The purpose of these ideas is to make life easier for you and most importantly, your children. I believe that stress is the root cause of illness and unhappiness in our lives so anything you can do to take it down a notch will be worth it.
As your children go back and forth between households It is likely that clothing will accumulate at one house or the other and will need to be re-distributed once in a while. The re-balancing could be monthly or weekly depending upon your parenting schedule and the sufficiency of both parents at doing laundry.
Why is this important to your kids? They need to feel secure that there will be some of their favorite clothes at each home so that when they get dressed they will like what they are wearing.
So how do you do this? Get a small/medium rolling suitcase and send it with the kids either empty if there is a shortage of clothing at one household or full if the kids have too much. Typically clothes will need to go both ways, too many t-shirts at Dad’s and too many pants at Mon’s. The kids can put the clothes away or fill up the suitcase if they are old enough or the other parent can do this before the next switching time. (Really great idea to send back clean clothes.)
Eventually you will have two sets of clothing on the go but a re-balancing will ensure that you kids have their favorite shirt/shoes/pants when they need them. You may also need to re-balance school supplies if one household ends up with 6 sets of colored pencils.
Put this concept in your parenting agreement or property settlement agreement if you can. As you prepare for your divorce keep the needs of your children front and center, try to lift the burden of the process off their shoulders as much as you can.
It is switching time for the children and you are at your X’s to pick up your children. The times typically negotiated for parenting switched always seems to be around dinner. Everyone is hungry, stressed and tempers are likely to fly. They forget something and you have to turn around and go back. Your children start quibbling in the back seat and you shout at them. Sound familiar? While this will not always be the case it will happen on occasion.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have ways to smooth out these times?
Over the next few weeks I will be posting some great tips to help you and your children through this stressful time.
The most effective way to keep everybody calm is to have some great snacks in the car or as I call it Traveling Food
When the kids are in the car give them a snack. An apple, cheese stick, grapes or granola bar will help balance their blood sugar and make them feel less stressed during the transition. Nothing large enough that it will spoil their appetite for dinner but enough to make them feel comfortable.
Eating will also give them something to do so that if you have more than one child it will minimize the time they have to get on each other’s nerves.
Dinner can then not have to be on the table in ten minutes after you step through the door. Everyone will be able to breathe a sigh of relief and not feel so rushed. This will make this time more enjoyable for everyone, including the parents.
So what do you do to keep your children on an even keel during transitions?
While a snack may seem like common sense to some of you it is not obvious to everyone. Adding language into your parenting agreement or property settlement agreement about trying to smooth out this time for the kids is a great idea. Pass this idea along to your divorce lawyer.
The more I work with clients the more I realize that keeping the focus on the needs of the children makes the process a whole lot easier.
This is what you do. Find a blank monthly calendar, search on google (link to excel http://www.wincalendar.com/excel-calendar-template.htm word formats are also available) and use one for each child. Put each child’s schedule on it in detail. What time they get up, when they leave for school, when they get home from school, what activities they have, sports, music lessons orthodontist appointments, list everything, absolutely everything.
Once you have done this for each child, you will have a clear picture of what has to happen in any parenting arrangement to make sure the kid’s schedules are maintained.
Then consolidate all the children on to one calendar (if you can). I like excel formats for this because you can add a row to the chart any day of the week that is particularly full.
Then you do the same for each parent. When do you and your spouse leave for work and get home, are there evenings when one of you goes to school or has a standing girls night out? List everything each of you do.
Then you bring it all together. Keeping the children’s schedules as the priority, what will work? When can each parent have quality time with the children, what activities will each parent be responsible for getting the children to. How are you going to juggle everything?
Getting a schedule that works is more art than science.
Once it is clear that every Thursday both children have activities until 730 then homework and bed, that will not be the ideal evening for the parent who works in the city to have with the children. If one of the parents coaches a child’s sports team and is always with them on Tuesday and Thursday evenings that would be a natural time for the parenting time to continue until school tomorrow. Get creative!
The only caveat to all of this is that bouncing children from house to house is not the best thing. A lot depends on how old they are and how independent they are. What will work for a 12 year old may not work for a 7 year old.
I have found that this process reduces the automatic parental response “I won’t see my children every day”. While the thought is a really hard to deal with, the reality is that for most working and busy parents they only see their children for a few minutes a day. Parents who work long hours often leave before their children are out of bed and then get home just in time to put them to bed.
I remember getting on the phone with my children to say goodnight when I had to work late or was away on a business trip well before my divorce so doing the same thing for different reasons can make things feel right. Now with Skype and I-phones you can actually see your children, almost like being there.
This methodology is powerful. It will result in a rational parenting arrangement that is geared to meeting the needs of the children. This type of approach is also something that changes as the needs of the children change. School year is different than summer months and parenting schedules can be adjusted to give one parent more time if their working schedule does not allow for time during the school year. As the children get older the schedule can change again.
This approach, if managed well, will result in positive co-parenting, children that have their needs met and children who see that their parents acting in a civilized manner. This will significantly reduce the stress of the divorce for your children.
Establishing a good parenting schedule is essential to support your children through the divorce. It is important that they see both parents as much as possible given work and school schedules.
In a situation with a working parent and the other at home, parenting schedules tend to default to every other weekend and one night a week for dinner. This means the children stay with the working parent 2 nights every two weeks. This is what it looks like and it is not a lot of time for the children. Imagine what they will feel like, imagine if the at home parent were all of a sudden put in this position.
Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4
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If the weekend is extended from after school on Friday to Start of School on Monday and one night during the week (Wednesday) the schedule looks like this. Much better for the children.
Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4
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To further improve the schedule, if the Wednesday moves to Thursday, as long as the working parent’s schedule can accommodate the kids transportation needs, the children have significant continuous time with the both parents. Additionally the parent with the bulk of the time with the kids now has nice long weekends available for visits with friends and family. This is what it looks like.
Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4
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Too often children are used as pawns in divorce with one parent believing that they will get more child support if they have the children more than their spouse or that they will be able to trade time with the kids for other issues. If this is the case please try to consider the harm this is doing to your children and encourage a better schedule.
