Help Your Child Cope with Long Distance Parenting
If you or your ex are relocating after your divorce or separation, you know it is going to be hard for your child to stay close to the non-residential parent. However, as the residential parent, there are many things you can do to encourage them to interact and many ways to provide support during this difficult adjustment.
Plan It Out
The most important thing you need to do, when your child is no longer going to be living near the other parent, is to sit down and have a detailed talk together as parents about how you’re going to make this work. If you’re the one moving, you may have had to get court permission and a court-approved plan for visitation, but even so, there are details that need to be worked out. It’s essential that, as the residential parent, you make it clear to the other parent that you want his or her relationship with the child to thrive, despite the distance. You need to emphasize that you want to support their relationship.
Spell It Out
Once you and the other parent have a plan, share it with your child. Your goal is to reassure him or her that the long distance parent is still going to have an parenting important role. For younger children, it can help to use to a calendar to show when they will go visit the other parent. Color this area of the calendar in or use stickers to make it stand out. Share all the details of the different ways child and parent will be able to stay in touch in between visits.
Plan Expenses
Discuss travel expenses. If your child will be traveling to visit the other parent, who is going to do the driving, or who is going to pay the airfare? Arguments over these costs are the most common stumbling blocks to long distance visitation and if you can negotiate them now, you’ll save yourselves, and your child, a lot of heartache later. Many parents share these costs, but if there is a large financial disparity between your incomes it may make sense for the wealthier parent to pick up the cost.
Rely on Technology
The best way to keep kids in touch is to let them have direct contact with the other parent via cell phone, Skype, FaceTime, or at least an instant messenger app on an iPad. Empower your child to be able to contact the other parent himself is he is old enough.
Share
Non-residential parents often feel out of the loop even when they’re living in the same town with their children, and it can be worse if they are across the country from their child. As the residential parent, make a point to share things that are happening in your child’s life with the other parent. Instead of throwing out homework papers that come home, stuff them all in an envelope and mail them every week or send a photo of the really good ones over to the other parent. Send along the school or classroom newsletter. Email photos you take of your child and videotape events the other parents misses.
Reach Out
Don’t hesitate to pick up the phone, or encourage your child to do so, to ask the other parent for suggestions for school projects, sympathy over a sprained ankle, or help with a friendship problem. Remember that a lot of the time our work as parents happens when our children reach out to us with a problem. The other parent won’t have the opportunity in those moments unless you encourage your child to reach out.
