10 Ways to ROCK Being a Long-Distance Parent
After divorce, it’s often difficult for both parent and child when one household becomes two. The child sees each parent less, each parent sees the child less. Add in relocation of one parent to the mix, and a tough situation gets tougher. Not only do the parents have to figure out how transportation is going...
Divorce: How You Can Help a Friend Going Through It
Often when we hear about a friend or loved one getting a divorce, we just don’t know what to say or do. We want to be supportive, encouraging, helpful – but struggle with being presumptuous or intrusive in our attempts to offer assistance. Recently I was invited to speak at a Stephen Ministry meeting when...
Child Custody: 5 FAQs Answered
Child custody battles are often the most difficult part of divorce proceedings. Property can be divided or sold, debts can be assigned to one party or the other, but how custody/visitation plans are structured is much more complex. As mothers and fathers contemplate divorce or (if not married to each other) paternity actions, they often...
Children and Divorce – How it SHOULD Be
I have written plenty about what parents do during divorce that negatively impacts their children. So I am delighted to give you some input about, and a wonderful example of, putting children first in spite of the parent’s divorce. Judge Robert Davis shared an anecdote a few years back that left me feeling compelled to...
Should Children go to Jail for Refusing to Visit a Parent?
Should children go to jail for refusing to have a relationship with one of their divorced parents? That’s close to what happened recently in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Oakland County Circuit Judge Lisa Gorcyca, seeming to be at her wit’s end with three children, ages 14, 10 and 9, who refused to comply with her order to...
Divorcing Parents, Listen to the Judge
In case you’re wondering whether or not judges care about the orders they issue regarding your children, I’m here to tell you that, from what I have seen in over two decades of practicing Family Law, most of them do. That’s not to say they’re not thoughtful about the rulings that affect you and your...
What Children Want Their Divorced Parents to Know About the Holidays
Children anticipate the holidays eagerly – gifts, special food, no school – what’s not to like? They are often oblivious to the stress adults may experience this time of year. Unless they have to divide their holidays between two warring parents. Nothing sucks the joy out of the season for a child faster than having...
5 Ways to Help Your Child Through Divorce
Divorce affects children in a myriad of ways. Just because they don’t seem depressed or their grades don’t crash doesn’t mean they are unscathed by what is going on around them. As a matter of fact, more than one psychologist I consulted with when representing children (whose parents are going through divorce) has told me...
Children of Divorce – 5 Things Parents Should Never Say
Listening to children about how they feel as their parents go through divorce – and afterward – is very important. We need to hear them. Not only their words, but read their demeanor. And we have to remember how well they can hear us. How they can read between the lines to what’s really being...
Divorce Through a Child’s Eyes
I’ve talked to many children whose parents are going through divorce. I often serve as a guardian ad litem for children – a cross between an attorney for the children and an arm of the court charged with the task of investigating a divorce matter in order to make recommendations to the judge regarding custody...