Last week, I was working with one of my clients, Tanya (not her real name). As part of Tanya’s divorce, the family home is on the market, and she knows that she will need to move. Tanya has been struggling with her own emotions around the move and worrying about the effect the move might have on her children, who have never known another home.

Moving to a new house is stressful at the best of times. When it is part of a divorce or separation, it can seem overwhelming, and not only for you but for your children. Often there is a grieving process to go through in relation to the home that once held so much promise.

These are my top tips to support your children through your house move:

Put on your own oxygen mask first – both financially and emotionally

Get financial clarity

If you are struggling with the thought of moving from your family home, you are not alone. I have worked with lots of people with strong emotional attachments to their home, who are frightened of having to sell. I remember those feelings myself too and dreaded having to have that conversation with my ex-husband. In fact, I put it off for several months, preferring to pretend it might not happen.

Like me, you could stay stuck in the overwhelm of not knowing for a long time. Fear is a very powerful feeling. It can hold you back and keep you in that uncomfortable place of confusion and dread. I know now that burying my head in the sand didn’t help, and once I had that conversation, I felt relieved.

Knowledge is power, and I always advise my clients to speak to a financial adviser to get clarity on their financial position. Consult a mortgage adviser so that you know what you can borrow. Be very clear on your budget, so that you know what you have available for rent.

Once you know the facts, you can then work out, with your adviser, what options you have. Even if the answer is not what you wanted to hear, you will at least know, and you can then make informed decisions based on facts rather than fear.

Getting that financial clarity helps you to work out your options. How, then, can you deal with your feelings around moving?

Acknowledge your feelings

Allow yourself to feel. Acknowledge and name your feelings. When you do this it helps to reduce the hold those feelings have over you. It is OK to feel sad or afraid. It is OK to feel a sense of grief. It is OK to cry. Breathe through your feelings, and notice how they wash over you, and then decrease in volume, like a wave breaking on the shore.

You have all the resources you need

The thought of selling and moving might feel overwhelming, so I would encourage you to think about how you can use the resources you already have to help you. Take a piece of paper, and consider these questions:

What have I done in the last 6 months that I am proud of?
What have I done that I couldn’t do before?
What decisions have I made?
What have I achieved?

What resources do you have that helped you to do all those things?

Those resources might be external – like asking for help from a friend or other professional – and they may be internal – your own strength, tenacity, resilience.

When you do this, you may be surprised by all the things you have already coped with and handled.

How could you use those experiences and resources to help you now?

How could you see it differently?

One of my favourite techniques to use with clients is to help them reframe their thoughts and experience. Take some time to think about how you are looking at your house move. Are all your thoughts about it negative? Write down some of the words you use when you talk about the move. How do those words make you feel? What would you like to feel instead?

How could you look at this differently? Here are some questions to ponder:

What will you be able to do in your new home that you can’t do now?
What won’t you miss about where you live now?
If there was one, tiny upside to this, what would it be?
How could you help your children to feel comfortable in their new home?
What could you do to make your new house feel like your home?
Is there anything you’ve always wanted to do, but couldn’t?

I know that I wanted a bright pink wall in my bathroom – but it wasn’t until I lived in a house that I owned myself that I was able to have one! I also found looking after the garden in my old house a challenge, so I chose a new house with a smaller, more manageable garden.

Where you lead, your children will follow

You can use all of these strategies and questions with your children. They will follow your lead.

When you dwell on the negative, or talk about how difficult things are, they will follow. If you focus on how much you don’t want the move, they won’t want it either.

Instead, listen to their feelings, and help them to name them.

And then support them to see it differently, just as you have. Your child might resist and say there is nothing good about this at all, but persevere, and show them that you can see the upsides and possibilities. Once they see that you can handle the upcoming move, they will feel reassured, and more able to handle it too.

When you use some of these techniques and tips with your children, you are giving them different options to try, empowering them to process what is happening. You are giving them tools to handle their feelings and to deal with setbacks. These are brilliant lessons for life!