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Can I Relocate?

Monday, August 30th, 2010

Many parents ask “Can I relocate?” and the answer always depends on the individual circumstances at the time. Given our increasingly mobile society, it is not at all unusual for one spouse to need to move out of state, or even out of the country. Increasingly, the courts are trying to determine whether it is in the child’s best interest to move, even if the child has lived with a primary physical custodial parent for quite some time. Click here for an article about relocating after divorce.

The court will consider all of the factors that have gone into the original custody decree, as well as the reason for the move, the ability of the child to maintain contact with the other parent, what kind of visitation would be set up for the parent left behind (as well as extended family), and the living situation for the child in the new city or state.

If you anticipate a relocation you should probably deal with it as part of your divorce up front. If you think that maybe some day you might want to relocate, putting a notice provision with respect to relocation into your settlement agreement is important. Many such provisions call for 90 to 180 days notice before someone can move. Sample relocation clauses are included in the appendix. This notice enables time to negotiate or motion the court to prevent the move while it is being worked out by the parents. Relocation is not a good bargaining chip, as it evokes a sense of threat, and often pushes the other person to become more intransigent and stubborn out of fear of losing contact with the children. Click here for another great article on relocation after divorce.

In most jurisdictions it will be up to you to prove that moving out of state is in the children’s best interests. While you may have many reasons why it’s in your best interests to move, is it really in the children’s best interests? How will they maintain contact with the other parent? How involved are they in their school and school activities? Will close friends and extended family be left behind? How well does your child adjust to new situations?

The legal custody designation (i.e. joint legal custody) has little to do with whether or not you will be permitted to move. The actual circumstances of your case will be the determining factor. The more involved the other parent has been in the children’s lives, the more difficult it will be for you to prove that it is in the children’s best interests to move far away from them. Therefore, having sole legal custody doesn’t automatically permit you to move with the children, and having joint legal custody doesn’t automatically prevent you from moving with the children. Sometimes the court will say, “Sure you can leave, but your children will stay with their other parent.” This has happened even when the children have always lived with the leaving parent.

Excerpted from Your Divorce Advisor: A Lawyer and a Psychologist Guide You Through the Legal and Emotional Landscape of Divorce (Simon & Schuster/Fireside 2001). For more information: http://www.yourdivorceadvisor.com/.

For more information contact Peace Talks www.peace-talks.com

Tags: Custody, Modifying Custody, Projtecting Children
Posted in Co-parenting, Creative Problem Solving, Life After Divorce, Pareting Plans | No Comments »

What if My Child Doesn’t Want to Visit?

Wednesday, August 18th, 2010

You can try various resolutions when your child says he or she doesn’t want to go to the other parent’s house. Kids may say this because they have mixed loyalties, or just because they don’t want to stop what they are doing at the moment, and this is natural. Also, children feel the same waves of anxiety, sadness, and the pain of missing that adults feel. They may experience such emotions when they arrive at the other home or return to their primary home.

It helps to have kids transition with their favorite toys or objects. It also helps to put in words for them what they are feeling and to assure them their feelings are acceptable. How the transition is planned can make a big difference. For some children, they want to go right to their room and have some time to smell, touch, and know the place again. Being alone may be helpful. For others, leaping headlong into a jumble of activity may help them adjust by distracting them while they settle into the new location or parent.

From a legal standpoint, if there are court orders which mandate that your child visit with the other parent, you are risking being held in contempt of court if that child does not visit his or her other parent. If the desire not to visit is unusual behavior for your child, try to ascertain what is behind it and modify your tactics accordingly. Begin to work on the problem by talking to your child to pinpoint reasons for not wanting to visit. Once you have pinpointed the reason that your child doesn’t want to visit, you can then begin working on your plan for dealing with the situation. Click here for a great article on what to do if your child doesn’t want to visit the other parent.

For example, if it is typical for your child to say he or she doesn’t want to see the other parent because your child doesn’t want to miss time with friends, insist that he or she go with the other parent, but talk with the other parent to try and have the child’s friends join in and spend time at the other parent’s house.

If your child is a baby, some upset when leaving the home or primary parent is expectable. If distress continues at least 20 minutes or more each time, consider changing the schedule to accommodate this stage of your child’s life/

If you truly believe that it is not in your child’s best interests to see the other parent according to the present schedule, then you must be prepared to prove that this is true. Click here for another great article.

For more information contact Peace Talks www.peace-talks.com

Tags: Listening to the Children, Modifying Custody, Needs of the Children, Problems with Visitation
Posted in Co-parenting, Conflict Management, Creative Problem Solving, Custody, Self Esteem, Sensivity to Children, children of divorce | No Comments »

Using a Calendar

Monday, August 16th, 2010

Your first planning step is to find a blank 12 month calendar. First, chart out the activities for each of your children. List all fixed activities such as when they leave for and return home from school or day care, and when they need to be at each activity (e.g., baseball, music lesson, religious school, ballet, etc.). You may want to use an entire year’s worth of calendars because sports, school, and other activities the children participate in are seasonal. Use the child’s school calendar and also mark in the school vacations.

Now, with a different colored pen, plot in your own time commitments. Include everything, whether it is work, school, church volunteerism, or any other activities that you pursue on a regular basis. Don’t forget standing meetings and fixed appointments. It will begin to be clear how your schedule meshes with your children’s and where the obvious holes lie.

Again using a different colored pen, chart out when your spouse has obligations, such as work or school. Now it should also be clear when your spouse is free to spend time with the children.

You can now start to draw up your parenting times. If you have to be at work, but your spouse is available, then the children could be with your spouse at that time. If you are available, but your spouse is not, then the children should be with you. For a terrific article on using a parenting calendar, click here.

You can become more specific when you consider all of the children’s commitments, which parent has historically filled those commitments, and which parent(s) is able to do them over the course of the year. Click here for an online parenting calendar.

For more information contact Peace Talks www.peace-talks.com

Tags: Communicating Schedules, Orgainzed Co-parenting, Using a Calendar
Posted in Co-parenting, Creative Problem Solving, Living Arrangements, children of divorce | No Comments »

He was never involved before – why now?

Monday, August 2nd, 2010

A common complaint from women is that their husbands were never interested in being an involved parent before the divorce, and now they want equal time after divorce. It does feel unfair if you were the primary parent, and now your husband and/or child prefer a schedule in which you have to give up valued parenting time. However don’t assume your husband is making choices just to anger you. Many men become better fathers after divorce, once they are emotionally freed from the restrictions they felt by the unhappy marriage. Pre-divorce father-child relationships are not always good predictors of post divorce father-child relationships. It may seem unfair to you, but wouldn’t you rather your child have more of his father than less? Even if you don’t, this is the child’s father, after all. And you did choose him to be the father. Divorce can open doors to positive changes for everyone. Click here for more.

Prior to divorce, Ellen had been the parent with primary responsibility for rearing the children. She took them to school, to the doctor, and to their activities. Although she and her husband worked for the same company, she left work if the children became ill during the school day. She views Bob as a good father, but emotionally distant, and too uninvolved in the children’s daily life.

Suddenly, when she filed for divorce, he became Super Dad. He spent lots of time with the children, attended their soccer games, and contacted all of their teachers to introduce himself. Although Ellen was happy about this change in Bob, she was suspicious of his motives. She was sure he just wanted to pay her less child support, as he now wanted joint custody of the children. It was difficult for her to consider sharing the children for half of the week. Yet, at the same time, she was reluctant to discourage him because the children were so obviously delighted with his new behavior.

Many women fight their husbands’ desire for joint custody in similar scenarios, seething with resentment. She can oppose his desires, or she can give him the benefit of the doubt that his motivation emanates from the heart, as opposed to financial incentive. Click here for another article about men as fathers after divorce.

For more information contact Peace Talks www.peace-talks.com

Tags: Changes in Parenting Styles, New Levels of Involvement, Protecting the Children
Posted in Co-parenting, Creative Problem Solving | No Comments »

Parenting Plans for Pre-schoolers

Wednesday, July 21st, 2010

Children at this age learn to control their aggression and impulses, achieve a healthy sex role identification, and develop peer relationships. Clear roles and boundaries between parents are important, as children at this age are very rule bound and make the world more understandable by imposing rules they can count on. Notice this age’s emphasis on games that have rules, winners and losers. It is all part of becoming competent and learning how to play new games, concretely and metaphorically. This age child also feels very powerful, and is learning to wield his masculine or her feminine wiles. Male and female children benefit from having relationships with fathers and mothers, as they discover how men and women are different, and what it means to belong to the gender into which they have been born. Click here for more in parenting plans.

For the preschooler, spending time in the non-primary parent’s home up to three nights per week is acceptable. Even 2-3 consecutive days are manageable for many youngsters. The every other weekend schedule may work well by this age, with additional time during 1-2 afternoons or evenings, and more frequent phone contact. No more than a full week should be spent away from either parent, if at all possible. For more on parenting plans, click here.

For more information contact Peace Talks www.peace-talks.com

Tags: Custody, Parenting Plans, Protecting Children
Posted in Creative Problem Solving, Custody, children of divorce | No Comments »

Parenting Plans: The First Year of Life

Wednesday, July 14th, 2010

Unfortunately, too little research has been conducted regarding children’s responses to various schedules to have an empirical idea about what types of schedules work for which kinds of children and families. This means that parents are still largely on their own in setting up a schedule – using common sense and compassion about what the schedule is like for your children is still the best guidelines. However, experts in the field were gathered by the state to make recommendations about optimal schedules based on what we know about the “average” child’s capacity to manage time away from the primary caretaker(s) and still feel secure, and to handle multiple transitions. Click here for a great article on parenting plans.

The First Year of Life

In the first year of life, primary tasks for the infant include stabilizing physical routines of feeding and sleeping, and learning to trust the world through predictable contact that is nurturing and responsive to needs for feeding, diapering, and comforting on demand. Most children develop a primary attachment to the person who is responsible for their care, but they are capable of developing attachment to a second or third caretaker as well. Emphasis on predictability and familiarity facilitate healthy development for infants.

Most experts agree that for children under one year of age, the time spent with a “non-primary” parent should be consistent, predictable, and regular. Anywhere from daily to as many times a week as possible for short time periods is useful. Overnights are not recommended, and separations from a primary caretaker should be kept to eight hours or less. The easier the child’s temperament, and the more comfortable the parents are with the child in either parent’s care, the more frequent the baby’s time with the second parent can be without causing the child undue stress.

Having a primary home with 2-3 hour visits sprinkled throughout the week optimizes both parents’ opportunities to learn about who their baby is and what he or she needs. For some additional information on parenting plans, click here.

For more information contact Peace Talks www.peace-talks.com

Tags: Custody, Parenting Plans, Protecting the Children
Posted in Creative Problem Solving, Life After Divorce, Living Arrangements, Sensivity to Children, children of divorce | No Comments »

Some Common Shared Parenting Schedules

Monday, July 12th, 2010

For parents who want to share their children’s time more equally, there are many possible schedules. Some common ones are:

every other week,
every two weeks,
Monday morning through Thursday morning and Thursday afternoon through Monday morning,
Wednesday morning through Saturday morning and Saturday morning through Wednesday morning,
September through June and summers for parents who live in different states.

Every schedule has different pluses and minuses associated with it. Which schedule works for your family will depend on how close you live to the other parent, your work schedules, ages of your children, the children’s individual temperaments, school demands, and their hobbies and activities. The schedule you choose should depend on how important it is for the children to be in the same house during weekdays (i.e., school nights) and how well your children adapt to the transition between homes. Can your children organize their school work when they make transitions between homes during the school week? If they have religious, sports, music, or other training on a regular basis, then maintaining the consistency of such classes is important. Children shouldn’t have to miss activities on a regular basis because they have to be at the other parent’s house. For a great article on shared parenting, click here.

How children go to school and return home also will affect your schedule. Do they need to be driven, can they switch busses, are they in a carpool?

Do your children have a maximum amount of time they tolerate being away from either of you? The length of time may differ from their primary caretaker and their secondary, if that is how your family has been arranged in the past. All of these factors are considerations in determining the best parenting schedules.

Are There Alternatives to the Typical Shared Parenting Plans?

Some less common, but important, variations on schedules also deserve mention. For reasons that will become obvious in the descriptions below, these arrangements are harder to maintain than more common ones, and they often require greater cooperation and sacrifice on both parents’ parts. However, when values or circumstances dictate creative solutions, these are worth considering.

Parents who can successfully do it report great satisfaction with “nesting”. In this arrangement, the children stay in one place, and the parents move out of the home and into an apartment or family member’s home. Sometimes the parents share one other dwelling, other times they can afford to rent or own two different ones. Sometimes they each return to a parent’s or friend’s home as their secondary residence. Parents then move in and out of the family home according to the dictates of schedules that work best for them. Click here for an article on nesting.

Sometimes parents live far away from one another. In these situations, children may spend school years with one parent, and longer holiday periods, vacations, and summers with the other parent.

When parents live near each other, they may choose to alternate the child’s primary residence every other year. The children do not spend much time living between homes, but they do visit the other parent regularly. However, each parent gets to be the primary parent some of the time, smoothing over the sense of one parent being the less central figure. This schedule, though often proposed, is counter to children’s best interests in most situations. This arrangement erodes consistency in discipline across phases of life, as well as the child’ sense of belonging in a home.

For more information contact Peace Talks www.peace-talks.com

Tags: Co-parenting, Custody, Parenting Schedules, Protecting Children
Posted in Creative Problem Solving, Custody, Life After Divorce, Living Arrangements, Pareting Plans, Sensivity to Children, children of divorce | No Comments »

Common Living Arrangements

Thursday, July 8th, 2010

The most common arrangement today is still for the children to live primarily with one parent and spend time with the other. How families spell out specific arrangements are as varied as families themselves. One common form is for the children to live with Mom, and spend time with Dad every other weekend and an evening per week for dinner. Sometimes the weekend ends on Sunday, and other times the children stay until Monday morning when they are dropped off at school. Variations on the theme include a cycle in which the child spends one overnight during one week, and a four day weekend (or a three day weekend) the following week. Click here for an article on living arrangements after divorce.

Many divorce orders provide for “liberal and reasonable” access, without specification of a schedule. This works out fine when parents communicate effectively and are flexible with one another. This does not work when parents are unable cooperate, yet they enter into an agreement for “reasonable and liberal visitation” in order to gloss over problems in favor of expediting the divorce. In order to bring predictability and order into your lives, and your children’s, you should specify a schedule in your divorce agreement. Having a schedule in place need not discourage both of you from being flexible about rescheduling when either parent requests modifications. For an article on co-parenting after divorce, click here.

All kinds of details can be written into an agreement to forestall problems particular to your family. For example, if you feel that your time with the kids is often reduced when they are sick, which occurs particularly with young children, you can write into the agreement that if a child is sick and has to miss a visitation, then compensatory time will be scheduled if it is not too disruptive to the child’s own schedule. Similarly, if your spouse hires a babysitter to watch the children when you would normally be available, you can specify that the other parent gets first right of refusal for extra time with the children. This is especially important to do when the child sees her parent fairly infrequently. By the same token, using your spouse’s desire to be involved with the children to call upon him/her every time you have some small need is taking advantage of the situation. You want him or her to be available for you without feeling imposed upon, and certainly the reverse would be true. The idea behind “right of first refusal for babysitting” is that the spouses support each other, and that the children maximize the amount of time with each parent, and minimize the amount of time with babysitters. In the event such a provision becomes manipulative rather than supportive, such as when it is used to influence how the other parent spends free time, it should be discontinued immediately.

For more information contact Peace Talks www.peace-talks.com

Tags: Custody, Needs of Children, Parenting Plans
Posted in Creative Problem Solving, Custody, Living Arrangements, Pareting Plans, children of divorce | No Comments »

Developing a Schedule for Living Arrangements

Wednesday, July 7th, 2010

The decision about with whom children will reside primarily may be a stressful one and can add to the ongoing conflicts between spouses. Therefore, you may be tempted to defer to your children to avoid the conflict and decision making. It is true that for older children (usually ten years or older), the court will consider where your child wants to live. This does not mean that you should ask your child with whom he or she wants to live. It is not uncommon for children to tell both parents that they wish to live with them; sometimes they change their minds based on whomever they are speaking to at that very moment. This may be a tactic to make each parent feel good, or the child may genuinely change his mind when with each parent. Children may choose the parent that they feel the most sorry for, scared of, or who has the least restrictive household rules. Your child is worried enough about the divorce situation without your adding to his concerns by asking him to choose between two parents. Click here for an article on living arrangements after divorce.

If a child is given this decision, you run the risk of invoking guilt toward the parent that was not chosen. In addition, the parent not chosen could punish the child by showing displeasure. Down the road, your children may become angry with you for passing this responsibility on to them, when it is one decision they wish you had made.

However, children often do have a preference, based more on their own needs for familiarity within their home and neighborhood than on a choice of one parent over another. They want to be near their friends, with the parent who has the best computer, with the parent who has more time to spend, or the parent whose home is most conducive to sleep overs with friends. Children can tell you where they’d like to live instead of with whom and indicates that they want to be heard about WHAT matters to them, not who. Having their opinions considered makes them feel included, valued, and recognized as persons with independent needs.

Talk to your children along with your former spouse, and encourage them to express their preferences for schedule rather than place, and be clear that the adults will make the final decisions. For more on living arrangements after divorce, click here.

For more information contact Peace Talks www.peace-talks.com

Tags: Custody, Living Arrangements, Physical Custody, Protecting the Children
Posted in Creative Problem Solving, Custody, Life After Divorce, Pareting Plans, Sensivity to Children | No Comments »

Common Reactions of Young Children to Divorce

Monday, May 3rd, 2010

Preschoolers indicate increased fears of abandonment. They regress to earlier stages of development; for example, they may begin soiling their pants or wetting their bed again if they had mastered that behavior a short time before. Your child who loved day care now clings to your leg, wailing piteously about your leaving. She may be more cranky. Or she may seem not to have noticed, her denial working perfectly for her. This can scare parents, but it will not hurt your child to take more time before dealing with the event. Denial is wonderfully undervalued in our culture: it can give us the time we need to martial our resources, allowing us to reach the next step. Young children take longer to cognitively and emotionally process complex relationships and events. Click here for more information on children’s reactions to divorce.

Early school age children (6-8 years) are more likely to express their reactions in sadness. They are likely to mourn through yearning, like Madame Butterfly waiting at the window to see her love return to her. Their fears are ones of deprivation rather than abandonment; will there be enough time, attention, and money for them to live as they always did? Symptoms are manifested in academic difficulties and concentration problems. Sleep and eating disturbances are common, as are psychosomatic complaints – headaches, stomach aches, bumps and bruises.

Your middle school child (9-12 years) is more likely to get angry than his younger siblings. This age is prone to loyalty conflicts, since friendships and teammates are just beginning to fully take over their imaginations and dominate their social world. This is the age most likely to become involved by their parents in the adults’ conflict, signing up for one side or the other, but eager to be on a team and to have a common threat to rally against. Due to their sensitivity in this arena, and to their greater abilities than their younger siblings to understand what is going on between the adults, they are used by parents to deliver messages, spy, or just report back. Click here for an article on what children need from you during your divorce

For more information contact Peace Talks www.peace-talks.com

Tags: Reactions of Children, Talking with Child, Telling the Children
Posted in Creative Problem Solving, Divorce Preparation, children of divorce | No Comments »

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Archive for the ‘Creative Problem Solving’ Category

Can I Relocate?

What if My Child Doesn’t Want to Visit?

Using a Calendar

He was never involved before – why now?

Parenting Plans for Pre-schoolers

Parenting Plans: The First Year of Life

Some Common Shared Parenting Schedules

Common Living Arrangements

Developing a Schedule for Living Arrangements

Common Reactions of Young Children to Divorce