Well, the dialogue is not that much different then when a divorce happens. It’s not the kid’s fault, and that has to be stressed if you’re no longer going to be WITH the kids. But then, I’m not sure what’s really behind your question. If it’s simply about telling your children that it’s time for a change, which includes them and the family, then that’s the time that you have the conversation about what reinvention actually means and why it’s so vital to every human’s growth, at ANY age.
Then really sell it as a new adventure. This is also your chance to change what was probably said to you, growing up. The old, “find it, then stick with it,” or “here’s the path I’ve charted for you,” concepts leave little room for kids to explore their own directions. This is the chance for you to rightSIZE that thinking.
This is the chance for you to prepare your children to think of life a bit more fluidly, to think for themselves and consult their hearts first. Kids think grownups have all the answers. Sure adults do have some particle ones because they were here first, but in the end, only each of us individually can chart our own course and only we separately pay the price for those decisions. This idea that there’s a time limit on anyone’s enlightenment is ridiculous.
It’s a process that is never over while we’re here exploring and exorcising our options of “free Will”. Nevertheless, adults tell kid really stupid things while simply trying to get them to do as they say. But beyond the moment of discipline, kids still remember everything you did say. “Careful they will hear you.” Adults, who think they know best because their life worked for them, also expound on it to a point where an admiring child wants to emulate it.
They can waste a lot of their lives making these early commitments, which had more to do with emulating a life versus actually curating one specifically for themselves. So I guess what I’m saying is this is a golden opportunity to tell your children that you perhaps did emulate the lives around you, but now you’re all, together, about to change that. Clear the slate and re-boot as a family. Now’s the time to help them put as big a value on humanity as a whole as on the trappings that seem to be icons of success.