| |
Subject: |
Should We Tell the Kids We Were Laid Off? |
| Date: |
2009-10-06
|
|
Should We Tell the Kids We Were Laid Off?
I'm Dr. Laura, welcome to our YouTube channel. I have a question that's very timely, from Michelle:
"For those of us who have gone through or are going through layoffs from our jobs, should we tell our kids about being laid off from work? At what age can they handle that news, or will we just be scaring them? And what do we say? Thank you. We could really use help on this one."<
Well that's a really important question and it sort of depends on how little the kids are. When they're really little, you know, three, four, five, six, seven...they don't really understand what's going on and mostly, at that age of development, they're only worried about themselves. It's not that your kids are selfish; it's a normal stage of development. It's about "me" and "my survival". So if you're going to tell kids, "There's no money coming in, we're going to starve to death," that's what's going to be in their imagination. So no, you don't tell kids at all, that small...anything. You carry those adult burdens on your own shoulders.
Now when kids are older and they're in their teens, you can explain what's going on. But always put it in the context of "this is what's happening, but we're not freaked out" because you don't want the kids to be freaked out. They're going to be freaked out if you're sitting there, pulling out your hair and screaming, they're going to think "Oh my gosh, the world's coming to an end!"
So, you have to tell them, "We're not freaked out". I mean, bring this to them when you're calm and also tell them what the game plan is. "The game plan is: mommy's going to be doing this, I'm going to be doing that, and we may not be going on a vacation to Hawaii, but you know what we are going to do? We're going to go in the car and go to Grandma's, and take little trips from there..." So you're teaching them that disasters aren't an end point. They're really kind of a jumping-off point for being creative and finding other ways to survive and other ways to live a very good life. And you always remind them "You've got all the love in the world and we're here to take care of you, and it's going to be fine."
So give information, by their virtue of their "need to know". And little kids don't need to know this because they can't really process in a way other than [makes a high pitch whine and squeak noise] and you don't want to do that.
I'm Dr. Laura, see you next time.
Back
|
|
