questions, of course you should answer them, but the main thing is to focus on how the logistics work, eg. "You will see daddy on Friday at his house" or whatever. You need to emphasize the certainty of that.

thanks NICKNAME - good idea simply to focus on (what for her will be) the positive!

Hi I've just split from my husband (3 weeks ago) and was terrified about how my 2 children would be affected. One is 2.5yrs and the other is 4 years old and like yours they are not daft and pick up on what is going on.

We sat down together and told them that Mummy and Daddy wouldn't be living together any more, but that it would be really exciting because they'd have 2 homes and 2 bedrooms. Keeping it simple and appropriate.

We left out emotional stuff and they have adapted really well. Making it seem like a bit of an adventure worked well and we made sure we knew logistics to tell school and nursery as to who would pick them up each day.

I'm really proud of the way they have adjusted and feel my fears were unjustified.

Good luck with it, I'm sure it will be fine!
x

In some ways, this is good age for a split. They don't have such a rigid idea in their minds of what their family should look like. I left ex when DD was 1.6 years and she's very matter-of-fact about going from one house to the other.

Going through the same thing. was married for 14 years and have now been separated for five months. Have a four year old and a nine month old. The "professional" advice i was given was pretty much as above, constant reassurance that mum and dad still love you. Apparantly between the ages of two and seven children think its something that they have done wrong to cause the other parent to leave, hence the re-assurance. I was told to draw pictures as children are more visual than verbal. So we have drawn pictures of where daddy now lives, with his toothbrush, shirts shoes etc. My little girl was worried about his toothbrush for some reason, prehaps because she saw it every day and then it had gone. But i find drawing with her helps. She has gone on holiday with him today - the first time she has been away from me amd the first holiday as a seperate family, they have gone on a plane, so spent the weekend drawing pictures of planes and me and her baby sisiter waving goodbye.
But there is no doubt its really hard to try and do the "right thing" as I am sure many women, like me did not expect to be on our own with small children. I just try and get through each day, with lots of cuddles and smiles.