[sadie_sabot]

I live in a collective house with my partner and child, and three other adults. We are more of a family set up than a rommate set up. DD, who will be three in November, is close with and loves everyone.

One of our roommates is moving back to Germany. She just got offered a job and so it's fairly quick and sudden...we leave for vacation next thursday, and the roommate will be gone before we get back.

We knew she was leaving, although not so soon, so I have mentioned it to my very verbal dd.

I want to discuss it with her, and I want to provide some guidance to the roommate about how to say goodbyes in a respectful, honest, and safe if possible, way.

Does anyone have any suggestions for this sort of thing?

 

[4evermom]

Fortunately for us, our roommates moved locally so can still drop by. I would probably have shown my ds where Germany was on a globe and talked about how the roommate would fly on an airplane to get there. We had friends with kids that we didn't see very often move to Korea for a year. At bedtime, or sunset, I would talk about how we were in the shadow part of the Earth and it was daytime now for our friends in Korea (this was mostly because of ds being sad that it was nightime). If asked when roommate was returning, I would probably just say I wasn't sure and leave it at that. Hopefully the roommate will be willing to send postcards. Getting and sending mail could be a lot of fun for your dd.

After our roommates left, my ds would have very brief bouts of sadness around bedtime when he was tired. Our roommates were my brother's friends and they moved out together so that made the house seem pretty empty. Ds was pretty sad for a while wishing his "guys" still lived here. So, at least it's just one moving out.

 

[sadie_sabot]

yeah, and hopefully whoever moves in will be someone dd already ahs a good relationship with, but still, she's going to miss A. I like the idea of showing on a globe where shewent and talking about it ahead of time. And yeah, postcards would be so cool.

thanks for the feedback.