The kids question

Our kids were 7, 11 and 14 the year we told them. Three different conversations, on different days. The eleven-year-old asked the question that stayed with me. He said, "Are we still going to do Sunday breakfasts?" I said yes. He nodded once and went back to his iPad.

When to tell them

Weeks, not days, after you've told her.

Three conditions before you tell the kids:

• You and she have processed the disclosure enough to be in the same room civilly.
• You have a basic sense of what the family shape will be in the next few months.
• You and she have agreed on what to say.

Kids absorb tone faster than information. If you and she are still raw, they'll feel that, and the words you say won't matter as much as the temperature of the room.

Who tells them, and how

Both parents in the room, where possible. Same words.

If she won't sit in the conversation, do it without her, but tell her exactly what you're going to say first. The aim is one version of the news, not two.

Calibrating by age

Under 8. Simple sentences. Short. Concrete:

"Daddy is going to keep loving you and Mum is going to keep loving you. Sometimes families look a bit different, and ours might change shape a bit."

Don't use the word gay if they're under six unless they ask.

What under-8s actually need to know: where they're going to sleep, who picks them up from school, that birthdays and the dog stay the same.

8-12. More room for the actual content. The word gay belongs in this conversation, said matter-of-factly:

"We need to tell you something important. I've worked out that I'm gay. That means I'm attracted to men, not women. I love your mum and I love you, and that doesn't change."

Then leave space. They'll ask things over weeks.

Teenagers. Direct. They will Google what they don't ask you about:

"I want to tell you something directly. I've come to understand that I'm gay. Mum and I are working out what that means for us. The family is still the family. I love you."

Teenagers will sometimes go silent and disappear into their room for two weeks. That's not rejection. That's processing.

What not to do, in any of these conversations

• Don't make them comfort you.
• Don't make them keepers of secrets.
• Don't badmouth their mother.
• Don't promise outcomes you can't control.
• Don't perform bravery.

Some kids land beautifully. Some don't.

Some kids take this well in the first week and badly in the third year. Some take it badly the first week and well by the second year.

All of those trajectories are normal. None of them is your fault. None of them is final.

Your job over the long arc is to be available, to keep being honest, to not chase, and to let them have whatever relationship with this they need to have.

The simplest rule

Calm parent. Short true sentences. Calibrated to age. Both parents in the room if possible. No script, no speech.

Then dinner. Then school the next morning. Then the slow work of being the same dad you were on Tuesday, who happens to have told them something true on Wednesday.