July 2008 - Bon Voyage
Many children spend large chunks of time with their non-custodial parent over the summer. Whether your child is going across town to spend a few weeks with your ex, traveling to another state for visitation, or is packing up to go away on a big trip with your ex, preparing for and adjusting to the absence can be very difficult.
June 2008 - Pet Custody
Custody of children is a hotly contested issue in many divorces, but many divorces also involve a heated debate about the custody of small furry children as well. Pets are like children to many people and the thought of no longer living with or seeing a beloved dog or cat (or other animal) can be very upsetting.
May 2008 - Co-Parenting an Adopted Child
As if divorce isn’t hard enough, it can be even more complicated when you are trying to work out custody of an adopted child. Adoption often makes the situation emotionally more difficult for the child, and may make you concerned about what your rights are.
April 2008 - Green Parenting After Divorce
More and more parents are thinking about ways they can be green (act in a way that helps preserve the environment). Lots of people are buying organic, changing to compact fluorescent bulbs, driving hybrids, and taking other steps to help minimize negative effects on the earth. You might not think that the way you parent after divorce could have an impact on the environment, but in fact there are lots of things you can do to be a greener divorced parent.
March 2008 - Non-Custodial Coping
If your divorce or custody case resulted in a situation in which you are not the residential, primary, or custodial parent, you might be upset or not completely comfortable with this situation. Whether you are a man or a woman, there are lots of other parents in your shoes and there are ways to make the best of the situation.
February 2008 - Terrible Terminations
Parental termination is a legal process in which a parent’s legal rights are taken away. In the eyes of the law, that person ceases to be that child’s parents, and has no more rights or responsibilities towards the child.
January 2008 - Small Changes Have Big Results
When you are parenting after a divorce, you are working within a situation that is certainly not your ideal. Your dream was not to be divorced and to have to share your child’s time in a rigid way. The whole structure of your life as a parent has been set and created for you to deal with. You may not be able to change that overall structure, but there are many small things you can do that will make the situation easier and happier for everyone.
December 2007 - Managing Your Kids over the Holidays After a Divorce
The holidays are a wonderful time – except when your kids are cranky, overtired, and over-stimulated. Then they are hell-a-days, not holidays. Divorced parents find that managing the holidays can be a huge challenge.
October 2007 - Pulling the Plug on Visitation
Part of your responsibility as the custodial parent is to encourage and assist with visitation. Kids need two parents in their lives, and it takes two parents to make visitation plans work.
September 2007 - Biting Your Tongue
Once you’re divorced or separated, it seems as if you should be free of your ex and able to live your life without his or her influence. However, if you are parents together, this is not a realistic expectation. You will be parents together for the rest of your lives and although you don’t have to live together or see each other often, you do have to find a way to function together as parents.
August 2007 - Mom and Dad Together Again
Most children of divorce secretly (or not so secretly) hope their parents will get back together. Having the family reunited and everything as it used to be may seem like a perfect resolution to many children, but in fact reunifications can be difficult for everyone involved. About 10% of all married couples have separated and reconciled, according to the latest statistics available.
July 2007 - Divorce and Your In-Laws
When you get divorced, one of the things you may be glad about is that your in-laws are technically no longer related to you. If you had a difficult relationship with them, divorce might feel like a get out of jail free card in this respect. If you have a child, however, your in-laws are and will always be his or her grandparents.
June 2007 - Coping with Your Feelings about Visitation
Setting up and living with a parenting plan is a big change for everyone. All of you must get used to a new schedule. Working through the new plan takes time. You need to readjust your weekly rhythm and perhaps make adjustments to other activities in your life to make the schedule workable.
May 2007 - Stepparent Adoption
If you have remarried and your spouse functions as a parent to your child, you may wonder if your spouse can adopt your child. Adoption by a stepparent isn’t always possible, and it isn’t for everyone, but it is an option some families find to be wonderful for them.
April 2007 - Custody Is Not What You Think
It’s time to change the way we think about custody. Many people assume that a custody decision is a determination of who is the “good” parent and who is the “bad” parent. Many people assume that if a parent does not have custody of his child, he did something wrong, is not trustworthy, or doesn’t have good parenting skills.
March 2007 - Visitation Belongs to Kids
All too often when I was representing children or parents in divorce or family court, I heard parents refer to scheduled parenting time as “my time”. For example, a parent once complained to me that taking a child to dance class took away from his time with the child.
February 2007 - Parenting Plans Are Not Written in Stone
When you go to court and are given a parenting or visitation plan, it is because you were unable to reach an agreement yourselves. You couldn’t work it out, so the court had to work it out for you.
January 2007 - New Year Resolutions for Divorced Parents
The New Year is a time of fresh starts and new beginnings in many ways. This year, in addition to perhaps starting a diet or beginning to work out, devote some energy to developing a healthier interaction with your ex.
December 2006 - Post-Divorce Holidays
Helping your child through the holidays after a divorce can be challenging. It’s likely that you’re having a difficult time coping with the season yourself, which makes it even harder to focus on what your child is experiencing. Follow these tips to help your child survive and to keep your own sanity.
November 2006 - Triage for Parenting Problems
Everyone occasionally has conflicts with their ex over visitation and parenting time. After all, if you agreed about everything, you would still be married. While most divorced parents experience problems with the other parent from time to time, many parents don’t know how to handle these problems.
October 2006 - Transitions
When you share parenting with your ex, you spend a lot of time transferring your child from one parent to the other. These transitions can difficult, because not only do you have to interact with the other parent, but you also have to help your child adjust to what can be really a big change for him or her.
September 2006 - Back to School, Back to Schedules
As your child heads back to school, this is a good time to re-evaluate and tweak your parenting schedule. Fall is a time of fresh starts and new beginnings and a chance to get organized in all aspects of your life.
August 2006 - Making Changes
Because children are always growing and changing, no parenting schedule will work forever. Instead, you should think of your parenting plan as something that fluctuates and changes with your child. It’s easy to feel as though your parenting schedule is set in stone – after all, a judge ordered it.
July 2006 - Friends and Parenting Time
Friendships are an important part of life for kids, but making time for friends can become complicated when your child has divorced parents. Striking a balance between family and friends is difficult but possible.
June 2006 - In Sickness and In Health
One thing you can count on when you are a parent is that your child will get sick. There’s simply no avoiding it. But when you’re sharing parenting time with your ex, childhood illnesses can play havoc with your schedules. Follow these tips for preserving your mental health when your child’s physical health is on the wane.
April 2006 - Daddy Doesn’t Make Me Clean My Room
Your child is living in two separate homes now. But even though they are two distinct places, they are both parts of the same family. Because of this there should be some similarities between the homes. Children should have responsibilities at both houses, no matter how much time they spend there.
March 2006 - Dealing with Dollars
An important part of most parenting arrangements has to do with money. If you’re the primary residential parent, it’s likely your ex is paying you child support and is responsible for expenses like medical costs, school expenses and more. Money is a pretty dicey area for a divorced couple to begin with, but when you mix money with parenting, you often end up with a powder keg.
February 2006 - An Extra Step: Step-Grandparents
When you remarry, your child not only has a stepparent and possibly stepsiblings, but he or she suddenly has step-grandparents as well. The impact of the step-grandparent varies, depending on your family situation. But no matter how you slice it, step-grandparents add yet another layer to an already complicated family.
December 2005 - Avoid Gift Giving Gripes
Sharing the holidays with your ex can be a challenge. Arranging the schedule so that not only both parents, but also extended family, has time with your child can be a gargantuan task. However, one important aspect that most divorced parents don’t give much consideration is having a cooperative approach to your child’s gifts.
November 2005 - A List of Things for Divorced Parents to Be Thankful For
As a single parent, you may have good times and bad times, but there are always things to be thankful for.
October 2005 - Relocation
If you or your ex are relocating, you know it is going to be hard for your child to stay close to the non-residential parent. However, as the residential parent, there are many things you can do to encourage them to interact and many ways to provide support during this difficult adjustment.
September 2005 - Teens and Visitation
If you and the other parent divorced while your child was younger, the teen years can present some challenges in terms of your visitation schedule. A schedule that worked for an elementary school age child is not going to fit a teen. And, if you and the other parent have split during your child’s teenage years, it can be difficult to devise a plan that will work for everyone involved simply because the teenage years are so difficult to parent during.
August 2005 - Live and Let Live
Getting accustomed to the divorce and the new parenting schedule was a huge change for you and your child. Once you’ve got a schedule hammered out and have started to adjust to it, things should get easier, right? Well, not always. You and the other parent are now living apart and have embarked upon separate lives.
July 2005 - Avoiding the Revolving Courtroom Door
It’s to be expected that you and your ex are going to have some disagreements as you continue to parent your children together. All parents disagree and those who are separated or divorced are likely to have differing views on a lot of things. Having different opinions isn’t a problem, as long as you’re able to find a way to work out the conflict on your own. You aren’t going to always see things eye to eye, and you’re going to have to learn to compromise and work together somehow.
May 2005 - The Girlfriend
The girlfriend. She strikes terror in the heart of divorced mothers everywhere. When your ex gets a girlfriend it’s challenging enough to deal with your own emotions, but when the girlfriend is suddenly a big part of your child’s life, it’s hard to know how to react.
April 2005 - Money Madness
For most divorced families, custody and visitation were set up simultaneously with child support. Because these things all have to do with your child and where he or she lives, they are intertwined in your mind. Somehow, you see them all as part of a package. But these two things should not be seen as dependent on each other or related.
March 2005 - Making Them Go
It happens in every family at one time or another. You have a parenting schedule in place that seems to be working pretty well with everyone’s schedules. And then one day, your child simply refuses to follow it. Most often this is a refusal to go on visitation with the nonresidential parent.
February 2005 - The No Show
It’s happened to a lot of single parents. You have your child packed up and ready to go with the other parent – and he doesn’t show up. Your first reaction is pure and simple anger. Then you feel your child’s pain and ache for the rejection he or she is feeling. You can’t call the cops and have them haul your ex to your door to pick up your child, but there are other things you can do.
January 2005 - New Year’s Resolutions for Single Parents
The beginning of the year is an excellent time to make some changes that will make your life, and your child’s life, much more bearable. Consider making some of these New Year’s resolutions.
December 2004 - Home Alone for the Holidays
If you share holidays with your ex, you may be facing a holiday alone this season without your child. It can be difficult to be separated from your child, but you can get through the holiday with these guidelines.
November 2004 - Don’t Kill the Messenger
Once you’re separated, one of your goals is probably to have as little contact with your ex as possible. But, there are still things you need to communicate about – when the child support is going to be paid, what time you’ll be dropping the kids off, whether you can switch weekends, and so on.
October 2004 - School Dances: Sharing Education Information
Although most children today do not live in a home with both of their biological parents, many schools still act as if all of their students do. Whether your child spends most of his or her time at your home, or at the other parent’s home, you probably want to be informed and stay involved with your child’s education. Unfortunately, many schools make this a challenge.
September 2004 - Whose Rules?
Separation and divorce means two homes for your child, and too often that means two completely different sets of rules. It’s hard enough for a kid to comply with one set of rules, but having two is a guarantee for confusion and disobedience from your kids and resentment and anger between parents.
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Guidance Archives - Everything You Need to Know for Parenting Together Apart