Article · open draft
Talking to a Child About Divorce (or Anything!)
By Carlos Miranda Levy · July 15, 2026 · recovered piece — originally published March 9, 2019; improved and updated, changes pending the author's signature
By Carlos Miranda Levy · July 15, 2026 · recovered piece — originally published March 9, 2019; improved and updated, changes pending the author's signature
This article was originally written and published by the author on March 9, 2019 — seven years and a whole childhood ago. We’re bringing it back because it’s as relevant today as it was then, improved and updated. Rereading it, we discovered it’s the direct ancestor of half this house. The text below preserves the author’s original English wherever possible.
I was appalled then — and I’m appalled now — by how some people consider children to have a “limited understanding of the world,” failing to see that quite the contrary: their understanding is limitless, not bounded by common sense or all the restrictions that come with “conventional” understanding and knowledge. All of this began as a lengthy response to a parent’s request for advice on dealing with a child’s feelings during a divorce.
The advice they were getting was the usual: the “happy-go-lucky continuity” (“school and your friends stay the same”), the “we the adults know better,” and the “it will be good for you.” That approach might make parents feel better and reassured that they are protecting their child. But addressing your child in such a condescending way is ineffective — and believing it works is misleading yourself.
Children are much more perceptive than you give them credit for. To think they have a “limited understanding of the world” is a flawed, myopic and even dangerous perspective.
They have a wide understanding of the world, and in particular of their surroundings and immediate environment. It might not be the “right” one — but they do have an explanation for everything. And for what they don’t have an explanation, they create one: sometimes accurate, sometimes wild.
In one of his books, Piaget relates how a very young and vivacious girl explains to him that the wind is created when the trees shake their leaves — while she runs around waving her arms to illustrate her discovery. [SOURCE: verify the exact Piaget book before publishing] And in my own house, when I wrote this, my six-year-old had just told me that the best way to save yourself from a hammerhead shark attack is to place an anvil nearby: the shark will get distracted hammering away at it while you escape.
That is not a limited understanding. It is understanding without limits: creative, under construction, looking for answers — and reveling in inventing its own.
Parental guidance plays an enormous role in that process. So yes: talk to your child, and reassure them that things will be OK and that the situation is the responsibility of adults — not theirs. But talk to them horizontally — a peer-like, honest conversation — so they feel addressed as someone relevant and growing. Because they are.
Your child will have to grow as part of this change. They will deal with mixed feelings and divided experiences: the movies with dad, beach trips with mom, a life split between the two people they love most and who love them most.
Continuity, in a big way, is gone. Changes are coming. Prepare your child for that — and reassure them that among all these changes, the most important things remain: the love of mom and dad, the bond of the family, and everyone’s complicity to navigate life and thrive in it.
Things will change, and no matter how much we try to protect her, the child will experience hard moments: mom being sad, dad being angry at times, or vice versa. Explain that some of these changes will be difficult, but that we will pull through as a whole, together as a family — in a different kind of together. The family bond does not break even though mom and dad are now in separate places. Love remains, grows, and will carry us through the changes.
And here is the classic mistake: telling them “school, the neighborhood and your friends stay the same” is like telling a teenager going through their first breakup that although their first love is over, the school, the pizza place, the park and the movie theater remain — and that they will meet other people. No: things will not be the same, and it’s hard to see how they will be better. Because for a broken heart, all those things are now meaningless without the loved one.
Same for a child. What good are school, friends, toys, two houses — if they don’t get to spend good time with mom and dad together? If they have to tell their stories twice, and dream their trip to Mars or the bottom of the ocean with mom or dad, but not both?
Name it. Honesty about what is lost is the only solid foundation for what gets built.
On the legitimate worry that the child may feel guilty or responsible for the separation through their behavior: address it in the same honest, respectful manner.
“We are separating because of our behavior and the feelings between us, which have changed — not yours. Our love for you remains and grows, and it does not depend on your behavior — though we’ll keep working on that with you, as parents who love you.”
It is understandable to feel guilty, lost, unsure how to respond. Our child’s life is about to change — or is already changing. They are affected by a decision of ours without having done anything wrong or caused it. This might be an early lesson on life’s unfairness and on dealing with things beyond our control — and an opportunity to learn that although there are things which are not our responsibility, it is our responsibility to make the best out of each situation.
There is another, very important step, which my friend Anne gave me upon reading the first draft of the original text: “écouter l’expression des émotions des enfants est la première chose à faire” — listening to the expression of children’s emotions is the first thing to do.
So yes, please: listen to your daughters’ and sons’ emotions and encourage them to express them. Take the time to listen and acknowledge their feelings, fears, frustrations — and even their suggestions, proposals and ideas.
Along with listening comes our role in helping them verbalize: assigning words to feelings. It is normal to feel disappointed, sad, guilty, insecure, afraid, shaken — but these might not be feelings the child is used to, and they will most likely have no clue how to handle them. We can work together to identify those feelings and find easy words they can understand and associate, so they can share them and discuss them with us. We listen, judge not — and then talk about those feelings and walk the child toward a comfortable, shared experience.
(Seven years later, this section became two full practices of this house: Naming what I feel and Tell them how you feel. This 2019 paragraph is their birth certificate.)
Please: do not downplay your child’s understanding or the impact of change, and do not base your argument on continuity or on “we know better.” Do not ignore your child’s infinite capacity for understanding and for creating their own answers and explanations.
Address things — real ones. Take the time. Because whatever you don’t address, the child will address, interpret and explain on their own — in creative and unexpected ways you can’t even imagine.
Anchor line: A child’s understanding is not limited — it is limitless. Whatever you don’t explain, they will explain to themselves. Choose the conversation before the silence writes it.
The house’s limits, said plainly: this is peer experience — a father who has been there — not psychological or legal advice. A divorce brings situations where the best decision is to seek professional hands that know your case closely. Here we accompany you; we don’t diagnose you.
A note from Carlos — the author
I wrote this when my son was six, in the heat of the moment, appalled at a thread of condescending advice. Seven years later I reread it and wouldn’t remove a comma from the thesis: the limitless understanding, the horizontal conversation, the “because of our behavior, not yours.” What I see now is that this text was the seed of half this house’s catalog — and that the kid with the anvil and the hammerhead shark is still right: creativity doesn’t wait for the world to be explained to it. [INTERVIEW: if I want to add how this thesis aged in my own parenting, it goes here]
Ulises — the one who knows the map
This article said in 2019 what took me years to learn: false continuity doesn’t comfort — it insults. You don’t tell a child that nothing changes; you tell them that what matters doesn’t break. And I especially sign the part almost nobody does: preparing them to see us sad or angry at times. The child who was warned doesn’t fear the weather — they navigate it.
Marina Haddad — the voice of the evidence
Two notes. On Piaget: the wind anecdote is exactly in the style of his interviews on children’s representation of the world — but the precise book goes with “verify,” as the house requires, and the research prompt will settle it. On the big thesis: developmental research has spent decades documenting that children understand and perceive far more than adults assume — the article points in the right direction. And the limits box is not decoration: a divorce includes situations that call for professionals, and saying so is part of respecting the reader.
Tomás Andrade — the translator
The verbalizing section is my biography in one paragraph: putting words to feelings is a craft, and someone has to teach it. I only add the order of operations, which the text already carries and deserves underlining: first you listen, then you name, and only at the end do you talk. The manuals call it protocol. Anne said it more beautifully.
Polo — the caretaker closes
This piece is station 3 of the “Cuéntale” series: first the facts, then the feelings, and now the hard things. Its relatives in the library: Naming what I feel, The week between visits and The peripheral father for the full two-houses map. And a caretaker’s fact: good articles don’t age — they change shelves.
This piece is a draft written in the open. If something rang false, was missing, or felt like too much — tell us: good comments rewrite articles.