How to use these books

Use the book and website to help prepare children for temporary separation.
My Daddy's Going Away and Mummy’s Home area accessible to all and can be read on a number of different levels:

1.   At its simplest, either book can be read and understood by young children as simple tale of a loving parent who has to leave their family to go away to work. The departing parent loves their children while away, they miss each other but remain connected through thoughts and deeds, and at the end of the book the parent comes home. When read through as a story the poem aims to normalise the familiar cycle of departure, absence and return that all children recognise.

The beautiful illustrations provide warmth, laughter and engagement. The comforting ideas and rhythmic verse provide steady reassurance.

2.   As children think more about what the text actually says, the poem will prompt their thoughts and imagination about how the family in the story react to absence and enables them to ask relevant questions in their own way and in their own time about their own situation.

3.   At a higher level, older children and adults can read the verses and relate each one to the stages of the Emotional Cycle of Separation and known coping strategies for absence. If parents and carers do this they will help children prepare for and deal with temporary paternal separation by actively addressing each stage of the cycle with their children. 

Take a look at the Emotional Cycle of Separation  page for more information and help.

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