I wanna know how and what did you tell them and when.
I'm here to ask and learn to make the right choice.
So yes I want to hear you're feedback.
And the glasses are rose colour I'm a hopeless romantic.
Luckily I have a strong reasonable wife to support me.
Next Saturday we will talk about the kids with the three of us.
To see how we all think about what when and how to tell them.
I thought I had posted about it earlier in this thread but maybe it was another thread.
My husband and I had in depth conversations about how and when we were going to come out to our son eventually. We've always been open/poly. We wanted to wait not only until we felt he was having the emotional maturity to start to learn about romantic relationships himself but to be able to parse that we were doing something not mainstream and to be able to think about those issues for himself. Not to solely focus on how it was going to affect him. I don't think that younger children really have the capacity to differentiate those things. And getting encouragement of the nature you're getting from your children solidifies that for me- they just don't understand and using that to decide they're ready? Sounds like a not great idea to me. They're kids! They say they don't want D to sleep alone because they wouldn't want to sleep alone themselves! It almost certainly has nothing to do with their approval of your relationship
We also consulted with our counselor and she agreed that our son was ready to hear about things and that it would be appropriate to do so. No rose coloured glasses here- logic.
We sat him down for a conversation and explained to him that we love each other very much and that nothing was changing in our relationship. That we still wanted to be married and were very happy with each other. Then we told him that we believe that as long as everyone knows and agrees to it, that it's okay to share love with other people. My husband told him that I was dating [Charles], who he knows and likes.
It's been about five months since then and I can tell by the questions he asks occasionally that he thinks about the concept and is still turning it over in his head. At the time, his only question was, does that mean Charles will come over more often? Because he likes him very much. But that was pretty much it. We didn't ask him to keep it a secret but did point out that most people have relationships with just one person and might not understand, so it was something we consider to be our family's business. He understands that concept because he prefers to keep some things private, too. But there's a difference between privacy and secrets.
He knows I am going on holiday with Charles next month and asked if we were having a honeymoon. I said no, that if our relationship was that serious, I would have talked to him more about that. It was just a trip.
He's also asked if the [right wing] politicians get more power, if I could go to jail for having multiple partners. These are important issues and I try to encourage him to ask things whenever they're on his mind so we can deal with them.
We have been talking about consent in relationships since he was old enough to understand the basic idea. Long before we talked about poly, I think he was only five? He asked me if Henry had a boyfriend. I said no, but what would he think if he did? He told me he thought it would be OK, and I said yes as long as everyone involved knew and was OK with it. So the idea of poly wasn't a new concept to him either- just that it was now a thing he was recognizing.
But it's so, so, easy to teach children that things are like whatever and they'll think it's normal. Don't take the lack of reaction or lack of upset to mean that they understand and everything's OK. Kids grow up thinking what they see is normal. I think it's important to at least make sure they understand the underlying social norms so that they can make their own judgments when they are putting thought into romantic relationships for themselves. I think it's important for them to realize that everyone is NOT like this but that tolerance is a good thing.
If they don't have the critical thinking skills to really understand, I don't think it's good to tell them, frankly. I can see far too many problems coming from it.