Posts filed under ‘parenting’
Nurturing parent/child bonds
The issue of parent alienation has been front and center in the media recently, and deserves the attention. It’s the children who live out the divorce and deal with the toxic reality of conflict.
Justice Harvey Brownstone, a family court judge in Toronto, wrote an insightful essay which appears in The Globe and Mail, on what he described as “a prevalent concern in high-conflict custody litigation.” The link to this article, which every parent should read, is below.
Justice Brownstone raises significant issues which parents need to consider. However, it is important for parents to look at their own behavior and consider how this might be affecting the relationship with their children.
My response to this serious issue of parent/child relationships appears in today’s Globe and Mail – letters to the editor.
If you are wondering whether or not my comments ring true, read on for a real life example of someone who paid the price dearly, and suffered significant damage as a result of parent alienation.
It’s a parent’s responsibility to give their children the best life possible -this means being mature enough to
put your feelings aside
and do what is in the best interests of your children.
The Smart Divorce Workshop Series – Space Still Available
The Smart Divorce® Workshop Series
These workshops are appropriate for individuals contemplating or already experiencing a divorce. Strategies for reducing financial costs and personal turmoil will be presented. Participants will learn what to expect legally and emotionally, and so be able to move through the process with confidence and focus while saving time and money. A subsequent session will address parenting issues, how to work with parenting experts more effectively, and available resources. Feedback from therapists and lawyers has indicated that The Smart Divorce Workshops have helped to prepare individuals for the process and make them better clients.
I have added two new workshops to the series called – Taking Control of Your Finances – with guest speakers Atsuko Hiroaka and Aaron Nimon, both Investment Advisors of BMO Nesbit Burns. The focus of these sessions is to help manage and effectively deal with your financial concerns; how to overcome your fears and understand the financial considerations as you work through the divorce process and postdivorce concerns.
Click on the link for more information: the-smart-divorce-workshop-f09-2-finr1
Program details:
The Smart Divorce: Learning the Basics – February 4, 2009
The Smart Divorce: Taking Control of Your Finances – February 11, 2009
with Guest Speaker, Investment Advisor – Aaron Nimon of BMO Nesbit Burns
The Smart Divorce: Parenting Through Divorce – February 18, 2009 2008
The Smart Divorce: Taking Control of Your Finances – February 25, 2009
with Guest Speaker, Investment Advisor – Atsuko Hiroaka of BMO Nesbit Burns
“Your seminar game the confidence I needed to start my divorce. I know what to do now and feel I’m not alone.” Dave C. Toronto
“I met a client who took your seminar today. An educated client makes this work so much easier!” Jacqueline Vanbetlehem, Mediator and Family Therapist in Oakville
Location: 12 Lawton Boulevard, Toronto (Yonge and St. Clair)
Registration Fee: $25 per workshop
Call The Smart Divorce at 905 695 0270 or email info@thesmartdivorce.com
SPACES ARE LIMITED, CALL TODAY
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.
5 steps to post divorce happiness
Achieving happiness postdivorce is possible. But, like most things in life with a positive outcome, it requires hard work. There are things that you can do as you move through the divorce process to prepare and enable you to move forward with focus, hope and confidence; upon closing your divorce file.
Please click on the link to read more about tips and strategies as to how to accomplish postdivorce happiness. 5-steps-to-post-divorce-happiness-more-magazine-12
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 moving on – 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
Life is like a book: some chapters are more difficult to get through than others. When I started living on my own again, I thought about how the new chapters of my own life were going to be written. I began to ask myself many questions. Can people actually be single and happy postdivorce? If they can, how do they achieve this? What is their secret? Is it like one of those new fad diets–just follow these few simple steps and, poof, a new you, easily transformed while you sleep? Or can you only reach that elusive goal of happiness when you find that perfect mate–your knight in shining armor or damsel in distress?
Think about how you would like your life to look like postdivorce and start doing some of those things now. You have choices and control. It’s up to you as to how this new chapter in your life is going to be written.
Custody and Access – what’s the difference?
The terms custody and access have been getting a lot of attention in the media recently because of the open court room of the Christie Brinkley/Peter Cook trial.
It’s amazing how many clients have come to my office questioning the difference between custody and access for their children. There is a significant difference and it’s important to understand what they mean to help you with planning your child’s best interests when it comes to decision making and visitation.
The Globe and Mail ran an interesting article today on the evidence parents use when it comes to a battle – which is something you would rather avoid.
Click on this link to read the article:exhibit-a-his-3rd-grade-diorama-tralee-pearce1
What’s the difference?
Parents have both rights and responsibilities concerning their children. They must make decisions regarding their children’s health, education, and religion; support their children financially; and provide their children with a home. During the divorce process, however, the terms used to describe these rights and responsibilities can get confusing. Concepts often get mixed up, and definitions vary. As a result, parental expectations can become unclear.
In addition, the legal terms used by the lawyers, judges, and other professionals can sound so cold and clinical that they are difficult to hear. The experts may not refer to you as “parents” but as your children’s “decision makers.” Instead of discussing the time you have to spend with the kids, they may talk about “access.” I have never ever heard parents refer to their parental authority or to time with their kids in such detached ways. Nonetheless, it is important to understand these terms.
Custody
Custody refers to who has the legal authority to make decisions regarding a child’s health, education, religion, and so forth. Generally speaking, custody does not establish residential status or access (visitation rights); those specifics are usually determined by the parenting plan (described below)
Joint custody means that both parents retain legal decision-making authority. If parents with joint custody have a problem coming to a decision about the child’s best interests, this can be resolved by a parenting expert such as an arbitrator or parenting coordinator.
Sole or full custody means that only one parent is given decision-making authority over the children, usually because it would be too difficult for the parents to make these decisions together. Needless to say, if you have sole custody, you must be especially careful to act in the best interests of your children.
The Parenting Plan
The parenting plan is an agreement between divorcing parents that clearly defines how each is to continue caring for his or her children following a separation. The goals of the parenting plan are to encourage the children’s relationship with both parents and to protect the children from parental conflict. It can also be used as an intervention tool to help parents disengage from one another. Parents often fear losing control or being controlled, and a specific, structured plan can help quell those feelings.
The parenting plan provides a comprehensive schedule of each parent’s access to the children, outlines his or her co-parenting responsibilities, and establishes his or her role in parental decision making. The particulars of the plan depend on the relationship between the former spouses, each parent’s relationship with his or her children, and, of course, the children’s needs. It can be very detailed, and it may address questions.
The parenting plan can configure the residential arrangement in a variety of ways. In some families, children split their time fifty-fifty between their mother’s home and their father’s. In other cases, the children live most of the time at one parent’s home, which is called the primary residence; that parent is called the primary residential parent. The other parent, called the secondary residential parent, may have the children on select weekends and perhaps one day a week, and maybe on alternating holidays. There are, of course, many different ways to configure parental responsibility, and there is no right or wrong method.
Divorce is the dissolution of the legal contract between a married couple. It means the transforming of a family, not the ending of a family. When parents separate, it is better to think of the family as reorganized instead of broken. Everyone still needs each other. How parents handle the changes that occur because of the reorganization will have a direct effect on how well the children and parents fare after the separation. While change is often difficult, it doesn’t have to be destructive. It makes sense to get psychological support during such trying times. There are a lot of mistakes that don’t have to happen if parents are informed of the best way to solve their issues.
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.
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.
Moving Between Mom’s Home and Dad’s Home
Children Live out the Divorce
Children are the one’s who live out the divorce. Often times, it is the children who move their belongings week in and week out, from mom’s home to dad’s and dad’s home to mom’s. As parent’s we need to consider the impact and make the adjustment and transition as easy as possible for them – to minimize the impact of how they live with divorce.
Minimize the impact of transition between homes
The easier a parent can make the transition for their children, the better it is for the family. Transition can also be difficult for you as a parent, because you’re giving up your children for a period of time. But you must realize that this is not about you; it is about your children.
I remember that for the first few months when my children left to be with their father………
…..they were not themselves when they came home. They were hyper and wound up. They would run to their bedrooms to make sure everything was still the same. It was a mixed bag of emotions for all. It’s like they had one personality at their dad’s house and another at mine. I was told that’s normal. Although I was aware of these differences, having them react differently to me certainly hit me hard.
Give your children time to adjust
I’ve learned to give my children their “adjustment time.” I realized that they were sort of compartmentalizing their surroundings–from Mom’s house to Dad’s house. We now have a routine when they come home from their dad’s. I usually make a little treat (chocolate chip banana bread is their favorite), they relax a bit, and then we snuggle and watch TV. Here are some other tips for easing the transition:
- Give children something to look forward to when they come home. Talk to them about what this could be–a special snack, alone time, a TV show to watch, and so forth.
- Involve your children in what they need to do when they come home (check e-mail, read, do homework–whatever offers them comfort and makes them feel at home).
- Ask your children: what can I do for you to make it easier for you?
Whether or not you like your former spouse and whether or not you agree with his or her parenting style, there is not much you can do about what occurs at the other home. Children are entitled to spend time with both parents. Your task is to send them off in the same way you would if you were sending them anywhere else where you wanted them to have a good time while they’re away from you. Your job is to put your children’s best interest first.
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