{Part 2 of our 2-part series on Children and Divorce.}
Divorce can be a tough life change — that’s a given. But when you have children, it is infinitely harder to come up with a divorce plan that makes the process as painless as possible for the kids. Read more
{This post is part 1 of our 2-part series on Children and Divorce.}
As parents, talking to your children about your decision to divorce will likely rank among the most important conversations you ever have with your kids. How and what you tell your children can help them feel loved and secure, even in the midst of turmoil and change. Read more
She’d been separated from her husband for eons, and their divorce wasn’t making much headway. So when Tricia’s boyfriend proposed elopement after a whirlwind courtship, she agreed. After all, she figured, she lived two states away from her soon-to-be-ex husband and they weren’t on speaking terms—plus she’d blocked him on Facebook, so he couldn’t see her posts. He’d never find out. And she and her boyfriend could simply “renew their vows” at a later date to make it legal, right?
Read more
It’s often taken for granted many times that divorce is a time of turmoil, anger, regret, hostility, and stress. Does that have to be the case? Recently, a “peaceful divorce movement” has developed to try to limit some of the emotional harm that divorce does to families. The goal is to enable couples, particularly couples with kids, to “un-couple” without ripping apart the legacy of their lives together. Family gatherings or childrens’ functions become a great deal more enjoyable when you don’t have to dread the presence of your former spouse. Read more
In New Jersey as in other states discussing children and parenting legal issues, the tradition of a child taking his or her father’s last name was once the standard. In recent years, however, the courts have set a new standard for names, this one is based on what the best interests of the child might be. The court is quite firm that this standard has no relationship to gender-based traditions: that is, it’s not automatic that children should carry their father’s name, if it can be shown that this isn’t in the child’s best interest.
When might it be in the best interest of the child to change names? The Superior Court has listed 4 key factors to be considered in applying this best-interests standard: Read more
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
That was a very lovely thing for Juliet to say to Romeo, but the truth is that a name is a big deal–especially when it’s your child’s name and your ex wants to change it.
Back in your grandparents’ day, there were plenty of annoying things about getting divorced (aside, of course, from just getting divorced). Your lawyers couldn’t angrily email each other; instead, they had to call and yell at each other, or worse, send irate letters via snail mail. You couldn’t fill out forms electronically, or easily print out as many copies as you needed quickly. Rather, some poor secretary had to sit and painstakingly type all the documents on crinkly carbon paper, all of which had to be tossed out if there was a tiny typo.
However, there was one big giant divorce disaster-in-the-making that they didn’t have to deal with back, oh, eight years ago: social media missteps.
The kids are back in school. Lots of things are in transition as we start the new school year. As parents, we have school obligations to help our children stay safe, feel secure and be happy. In the case where parents are divorced or separated, there can be a lot in question.
Who signs the permission slips?
What about parent conferences?
And what happens in case of emergency?
No matter what your child custody arrangements might be, and whether your divorce was years ago or the split just took place over the summer, we know there’s no “easy A” when it comes to co-parenting during the school year. But we do think it can be much less stressful!
How? Here are ten top, tried-and-true tips for making this school year a successful one for your child in the case of divorce or separation of parents and, believe it or not, maybe just maybe a good one for you and your former-spouse, too.
Tip 1: Pre-School Pow Wow
Once you have the coming year’s school calendar (typically available on a school district’s website starting in early summer), schedule a meeting with your former-spouse at some neutral locale and make sure you each BRING A CALENDAR. Map out the school year schedule from September to June, making visitation plans and custody arrangements for school breaks, long weekends, and/or early release days, keeping in mind your child custody agreement. Things may change as the year progresses, but having a basic plan in place is a good starting point.
Tip 2: Keep School Contact Forms Current & Complete
When that huge stack of forms comes home with your child on the first day of school, make sure contact information is filled in for both you and your ex-spouse, including cell phone, work numbers, physical address and email addresses. Again, it might be easy to meet in some neutral place to fill out the forms together, but however you obtain this information, make a photocopy before returning forms to school to make sure you have these numbers too! If things aren’t so amicable with your ex and he/she filled in the forms separately, call the school to request a copy for your own records.
Tip 3: No Panic Pick Ups
While filling in forms, make the following items very clearly understood: the child’s primary physical residence, who is responsible for picking the child up from school on a daily basis, which adults are allowed to pick up children from school, and which parent to call first in case of emergency. Often, there is a box to check off or fill in with this information for divorced or separated parents. Make sure your former-spouse understands and agrees to the responsibility of picking up the child in case of sickness–or if an emergency on your part prevents normal pick up.
On the other hand, there may be custody issues, such as a parent not being allowed visitation with a child, which should be noted. If so, school forms usually provide a space to write in who is NOT allowed to pick up a child, so don’t overlook naming names, even if the person is no longer part of your lives. In the event a parent without child visitation rights shows up at the school, this documentation can be very important.
Tip 4: Keep Child Custody Swaps Away from School
Even if your child’s visitation with her other parent begins on Friday afternoons, avoid making school the spot where the two of you meet. Because seeing your spouse may be filled with tension or outright anger, and mixed emotions from your child, save yourselves the embarrassment and further stress of putting these issues on display for your child’s school. If your former-spouse lives in the same town, it might be possible for your child to ride the school bus to a stop closer to the other parent’s house (provided the other parent is there to see the child home from the bus). If not, pick a neutral spot like the mall or library.
Tip 5: Participate in School Conferences Together
Back-to-school nights, sporting events, concerts, and parent-teacher conferences are important parts of the school year and you should both make every effort to be there. If there’s still animosity with your ex, make sure the school is aware of lingering family difficulties long before it’s conference time or family fun night. A simple meeting or call to the guidance counselor to explain your family’s situation is all that is needed. The school, in turn, may have a guidance counselor present or on-call during parent conferences or have their own suggestions for how to make the situation work for all parities involved, especially your child.
Tip 7: Non-Involved Parents
If a parent has moved away or is no longer involved in a child’s life, make sure to let your child’s new teachers know this. This avoids embarrassment both for your child and the school when it comes to a “Dad’s Day” type of event and your child has no one to attend. Trust us, your son or daughter won’t be alone in this. If possible, line up a grandpa or uncle to step in at moments like this.
Tip 8: Don’t Make Your Child a Messenger
“Mom says we have an early release day next week so you need to pick me up.” “Our class field trip is an overnight one so I won’t be here next Friday.” It seems easy enough to task your child with letting your ex-spouse know about upcoming schedule changes, but this information really needs to be coming from you. Want to talk to your ex as little as possible? That’s what email is for! Email also creates a written record, so your ex can’t later claim, “but I didn’t know.”
Tip 9: Everybody Helps With Homework
If you are not the custodial parent, still make the effort to help your child with homework. Though this is rarely written into any child custody agreement, the burden of keeping up with homework assignments and longterm projects typically falls on the shoulders of the parent who has custody or who is taking care of the child at the time the work is due. Want to really help your child feel consistency and stability, even as they shift between two homes? Ask them to pull out their assignment notebook and see what you can help with–this works especially well with big projects that can be worked on over the weekend. Have weeknight visitation rights? Instead of going out to dinner, why not go to the library instead?
Tip 10: When There’s a New Spouse in Town
If you or your former-spouse remarry, unless a legal adoption takes place, the new spouse should not be listed on your child’s record as a parent, no matter how close the relationship. It’s fine to let the school know that your spouse is allowed to pick up your child and can be contacted in case of emergency (though in most circumstances, the other parent should always be the primary emergency contact). If your current spouse is highly involved with your child’s life, it is completely appropriate to attend school events together. To avoid any fireworks, and any embarrassment on the part of your child, extend your former-spouse the courtesy of letting him or her know about your plans.
— Jacqueline Tourville, writes about parenting and educations issues for various web and print publications. She holds a Masters of Education from the State University of New York.
While we might all have spent some time in our childhood wondering if we could be legally separated from our parents, it’s actually a pretty unusual thing to do – and with good reason. If a petition of emancipation is approved, the child takes on adult responsibilities in the eyes of the law (though that doesn’t mean they can drink or drive) and they must prove that they can support themselves. Yet whether it’s to take on adult responsibilities or to part from an unstable home, it’s a drastic decision to make. However, more celebrities than you might think have been granted ‘divorces’ from their parents when there are child and parenting issues affecting primarily the child. Here are 10 famous kids who divorced their parents:
10. Juliette Lewis
Wild child Juliette Lewis was emancipated from her parents at the age of 14, before moving in with family friend Karen Black and then into her own apartment. She then bought a car without a valid license, dropped out of high school and got into drugs. Then she appeared in The Wonder Years. She also dated Michael Dewitt, who worked as a nanny for Kurt Cobain … and Courtney Love.
9. Drew Barrymore
Another wild one, Drew was smoking at the age of 9, drinking at 11 and taking cocaine at 13. A regular at Studio 54, she was in rehab at 13 and attempted suicide when she was 14. Then she moved in with singer David Crosby, sobered up and a year later filed for emancipation – and has never relapsed since.
8. Courtney Love
Courtney Michelle Harrison certainly had a complicated upbringing, shooting from a hippie commune in Oregon to New Zealand and from boarding school to reform school. Following childhood highlights such as unsuccessfully shoplifting a Kiss t-shirt and applying for the Mickey Mouse Club with a reading of a Sylvia Plath poem, Love applied for and was granted emancipation from her mother, who was living on the other side of the world, at the age of 16. She went on to travel around the US, England and Ireland, living on a trust fund set up by her mother’s adoptive parents.
7. Frances Bean Cobain
However, that was only the beginning of the Courtney Love story. In 1992 she had a child with her husband Kurt Cobain of Nirvana, who, in 1994, killed himself. Some years later, at the age of 17, Frances Bean was put into the custody of her maternal grandmother and her father’s sister. A restraining order was then put on Love forbidding her from any contact with her daughter.
6. Eliza Dushku
Dushku came from a happy home, completed high school and went to university. Why did the Albanian-Danish Mormon divorce her parents then? As a 17-year-old she filed for a petition to get around child labor restrictions, allowing her to spend more time on set filming for her role as Faith in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
5. Bijou Phillips
At 15, Bijou Phillips left a home, where her father (John Phillips of The Mamas & Papas) and her sister were allegedly both taking cocaine, to live alone in a Fifth Avenue apartment with her own maid, while working as a model. Two years later, after becoming distraught over the heroin overdose death of her friend, 20-year-old socialite Davide Sorrenti, she went into rehab.
4. Aaron Carter
At the age of 16, Carter filed for emancipation from his mother, alleging she had taken $100,000 from his bank account without his permission. “I feel betrayed by my own mother,” he said, according to the Hollywood Reporter. He later withdrew the petition and the pair reconciled.
3. Dominique Moceanu
Only 14 years old, Dominique Moceanu was the youngest member of the US women’s gymnastics team in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. Three years later she sued her parents to find out what had happened to her money. The following month, her former coach skipped town after reports that Moceanu’s father, Dumitru, had hired a hit man to kill him. Dumitru later denied the allegations, but took the Fifth. Despite being emancipated, Dominique eventually reconciled with her parents.
2. Jaime Pressly
Jaime Pressly was another teen with a strong work ethic – she was granted emancipation at the age of 15 so she could take a semester out of school and accept a modeling job in Japan. Due to child labor laws she was required to travel with a legal guardian, but neither of her parents could attend, so adult status was essential. Coincidentally, however, her parents, who had been married for 21 years, were divorcing at the time – but as she says, “It wasn’t a Macaulay Culkin kind of thing…”
1. Macaulay Culkin
Beginning in Macaulay’s 14th year, his parents, who had never married, separated and began to fight over their (very successful) children – and $17m of little Mac’s money. His mother, Patricia Brentrup, subsequently won custody, and at 16 he took his parents to court to gain control of his earnings, eventually paying off Patricia’s legal debts and parting ways with his father. He would later divorce his wife of 2 years in 2000, at the age of 19.
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