On this week’s ‘Parenting’ segment, one mother asked how to help her son navigate his feelings around her separation from his father.

“My partner and I have decided to separate,” she told Moncrieff.

“I’ve been very unhappy for a number of years but financially was not in a position where I could afford to leave.

“In the last six months, my son and I have moved into a new place and he now sees his father occasionally.

“On the surface he seems to be dealing okay with the new living situation but I know it’s got to be affecting him and I’m quite concerned.

“I know it is best that we are not together and living in the same house as it was an unhappy home, but when your parents split and you’re 10 years of age it has to have an effect on you.

“How do I get him to open up to me about how he is feeling?”

Her son’s teachers have been informed of the change in his living situation but he hasn’t told any of his friends or classmates about it, the letter writer said.

Little girl with paper family and scissors (HiddenCatch / Alamy Stock Photo)

Family psychotherapist Joanna Fortune said she could understand this boy’s instinct to keep his feelings to himself.

“Especially at 10, a lot of children would see this as their private business and not something they want to talk about,” she said.

“I know you’ll always have the ones who would tell everything, but you know, it’s not unusual in this situation that he would do this.

“I’m also wondering, this parent is saying they’ve been unhappy for years and that it was an unhappy home - like that’s really hard.

“That’s what I think might need to be explored with him, that he may be relieved.

“That’s a really hard feeling for a 10-year-old to feel relieved that they’re not living with the other parent, because they love the other parent, and then the conflict of how do you love someone but be really happy you’re no longer living there.”

'Maybe he doesn't have the words'

Joanna said these feelings would be complicated for anyone to work out, and that this 10-year-old likely doesn’t know how to express them.

She also said that the boy might have picked up on his mother’s happiness and doesn’t know how to tell her the same situation is making him unhappy.

“I get the parent’s point that there will come a time that he needs to explore this but I think maybe he doesn’t have the words to say it,” she said.

“So, build up to this with little nuggets, like use in the car time [to say], ‘How are you doing? Gosh it’s three months since we moved now, how are you finding the new place we’re living in?’

“Little nuggets and that’ll be it, if he’s grand, nothing, whatever – just put it there."

According to Joanna, spending plenty of quality time together and consistently dropping these hints could naturally bring about the conversation.

However, she said a therapist may be able to provide the child with a neutral space to discuss his feelings if this parent still feels he is holding onto something down the line.

Listen back here:

Main image: Unhappy little girl suffering quarrels between parents, divorce and children (Ievgen Chabanov / Alamy Stock Photo)