Episode 9: How to talk to your child about an absent father
The Divorce Survival Guide Podcast
Kate Anthony
4.4 • 575 Ratings
🗓️ 17 April 2018
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Someone submitted this anonymous question to my website:
My son often asks for his daddy. I don't know what to say to him. It breaks my heart because I've done everything I can to bridge the gap and encourage his father to be a part of his life. But he's totally absent. Only visits maybe 20hrs a month sometimes less. Can you give me any advice on what to say to my son about where his father is? Why he isn't here etc?
These kinds of questions break my heart. According to Psychology today, "...24 million children live in biological father-absent homes— in the United States alone. And 1 in 3 children grow up without a father." What this means first and foremost is that you are not alone.
This episode gives top-tips for handling these questions, some of which depend on age and development, but most of which can apply across the board.
At the end of the episode I break down the difference between divorced and single moms, and why I no longer EVER call myself a single mom.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to another episode of the Divorce Survival Guide podcast, where we have real, honest, |
| 0:12.3 | smart, and sometimes even hilarious conversations about co-parenting, separation, and divorce, |
| 0:17.7 | and all that goes along with that. I'm Kate Anthony, your divorce survival guide, |
| 0:22.6 | and today I want to talk to you about how to talk to your kid about an absent father. And later |
| 0:29.3 | in the episode, I also touch on the really important difference between single moms and divorced |
| 0:34.3 | moms and why as divorced moms, we need to stop calling ourselves single moms. |
| 0:40.8 | So today's question about how to talk to your kid about an absent father was actually sent |
| 0:44.9 | into me by a listener a while ago. And so here's what she says. She says, my son often asks |
| 0:52.3 | for his daddy. I don't know what to say to him. It breaks my heart |
| 0:56.2 | because I've done everything I can to bridge the gap and encourage his father to be a part of his |
| 1:00.2 | life. But he's totally absent. He only visits maybe 20 hours a month and sometimes less. |
| 1:06.1 | Can you give me some advice on what to say to my son about where his father is, why he isn't here, etc. |
| 1:12.6 | So, first of all, let me just say that these kinds of questions break my heart. |
| 1:19.0 | According to psychology today, 24 million children live in biological father absent homes |
| 1:25.5 | in the United States alone, and one in three children grow up |
| 1:29.1 | without a father. So what this means, first and foremost, is that you're not alone. |
| 1:35.3 | Good news, bad news, right? Here's some top tips for handling these questions, some of which |
| 1:43.1 | will depend on age and development, but most of which |
| 1:47.3 | can apply across the board. So first of all, answer all questions simply and generally. We don't want |
| 1:56.2 | to give children too much detail or infuse our own thoughts and feelings into our answers. Deborah Roth |
| 2:04.5 | Ledley, who's a PhD and a licensed psychologist, says that a child's worries and thoughts are much |
| 2:11.0 | simpler than ours. And the last thing that we want to do is start projecting our own worries and |
... |
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