How do you handle telling your kids tough news? Do you treat it like an employee performance discussion at work where you wait until the right time to spring it on someone where the pain will be minimized? Many managers I know used to wait until Friday afternoon to deliver bad news to their staff so that the manager wouldn’t have to witness the aftermath. Others took the approach that it needed to be delivered immediately, regardless of the day and time. Then there were those that delivered the news over lunch-hoping that food would ease the pain.

I was mulling all this in my head as my husband and I picked up our daughter from school yesterday. I had just accepted a job offer that would require a cross-country move in a month’s time. We had been sharing with her for months that there was a possibility that we would move one day, and she seemed to handle it alright…in theory anyway. But how would she respond to the reality? Well, we opted to make it a casual conversation along with the “How was your day at school?” discussion. When we told her there was something we wanted to tell her, she immediately stated, “Please do not say that we are moving.” Hmmm…well, we said nothing at that moment and our silence confirmed that we were moving, and Lexi promptly burst into tears and cried all the way home.

It was sad, but we let her cry. It was exactly what we thought would happen. Her brain went immediately to the loss of friends, school, home, church, Girl Scout troop, etc… I can tell you that having staff cry at my desk during work was uncomfortable for me. I tend to be a “private crier” because I’m a heavy crier and would rather not have people looking at me. For a split second, I thought about asking Lexi to stop crying and think about the adventure of moving, but in that moment, I realized how callous that sounded. People have a right to cry, especially when they hear sad news. Transitions in life such as going away to college, getting married and moving for a job carry tremendous benefits, but there is grief involved.

But this story has a happy ending. Why? Because my husband and I had chocolate cake waiting for her at home to celebrate this wonderful opportunity to move to Tacoma, WA, from Memphis, TN. Watching Lexi move from tears to excitement about all the new adventures she’ll have provided me with empirical evidence that chocolate does make all things better. She and my husband were cracking me up with their endless questions about what the Pacific Northwest has and doesn’t have.
Are there caves? Can we climb a mountain? Do they know have Girl Scouts? Do they have places to buy tires? (What??) Have they heard of grits? Do they celebrate Christmas?

To some degree, I knew they were getting downright silly with their questions, but the floodgates opened into the absolute wonder of all the new sights we’ll explore, people we’ll meet, and the joy of being together while all of these things happen.

It was a great day.

Okay, no time to rest on our laurels. We have some serious packing to do…