Hello, and welcome back to the Simplicity Diaries with me, Kim-John Payne, the author of Simplicity Parenting, Soul of Discipline, Beyond Winning, and the new book that's coming up soon, Being at Your Best When Your Kids are at Their Worst. You know, this week I've had a couple of conversations, actually, with mums and dads who separated and divorced from their previous partner about dating, and about how to introduce that new friend to your kids. And I thought it was a really, really good question, and we talked for quite a while about it.
And my take on this for a long time has been, of course, to look through the children's eyes at the new relationship as the primary way of looking at it. That's kind of intuitive to most parents, putting the needs of the kids first. But it also offers putting their needs first, and trying to figure it out, and stage this thing well, phase it in well.
It also offers us as adults a roadmap so that we're clear with ourselves, where we stand. We're clear with our new potential partner, if that works out, where that stands. And it offers a clarity to the adults as well, so there's like a double benefit.
But what is that roadmap? Let me just lay out the way I see it, and the way I've advised countless numbers of parents over the years going through this exciting, but sort of a little bit anxious, anxiety-producing process of getting together with a new partner. Looking through the children's eyes, if you listen to the way they speak about friendship, it's, you can, as you listen into it, you can hear that there are different levels of friendship that they perceive kids in their school or in their neighborhood. There's some kids who are definitely just, you know, you don't hear their names very much.
The kids, they might just, you know, if they're older, they play a pickup game with them, they take part. But they're not, they're not who they hang out with a lot, but they're around, you know, and they're occasional friends, they're kids they see occasionally. They're kids that, you know, a game might bring them together or a party they might be attending mutually, and they'll talk to each other, and that's a group of occasional friends.
If you think about it in one way, they're sort of outside the garden gate, if you think about this as a metaphor that I sometimes use, you know, there they are, and you wave to them when they go by, you might hang out at the gate and talk for a while, and it's not even that the gate is closed, it's an open gate, but, you know, you just hang there for a while and chat. But the conversation is not real deep, but it's pleasant, you know, it's a pleasant thing to do. Good people, pleasant conversation.
Then there's another circle of friends inside that, and that's, they're a little bit, they're not so much occasional friends, they're more frequent people, frequent friends that you're friendly with, but you see them a little more often, right? You know, you invite them inside the garden gate, and you can sit right at the, on the garden table, and you chat, and it's a little more, they come by a couple of times a week maybe, and you spend an hour or two, or maybe even three with them, and you talk about things, and you might have a cup of tea or some lemonade, you know, but they're those kinds of friends, right? So that's that kind of, that kind of friendship. And then there's a third group of friends, and they're friends you invite onto the porch, and that group of friends are the, you'll sit quite a while, they'll come over three, four times a week maybe, you'll see them a little more often, they hang out more, you've got the trust of them a little bit more, you'll, they're not your most intimate friend in that way, close friend, but you sure can hang out with them, and if something happened, you know you could call on them to help out if there was an emergency for sure. Then there's a fourth group of friends, and this is the friends that you have, so to speak, that you would invite into your living room, you know, this of course being a metaphor, but you'd invite, and you see them regularly, you know, they come over, they pop in and out the house, they're in the lounge room, in the kitchen, they pop in and out, they just give a little tap on the door and walk in, they're very, they're very familiar, that's a kind of like an uncular relationship, an aunt or uncle, you know, we all have had those in our lives, aunts and uncles, sometimes blood relatives, sometimes not, I had an Uncle George, you know, who wasn't, who wasn't related to us, but he was a dear neighbor, he and Aunt Lillian, they were in and out our house, and we in and out their house all the time, and I'd go over and play with their dog, and curl up in their dog, I think the dog's name was Wags, and I'd curl up in his kennel, and I didn't feel any, I had to ask any permission to go play with Wags, or hang out with him, and they're those kind of friends, right? Really close friendships, they, you know, last years and years, and then, well, then there's the friend, the one friend that you invite into your bedroom, that's that intimate friend, that's that ultimate intimate friend, okay, so they're the metaphor, outside the garden gate, in the garden, at the garden table, on the porch, in the kitchen, or loungeroom, and then in the bedroom, there are these sort of four main groups of friends, and then that final one friend, you know, that intimate friend, now, when we're thinking about how do we go about this with our kids, that's the roadmap that I've found to be very, very successful over the years, and had a lot of feedback from parents of, boy, this was really helpful to have this kind of way of going about things.
So when you first are dating someone, in the kid's eyes, that's an occasional friend, you might invite them over, you know, you might see them for a couple of hours, you might particularly have them over with another group of people, maybe two or three others, you're not singling them out, but you're letting the kids be familiar with that person. Maybe you invite her or him over and with just one other or two others, and you hang out for a while, and then maybe he or she helps you clear up after the others have gone, and then she leaves, then he leaves. And that goes on, you know, until you feel that the kids are becoming familiar with that person, but they're kind of at the garden gate, but they're inside, they're coming inside the garden gate, they are, so to speak, you know, occasional friends, they're visiting, they're visiting in the garden, maybe you, you know, if you keep this metaphor, if I keep this metaphor alive, they're at the garden table, and that's where a group of friends are gathering, the kids sort of blow by, they're not really involved in the gathering, they're not really involved with the person you might be dating, but they become familiar with him or her.
As the weeks, and I would say up to sort of like two, three, four months, maybe beyond, it might be slower, might be a little faster, but in about that range, you sort of then think, well, you know, talk together with the person you're dating, and say, you know, I think we could go out to supper, just, you know, you and me, or go down to the park, or go roller skating, or do a canoeing trip, and maybe it's with you, and perhaps your family as well, if the person you're dating has a family, although that one has to be really, really carefully staged as well, and carefully phased in, but you go and do something together. It's not like you're sitting there, having to be polite and talk, and so on. Supper is okay, as I mentioned, but I'm a little bit, you know, a bit more of a fan of going and doing something, so the kids can blow off and play together, and off they go, and they don't have to sort of sit and be polite, and so on.
As time goes on, that's that more, now that's gone from an occasional friend to a regular sort of friend, and maybe that happens two times a week now, once, at least once, and sometimes even two times a week, where you go places together, but, you know, as far as the kids are concerned, that's not a sleepover friend. That's absolutely not, in terms of their lives, an intimate friend, not yet. Now, the third layer in is, it goes from that sort of occasional friend to regular friend, to now a family friend, someone who can call, who comes on in, who doesn't need so much formality around the relationship, their friendship is still primarily with you, but now they start relating to the kids a little bit more.
This is a crucial stage, because before that, my feeling about it is that that person, that person you're dating, shouldn't be making any really big, special relationship to have a special relationship with your kids. It's too soon, and the kids feel, often can feel, well, excited by it, but a bit, it's a bit weird, you know, it's a little bit too soon. So their friendship is more with you, and they're friendly towards the kids, but at this third stage, yeah, they can start maybe playing some games with the kids, joining in with them, there's now, it's a conscious conversation with the person you're dating to say, you know what, I think we can do some stuff together now, now, you know, going out for supper feels very normal, now the children are used to seeing him or her around the house a little bit more, but they haven't felt compelled to have to like the person, they haven't felt compelled to, to like, make a decision about, about that person, it's just, it's a friend of mom, of moms and dads, the, the, when that feels organic and natural, there's just a natural rhythm to that, then there's this, this stage of, you know, this is a stage where you might go away on a vacation, this is this fourth stage, you might go on a vacation together, you might do a little bit more together, and, and now it starts to become that more kitchen table friend, someone who's around much, much more regularly, have they actually formally moved in to the house? Usually not, you know, usually not.
And then finally, there's that big threshold where the children perceive it's a sleepover friend, it's my, it's my dad or mom's new partner. And that's, that's, as we know, it's a really beautiful threshold. And when you go through these previous steps that build up to this, it feels like you're walking on to that it doesn't feel like mom or dad are replacing, you know, the, the, the child's other parent, it doesn't feel like a replacement at all.
It feels like a natural walking in and they relate to it because it's exactly how they build their relationships. You know, they're obviously not an intimate friend, but a bestie, you know, so now, in that way, dad or mom has a new partner who is who is their bestie, you know, and, and of course, even even more than that, going through those steps is a very natural walk on. Now, two things I want to mention just before we close one is that if you get that wrong, it's, it can be very hard.
I was working with a parent recently speaking with a parent who moved in the partner very young, very early on in the relationship after the divorce into and moved that new partner in with her child. And now they're a blended family, new person came, moved in with dad and the children felt bad, the, the older one rebelled, the younger, the younger one was very withdrawn. And, and, you know, if that happens, if one, in that sense, I think it was way too quick for the kids.
What you can do is is with this roadmap of concentric friendships, from the wider circle, the occasional friend to regular friend to special friend to bestie, those four steps, if you if you miss one, or the kids react badly, then just calibrate it back one step. You know, if the kids start reacting, then say, you know what, we're probably gone too quickly into special friend, let's dial this back into regular friend. Let's maybe, you know, see have you see the children just once or twice a week, that kind of whole thing was three or four times, it was getting too much, let's dial it back.
The ultimately, that's such a good thing to do, because if that person you're dating is to become a part of the family, then of course, you want it to feel warm and welcoming. But also, let's say, sadly, the dating doesn't work out, then if the dating doesn't work out, and you've given yourself three, four months of occasional friend, and then maybe you are moving it into regular friend in terms of the children's eyes, in what they see, and it didn't work out, then there's not a sense of loss, grieving, and mistrust. Because the next person, maybe one day, hopefully, that you will get together with doesn't have to face the mistrust of Oh, mom or dad have these boyfriends and girlfriends, and they they had one, and they just we really liked them, or, and they just went and we don't see them.
If you go about it in this way, from occasional, to regular, to special, to bestie, then the next partner, should that happen, won't be mistrusted. It'll feel like my dad or my mom is kind of got this. Now, the last thing I wanted to chat briefly about very briefly is, well, do you as an adult have to follow these patterns as well? Now, that's a mixed answer.
Like, if someone is in the children's eyes, a, let's say, a regular friend, does that mean that you can't be intimate with that person? Let's say the children are sleeping over, staying with the other former, your former wife, husband, partner, and you've got these three days that you know, you're on your own in the house, should that person stay over? You know, should there be intimate relationships? And that, that's a question that's very individually, there's very much an individual thing, really. But what where, where I come down on this a little bit, is that that's your decision to make. It's, it's, if that is, if you're calibrating this in your children's eyes in one way, and then you're, you're intimate in that friendship, in that relationship with that person, that's an adult, that's an adult relationship.
And I don't feel in any way that's lying to the children, not at all. It's, there's the children's world. And there's the adult world.
And we, in some ways, as a society have lost track on that track of that where we feel, you know, kids, and we've got to be open, they've got to be involved in everything, and they really, really do not. But it's important that, that that be kept, that that be kept separate. If, if indeed, the two things are happening at different levels.
The simplest way to do it, of course, is to have it match on those two levels. But it from in from what I've seen work and be healthy, either way works. But it, you know, it's a, it's a, it's just a conscious thing.
So I hope that helps. Obviously, the, the older the children you're dealing with, the more their eyes will be opened to what relationship is developing. And then, you know, very brief, but very clear conversations can happen.
But if you have that conversation, and you have this roadmap from from occasional to regular, to special to best, and then from best really to lifelong friend, it gives older kids, tweens and teens, that kind of security of that you know what you're doing, you have a roadmap, you know what you're doing, and you're not getting weird. Okay, I sure hope that's helpful. It was a slightly longer diary today than normal.
But you know, this is a bigger subject. Okay, bye bye for now.
