During a divorce, a lot is said about children, and too little with them. Yet children often think about what’s happening at home with remarkable clarity sometimes more clearly than the adults around them. A conversation with a child gives that a place.
I speak with children and young people from around age seven up to twenty-one. The format adapts to the child’s age. A conversation with an eight-year-old looks different from one with a twenty-year-old student who has long since formed their own opinions.
What a child tells me stays with me. If a child wants something shared with their parents, the child decides what is shared, when, and how: whether the child tells it themselves, or I do so on their behalf. “Not yet” and “rather not” are also answers that stand.
This isn’t a formality it’s the condition under which a child dares to speak freely. A child who suspects everything will be passed on tells nothing, or tells only what they think a parent wants to hear.
If a child chooses to say something themselves, we prepare for that together: what do you want to say, in which words, and what if the conversation takes an unexpected turn? A child never enters a conversation with me unprepared, and may stop partway through. I sit beside them.
A child never has to take sides, and is never asked to decide. That responsibility lies with the parents.
Just as parents draw up a parenting plan, children can create a child’s plan. It sets out what they themselves think, find important, and need. It isn’t a list of demands, nor a vote in the decision, but it shows parents and helps them discover what’s going on for their child, often on points they hadn’t considered themselves.
Here too, the child decides whether the plan is shared with the parents, and how: reading it aloud themselves, going through it together with me, or leaving it to me.
When both child and parents want it, a conversation can take place with the parents, the child, and me together. This never happens unannounced or under pressure; it’s a choice, not a conclusion. Such a conversation can release a great deal in a positive way, precisely because people finally talk with each other instead of about each other.
Are you coming to see me because your parents are separating, or have already separated? Here’s what you can expect from me. You don’t have to say anything you don’t want to say. You don’t have to choose between your father and your mother. And what you tell me, I won’t pass on unless you want me to. If I notice or sense something, I’ll simply ask you about it. Not your parents, not behind your back. What we do next, we decide together.
Conversations take place in person or online, in Dutch, English or German.