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Tips for Parents
This page is for divorced and divorcing parents and the professionals trying to help them. The posts and handouts provide tips and strategies to manage parenting plans and the co-parenting working relationship and to prevent and heal damaged parent-child relationships. Managing Your Parenting PlanGoing to the balconyRoger Fisher termed the phrase, Go to the Balcony, to highlight the importance of stepping away from the hard emotions of a difficult negotiation. But there are other barriers to reasoned analysis – even on the balcony….read more... Divorce and the holidaysParents anticipating divorce worry that children will associate bad feelings and memories to the holidays if they separate during a holiday school break. These fears are realistic; children’s memories of the actual separation are often vivid and long lasting. Yet separating over a holiday period can make sense when handled well. Consider how one couple managed their separation over the Winter Break….Divorce and holidays If you are already divorced and want some tips about managing the holidays, check out this excellent article by Katia Hetter. Holiday survival guide for divorced parents Making exchanges work for you and your childA potentially difficult but common problem occurs for divorced parents when their children resist the exchange from one household to the other. Based on an informal survey of the parents with whom I work, the majority of children of divorce resist exchanges at some point. In most instances, children’s resistance is relatively infrequent and minimal: minor complaints and foot dragging (“I’m tired, I want to stay here”). But when the underlying issues are more serious, resistance….read more… Managing participation at public eventsParents want to participate, at least as spectators, in their children’s academic, religious and extracurricular activities. Indeed, watching children score a soccer goal, play in a band concert, or participate in a scout cook-off is one of the most rewarding aspects of parenting. And divorce research indicates that the more children are involved in rewarding activities the better their adjustment after divorce. But parents undermine the benefit their children gain from these activities if…read more… Managing contacts at school and medical settingsIt is important to be fully informed and involved in children’s education and medical care. When parents manage their tensions well and collaborate effectively, joint meetings with medical professionals and school faculty are an efficient way to gather information and make decisions. But when tensions run high and parents have a pattern of arguing rather than collaborating, joint meetings can trigger rancor rather than cooperative effort. In these instances, divorced parents are advised to adopt…different guidelines…. Managing telephone calls between children and parentsPhone calls are important links for children and divorced parents during scheduled separations. But phone calls are high on the list of problems that divorced parents bring to my attention: “Phone calls with the other parent are too long but my phone calls are too short.” ”The other parent calls all the time, but my calls are never returned.” ”The children are never allowed to use the phone.” ”The children use the phone too much.” ”The children are way too young to have cell phones.” ”The children need cell phones.” And so it goes. To effectively manage phone contact, consider the following guidelines... The power of apologyNothing works better than an apology when a co-parenting relationship has gone off the rails or when a parent over-reacts to a child’s oppositional behavior. Apologies can restore dignity, trust and a sense of justices. But remember…. For the complete set of the above tips….click here.…Co-parenting after divorce: It’s a negotiation, it’s always a negotiationRecent posts OptionsUnderstanding one another’s interests is the first step to effective negotiations. Determining not what you want – but why you want it. The next step is to identify the full range of possibilities that might meet those interests. It’s the stage of identifying and creating options. But when options seem limited or unsatisfactory, creating novel solutions can break logjams. Consider one example: Options It’s about the interests; it’s always about the interestsAll negotiations, just like all sales, are about meeting interests. And the key element of any negotiation is identifying and meeting those interests – yours and the other party’s. What are interests? Look behind positions to find common interestsConflicts about positions usually reflect differing interests; finding common interests behind a position can break an impasse …read more… Challenging beliefs; Identifying optionsCognitive psychologists have identified an easy-to-use tool, called the A-B-C tool, that can be immensely helpful to divorced parents who want to understand why they become so undone by the other parent’s behavior. To learn more, click here. Should divorced parents negotiate every issue?Or are there other ways to resolve conflicts? Consider one father’s dilemma..read more… Absorbing StatesIf you find yourself bogged down in conflict with the children’s other parent, you may be in what’s called an “absorbing state.” Negotiating with a jerkFrustrated divorced parents often ask: Can I really negotiate with a jerk? Should I even try? Good questions. Particularly when the jerk is...read more… PaceA divorcing father and mother came today to begin work on their parenting plan….So how did the session go? …Not so well… For the complete list, go to: http://aeschylus-otis.blogspot.com/ When Parents and Children have Damaged RelationshipsAlienated Children: Knowing how they feel.When a marriage ends, we often expect to see a clash of adults. It turns out, however, we often see a clash of generations…. Parent-child alienation: TerminologyIt isn’t always easy to find the language that describes cases of parent-child alienation in accurate and understandable terms. To learn about one way to do so, read more… How do Favored Parents Contribute to Parent-Child Alienation?An 11-year-old boy complained that his mother wasn’t coming to his soccer games. The father replied that maybe his mother was more interested in pursuing her career and making money than spending time with him. The result? The boy sulked and isolated himself the next time he went to his mother’s home, angry and hurt at thinking his mother didn’t care about him… read more… What’s in a name?An alienated teenage girl calls her father by his first name and her stepfather as “Dad.” She explains that her stepfather is “my real dad” and her birth father is a “pretender.” Her choice of names has not gone unnoticed. Her birth father frowns, her stepfather smiles, and the Judge scowls… read more… Alienated Children: Strengthening Their ResilienceNot all children exposed to their parents’ high conflict divorces feel disillusioned or alienated. …read more… |
