New Year is often a time when couples enquire about separation and divorce support after the intensity of the festive period. To coincide with this, Words Matter has launched a new resource designed to help parents and carers navigate conversations with children during this difficult period.
Talking with children during separation or divorce, created in collaboration with Dr Fiona Pienaar, offers practical guidance, language tips, and advice to help protect children’s emotional wellbeing when family structures change.
Separation is challenging for adults and for children it can feel particularly overwhelming. Their emotional world, routines, and sense of safety can shift rapidly, and the words they hear from the adults around them can have a powerful and lasting impact. At its core, the message in the resource is simple: adults cannot control every detail of a separation, but they can control the language children hear.
Jessica Bondy, Words Matter Founder, says: “Separation can be a confusing and frightening time for children – their whole world, the way they knew it, can feel like it’s shifting beneath them. They can worry that they are to blame. At the same time, parents are doing their best to navigate their own emotions while caring for their children. This guide was created to help adults communicate with care and compassion, to reassure children they are loved and safe, and to support parents in finding the words that nurture understanding, trust, and resilience during a period that can feel overwhelming for everyone.”
Dr Fiona Pienaar, says: “When families separate, children look to the adults in their lives for reassurance, clarity, and emotional stability. While separation is hugely challenging for adults, it is so important to help children caught in the middle feel secure during a time that can otherwise feel very uncertain, destabilising, and distressing. The language parents use – what is said, and what isn’t – plays a vital role in helping children understand what’s happening and find ways to cope with change.”