Posts filed under 'best interests of the children'
From dam to glam: dating after divorce
The dating game, and how to ensure you are putting
your children’s best interests first.
It’s been said that dating is something that is good for you but can be hard on your children, because it pulls you away from them and may be confusing for them. There are no specific rules for dating when you have kids; there’s no right or wrong way to do it. Of course, your priority should still be your children, and sometimes you have to sacrifice your needs for them.
Dating postdivorce, achieving balance in your life and putting your children’s best interest first can be a challenge. Please click on the link to read more about tips and strategies as to how to navigate this new phase in your life postdivorce.
http://www.more.ca/relationships/married-life/from-dam-to-glam-dating-after-divorce/a/1800
I wrote this article for More magazine’s online edition. More magazine is a publication which celebrates women over 40. Men should also feel comfortable reading this article as it offers great insight into dating postdivorce; tips that apply to both men and women. If you would like to browse through this magazine click on the following link: www.more.ca
Knowing how to put your children’s best interests first
will give you a sense of comfort, calm and
the freedom to enjoy yourself.
1 comment September 15, 2008
Help, my teenager doesn’t want to spend time with me!
Flexibility is especially important as your children enter their teen years. Teenagers are self-centered. Teenagers are fickle. Teenagers tend to see their parents for what they can offer–a wallet (money), a fridge (food, food, and more food), a bed (a place to sleep all day) and a car (with you as either their personal chauffeur or the “giver of the car keys”).
Don’t mistake your teenager’s struggle for independence, or his or her desire to spend more time with friends or on the Internet, for symptoms of your divorce. As children reach their early or mid-teens, their peer groups become essential to their lives. They don’t care about Mom’s time or Dad’s time; they just care about their own time. Their whole life focuses around their friends, which is normal–their primary focus is on themselves.
Many parents also complain that their children never let them know ahead of time what they will be doing, but that may be because the children themselves do not really know; that’s not how children make their plans. They get on their computers, they instant message each other, and the plan emerges, sometimes within a space of fifteen minutes. All of a sudden, they are busy and on their way to join up with friends.
Teenage behavior can be hard to take sometimes. The teen years can be especially hard for noncustodial parents. If you live an hour away from your child’s primary residence, where his or her school and peer group are, that makes it tough for the teenager to really enjoy his or her time at your home. As difficult as it may be for the noncustodial parent, most times that parent needs to take a backseat role to the person who is the custodial parent.
Here are some tips to stay connected with your teens:
- Offer to drive them to their friends.
- Check in with your kids via their cell phones and e-mail accounts to just to say, “What’s up?”; “How was your day?”; and so forth. Checking in helps ensure that you have as much input with your kids as their friends do.
- Be flexible; be an open door. Invite kids over either after school or for a few hours on the weekend, or just to have dinner, rather than for the full evening or weekend. You can say, “You are welcome the entire weekend, but I won’t be upset if you want to be with your friends; you tell me if it fits in. If not, and you want to be with your friends, I’ll drive you.” If you pressure your kids to give up time with their friends in order to be with you, it will only backfire, causing your children to avoid you.
Try not to think in terms of minutes and hours;
think in terms of the quality of the relationship
you are building and sustaining.
2 comments September 1, 2008
It’s back to school:developing routine and structure for parents
As I prepare my children to transition from the spontaneity of life in the summer to the structure of school it occurred to me how they need to get back into routine. Not only is it important for our children to be in the habit of schedules, but the aspect of shared parenting needs to be formalized once again; especially if life has been a bit off kilter as our children are at camp, have their own activities without parents or in holiday mode.
If you are the resident parent where the children live most of the time, then not much will change. However, if your children don’t live with you most of the time, here are some ideas to consider to maintaining involvement in your children’s lives:
Parenting Tips for Transforming Your Family
Make a family calendar and hang it wherever the children will see it, to show that you care. Make your children see that their lives are important to you and that they are your priority.
On the family calendar, list:
· birthdates
· school schedules
· other dates, such as dental appointments, dance recitals, sports games, and so on.
Establish rules such as the following:
· Each parent must order his or her own tickets for children’s events.
· Each parent must make his or her own arrangements at school to get information.
· It is not up to your former spouse to do those things or provide information for you.
· It’s up to you to take the initiative.
· Don’t make your son or daughter into the man or woman of the house.
· Don’t turn your son or daughter into your best friend and confidant.
· Don’t fill the void in your bed by allowing your child to sleep there. If you eventually start a relationship and no longer allow your child into your bed because you are sharing it with someone else, the child could feel displaced.
If you are the noncustodial parent, here are some ideas to help you maintain a positive relationship
with your children:
· Some schools allow children to leave the grounds for lunch; you may be able to take them out to lunch without affecting the custodial parent’s time.
· As much as you can, duplicate at your home the little things that your kids love at the custodial parent’s home–things like special Barbie dolls, books, and so on. Send out the message that you care. Duplicating items will remove the stress children may feel about taking their favorite things to the other parent’s home or about forgetting to bring them (but keep in mind that some items, like the favorite blanket or stuffed animal, can’t be duplicated).
Remember, your children still have two parents. They still have a family, it’s the dynamics which have changed and up to parents to minimize the conflict and make transition as easy as possible.
Add comment August 28, 2008
Making it Through Your Divorce
Take charge and you’ll feel better…..
I noticed in the early days of divorce, that if you behave passively, like a leaf that is simply tossed this way and that by the wind, you are taking away your own freedom to move forward with your life. A smart divorce requires you to do some work, not be passive. Once you truly accept this, you will have set your feet firmly on a path that can enrich you rather than diminish you.
Give your self the opportunity to explore and
consciously make choices about the
life you want to lead.
Here are the top 5 things you need to think about so that you can achieve control and avoid the pitfalls which can undermine you after divorce.
- Envision what you would like life to look like when you are ready to start moving on, and think about what you need to do to get there.
- Will you have to move? If you do, think positive, perhaps this will give you a fresh start and way to begin life postdivorce - creating your better life.
- Will you have to go back to work? If you have been out of the workforce for a while, consider retraining and look for opportunities which you are passionate about. What have you always wanted to do? Perhaps now is the time to break out and try something different. If you don’t need to work, consider volunteer work and/or pursuing some new interests and hobbies.
- Develop your support network of new friends, family, clergy, a therapist or support groups.
- Do what you can to have a positive outlook. By feeling good about yourself, you will be a better parent. Putting your children’s best interest first should be your first objective. Finding a way to manage your emotions privately, giving your children a sense of security and love will go a long way to help your children adjust though the divorce.
What happens when you can’t see beyond this stage of divorce and the possibility of ever finding happiness? You will be undermining yourself and unable to move forward. If you focus on the hurt you lose perspective; you lose a sense of the larger picture and how this new life can take shape. You need to develop a sense of purpose for yourself.
Don’t make the mistake of surrendering to your divorce by thinking, “It’s the end of life.” It may be the end of life as you know it, but the truth is you could actually develop a better life if you work at it!
Add comment July 3, 2008
A public rant gone awry….
Airing your laundry in public
Philip Smith was left hung to dry earlier this month when his wife, Tricia Walsh-Smith, aired her marital and divorce grievances on You Tube. While each side may have their issues with one another, for a while it was kept relatively private. But, with Ms. Walsh Smith’s recent You Tube video about the concerns she has with her husband and their divorce, public opinion is now weighing in with disbelief as to how these complaints were brought forward.
This is not the first time a celebrity or someone in the public eye has let their emotions rule their decision making only to have it backfire on them. While it might feel great in the moment to speak your mind, the feelings of relief often change to horror when you hear the reaction from the very same audience you were hoping to gain sympathy from. Perhaps it is best to keep your personal issues private, no matter how much you may want to seek revenge or validate your shame.
Articles about public displays of anger have been widely written about by the media. There are two articles I would like to draw your attention to these are:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070422.lbaldwinmain0423/BNStory/lifeFamily/home
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080416.wgtyoutube0416/BNStory/lifeMain
Public opinion to the way these celebrities acted out their frustration and anger was certainly not what they were anticipating. Damage control seemed to be next on the agenda. I’m sure there are many people who would like to air their grievances in public too — out of revenge sure to humiliate you soon to be or former spouse.
While it might feel good in the moment, think about the consequences of venting in public:
· The effect on your reputation.
· The effect on your relationship with you children and/or step children.
· The possibility of the rant being used against you in legal proceedings.
· The actions coming back to hurt you later on.
Here are some strategies to help you get through these emotionally difficult times:
- Write your thoughts down in a personal journal.
- Vent your feelings to a trusted family or friend.
- Speak with a therapist, clergy or other people in your support network.
- Vent your thoughts in a letter, don’t send it out – perhaps rip it up. This can be cathartic.
- If you are going to sign a pre or post nuptial agreement, ensure you get a legal opinion before you sign.
While interest in the You Tube video will soon become yesterday’s news as the public grows tired of this battle and becomes fascinated by some other family squabble, the significance of it will play out for a long time in many ways for this couple.
Use these lessons well. As much as you may want to vent and scream your personal issues via email, You Tube or some other communication vehicle, you don’t want a war of words coming back to haunt you. While you may have achieved your short term goal, in the long term, you might very well be sorry you let your emotions get the better of you.
Add comment April 27, 2008
Children’s Bill of Rights from…..
Children’s Bill of Rights
from DivorceHQ.com
Here is another Children’s Bill of Rights which I came across and should help divorcing parents think about what the best interests of the children really mean and other ideas to accomplish this.
We the children of the divorcing parents, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish these Bill Of Rights for all children.
- The right not to be asked to “choose sides” or be put in a situation where I would have to take sides between my parents.
- The right to be treated as a person and not as a pawn, possession or a negotiating chip.
- The right to freely and privately communicate with both parents.
- The right not to be asked questions by one parent about the other.
- The right not to be a messenger.
- The right to express my feelings.
- The right to adequate visitation with the non-custodial parent which will best serve my needs and wishes.
- The right to love and have a relationship with both parents without being made to feel guilty.
- The right not to hear either parent say anything bad about the other.
- The right to the same educational opportunities and economic support that I would have had if my parents did not divorce.
- The right to have what is in my best interest protected at all times.
- The right to maintain my status as a child and not to take on adult responsibilities for the sake of the parent’s well being.
- The right to request my parents seek appropriate emotional and social support when needed.
- The right to expect consistent parenting at a time when little in my life seems constant or secure.
- The right to expect healthy relationship modeling, despite the recent events.
- The right to expect the utmost support when taking the time and steps needed to secure a healthy adjustment to the current situation.
Please realize that this is NOT law, anywhere. The “Children’s’ Bill of Rights” is not legally enforceable, but rather suggestions made to keep the best interest of the child a priority.
Add comment February 29, 2008
Children’s Bill of Rights
Children’s Bill of Rights
While researching the children’s best interest, I came across this article which I wanted to share. As parent’s we always think that we are right about our children, but did you know that children have rights too?
As I am bound by the rules not to edit these rights, I specifically want to bring your attention to points 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 14, 15, 17
KIDFORUMs CHILDREN’S BILL of RIGHTS
March 1 - April 20 1996
We, Children from seven countries and three continents, having communicated with each other over the Internet, agree that the following are natural rights of Children all over the world, and hereby ratify them:
Preamble:
We believe that a successful society invests its best resources and hopes in the success of its children.
An unsuccessful society ignores or maltreats its children.
Children are the future of our species.
How a society treats its children is a direct reflection of how that society looks at its future.
The Children’s Bill of Rights proposes rights for children that all adults on Earth should honor, so that we may help create the very best future for ourselves and, in turn, our own children.
A moral and competent society is one that respects and upholds the rights of its children.
A society that fails to do so is immoral and incompetent.
ARTICLES OF THE CHILDREN’S BILL OF RIGHTS
Section I: ARTICLES THAT ARE IMPLEMENTED IMMEDIATELY
1. CHILDREN’S UNIVERSAL RIGHTS
As compared to adults, children until the age of 18 have the right to receive special care and protection.
Children all have the same rights, no matter what country they were born in or are living in, what their sex is, what their race is, or what their religion is.
2. RIGHT TO INHERIT A BETTER WORLD
Children have the right to inherit a world that is at least as good as the one their parents inherited.
Children have a responsibility to think about how they will leave a better world to their children, and, when they become adults, they have the right and duty to act on this.
3. RIGHT TO INFLUENCE THE FUTURE
Children have the right to participate in discussions having to do with the directions our society is taking — on the large political, economic, social, and educational issues and policies — so that children can help create the kind of world they will grow up in.
Adults have an obligation to communicate their views of these large issues in terms that children can understand, and provide children with the same information that is available to all adults.
Children have the right to understand how things change within society, and to learn how to influence these changes.
4. RIGHT TO FREEDOM OF THOUGHT, OPINION, EXPRESSION, CONSCIENCE, AND RELIGION
Every child has the right to express his or her opinion freely, and adults should address that opinion with the child in every decision that affects him or her.
Children have the right to carry out research to help form these opinions.
Children have the right to express their views, obtain information, and make ideas or information known.
Children have the right to form their own views in matters of conscience and religion.
5. RIGHT TO MEDIA ACCESS
Children have guaranteed access to all important communications media so that they may communicate nationally and internationally amongst themselves and with adults.
6. RIGHT TO PARTICIPATE IN DECISIONS AFFECTING CHILDREN
Children have the right to participate in all committees and decisions that make plans and set policies that directly or indirectly affect children.
7. RIGHT TO PRIVACY
Children have the right to privacy to the same extent adults have.
8. RIGHT TO RESPECT AND COURTESY
Children should be treated with respect and courtesy by adults, as well as by other children.
9. RIGHT TO AN IDENTITY
Children separated from their birth parents at birth or at an early age have the right to know that this happened.
Children have the right to know their name, who their birth parents are, and when and where they were born.
10. RIGHT TO FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION
Children have the right to meet with others, and to join or form associations, equivalent to that held by adults.
11. RIGHT TO CARE AND NURTURING
Children have the right to have nurturing and caring parents or guardians.
12. RIGHT TO LEISURE AND PLAY
Children have the right to leisure, play, and participation in cultural and artistic activities.
Children have the right to enjoy at least a few hours every day when they are free from worries.
13. RIGHT TO SAFE WORK
Children have the right to be protected from work that threatens their health, education, or development.
Children have the right to have pocket money so that they may learn to manage money.
14. RIGHT TO AN ADEQUATE STANDARD OF LIVING
Every child has the right to a standard of living adequate for his or her physical, mental, spiritual, moral, and social development, no matter how wealthy his or her parents are.
15. RIGHT TO LIFE, PHYSICAL INTEGRITY AND PROTECTION FROM MALTREATMENT
Children have the right to be protected from all forms of maltreatment by any adult, including a parent.
This includes but is not limited to: physical abuse, including torture, violence, hitting and slapping; harmful drugs, including alcohol and tobacco; mental abuse; and sexual abuse.
Infanticide is prohibited.
No child shall be forced into marriage.
16. RIGHT TO A DIVERSE ENVIRONMENT AND CREATIVITY
Children have the right to have many different things, people, and ideas in their environment.
Children have the right to listen to music of their choice.
Children have the right NOT to have their creativity stifled.
17. RIGHT TO EDUCATION
Every child has the right to education, education that aims to develop his or her personality, talents, and mental and physical abilities to the fullest extent, no matter how wealthy the child’s parents are.
Education should foster respect for a child’s parents, for the child’s own cultural identity, language and values, as well as for the cultural background and values of others.
Children have the right to an excellent education in any school.
Schools will differ not in the quality of the education they offer, but only in their philosophies of teaching, and what professional specializations they stress.
18. RIGHT TO ACCESS APPROPRIATE INFORMATION AND TO A BALANCED DEPICTION OF REALITY
Adults have the obligation to provide children with information from several different sources.
Children should be protected from materials adults consider harmful.
Children have the right to have reality presented to them in a balanced and accurately representative fashion.
19. RIGHT NOT TO BE EXPOSED TO PREJUDICE
Children have the right NOT to be taught that one group (racial, national, religious, etc.) is superior to another.
Section II: ARTICLES THAT REQUIRE SOCIAL OR NATIONAL POLICIES
20. THE RIGHT TO A CLEAN ENVIRONMENT
Children have a right to a clean environment (water, air, ground, sea).
21. RIGHT TO A SMALL NATIONAL DEBT
Governments and countries must decrease national debt which will have to be paid for
by future generations.
22. RIGHT TO VOTE
Children over 14 have the right to vote on issues that directly affect children, in all local, regional, national and international elections.
23. RIGHT TO MEDICAL CARE
Children have the right to be kept alive and in the best health and medical care science can provide, no matter how wealthy their parents are.
24. LEGAL RIGHTS
Children accused of crimes have at least the same legal rights as adults.
No child shall be institutionalized against her or his will without due process rights.
25. RIGHT NOT TO PARTICIPATE IN WAR
Young people under 21 have the right NOT to go to war.
The Children’s Bill of Rights may be freely reproduced and distributed provided it is done so in its entirety and unaltered, and with this paragraph attached.
As of April 20, 1996, children from 7 countries and 3 continents had ratified The Children’s Bill of Rights.
2 comments February 29, 2008
Putting your children’s best interests first
The Best Interests of Your Children
While conducting some research for an upcoming book within The Smart Divorce® series I had an interesting conversation with a child protection lawyer about the best interests of the children. From this lawyer’s perspective and what I see in my consulting practice and watching what goes on around me, we agreed that people often talk about it, but don’t necessarily do it – that is put their children’s best interests first. What does best interest of the children really mean? Is it fitting your schedule into your children’s or the other way around?
Defining Children’s Best Interest
There are many definitions as to what best interest means. The Geneva Convention defines it as acknowledging that every child has certain basic rights, including the right to life, his or her own name and identity, to be raised by his or her parents within a family or cultural grouping and have a relationship with both parents, even if that means they live in two different households. It sounds straightforward, but it isn’t necessarily that easy because divorce is complicated by emotions. And – these emotions if not managed, can impair your parenting skills – causing you to think you are putting your children’s best interest first, but many parents are not! This can happen when parents are overwhelmed with their own emotions causing their parenting skills to be weakened.
Simply put, the best interests of the children means doing what is best for your children. How do you achieve this when you might be feeling raw and bitter? You need to:
- deal with your emotions (use your support network for help such as a therapist, clergy, support groups, friends and family)
- Put your emotions on the shelf so that you can be the best parent for you children.
- Let your children participate in activities and do what they would normally have done if you were married.
Children should not be punished because an
activity falls on one parent or the others time
While a parent might be supportive of an extra curricular activity, they don’t let the children participate because it falls on their time – thinking that it is punishing the other parent, when actually it is the children who suffer.
You need to recognize, that children are not possessions they are not “my children, not your children”– they still have 2 parents, you need to reframe your thinking into these children being our children.
1 comment February 29, 2008
