EXPERT HELP CRAFTING A PARENTING PLAN

Today's guest expert, Margit Crane, offers advice to parents crafting a parenting plan.

You can find Margit Crane at http://margitcrane.com

Preparing to Craft a Parenting Plan

You’re getting divorced. Your kids are shaken and you are a jumble of emotions. It is in this confusion and drama that you will be asked to craft a parenting plan. No small feat, to be sure. Hopefully, these fail-proof tips will guide your decisions:

1. Be consistent. This isn’t about you and your ex. This is about your kids. Forget about convenience. Divorce isn’t convenient. If you want your kids to thrive despite this upheaval, you need to be willing to be uncomfortable for their sake. What does this mean?

a. DO keep a consistent weekly schedule. It’s harder to do as a single parent but important to your child’s sense of security and well-being.

b. DO keep a consistent daily schedule. Again, children who know what to expect feel safer and more confident, and are able to form stronger bonds with parents and friends.

c. DON’T bring new people into your time together or into your home until you are in a committed long-term relationship. If you end the relationship, you’re not the only one to suffer and your kids learn that relationships are fleeting and people are heartbreakers.

2. Be an adult. Your child is not your confidant/e and is not responsible for your emotional, physical, spiritual, or financial well-being. You be the parent and let your kid be the kid.

a. Be responsible for co-creating and upholding your behavioral expectations and consequences.

b. Expect the behavior you’ve outlined and follow-through on the consequences, even if it’s painful for you to do. If you say one thing and do another, your kids will learn that the world - and, most particularly, YOU – is not trustworthy.

c. Get help if you need it. If your car broke down, you wouldn’t leave it on the side of the road and forget about it. That won’t repair your car. Ignoring a problem won’t repair your family either. Consult a doctor, therapist, or family coach if you are struggling.

3. Be light and polite always. This should be the rule in everyone’s house, divorced or not. And these behaviors apply to both kids and adults:

a. No name-calling, taunting, or teasing

b. No put-downs

c. Say “please” “thank you” “you’re welcome” “excuse me”

d. Don’t yell, nag, or lecture

e. Listen when someone is speaking to you.

f. Don’t use an insulting or disrespectful tone of voice when speaking to each other.

Remember: If you’re trying to convince someone to see things your way, you’re not having a conversation; you’re having a power struggle. Those don’t work.

Copyright Margit Crane 2011

Margit Crane, M.S., M.Ed., is passionately devoted to making growing up much easier for ADD/ADHD kids, discombobulated teens, and the stressed-out parents who love them! “You don’t have to sit around waiting for this latest ‘phase’ to pass,” she says encouragingly. With Margit, clients enjoy more confidence, smoother communication, fewer conflicts, closer relationships, and increased academic success, all while having a lot more FUN!

You can find Margit Crane at http://margitcrane.com

Parenting Specialist Margit Crane Offers Advice to Divorcing Parents

Guest Blogger today is Margit Crane:Margit Crane, M.S., M.Ed., is passionately devoted to making growing up much easier for ADD/ADHD kids, discombobulated teens, and the stressed-out parents who love them! “You don’t have to sit around waiting for this latest ‘phase’ to pass,” she says encouragingly. With Margit, clients enjoy more confidence, smoother communication, fewer conflicts, closer relationships, and increased academic success, all while having a lot more FUN!

You can find Margit Crane at http://margitcrane.com

How to Talk to Your Kids When Your Ex is a Jerk


I’m sitting in my office with newly 16, Marley, and her mom. Marley begins to cry because her father – again – put off her birthday celebration. She has been 16 for two weeks and he hasn’t celebrated with her yet. Mom says, “I’m sorry your father is such a jerk. I wish there was something I could do to change him.”

I’ve never met Marley’s dad but I’ve been coaching with Marley, her sister, and their mom for 7 months and I’ve heard about him from time to time. I suggest to them that it may be fairly accurate to call him a jerk, but isn’t it too easy to do so? Maybe he’s sick, literally.

Divorce is uncomfortable and confusing in the best of situations. How much the more so when parents are picking at each other, either directly or via the kids? I know that some people are jerks but I don’t believe that that’s a helpful designation or description.

Sometimes we adults struggle with alcohol or drug abuse. Sometimes we’re depressed or suffer from debilitating anxiety. But I don’t believe that most parents willfully ignore their children or set an intention to make them suffer. My parents, for example, were quite ill and, although they did some shocking and hurtful things, I don’t think it was intentional. I think that if they could have been better parents, they would have been. And I think this is true of most parents. It is sad when a parent can’t step up to the plate for his/her own child, but there may be extenuating circumstances.

So instead of calling your ex a jerk, remind your kids that they are loved beyond belief and that sometimes fathers or mothers feel sick or are not themselves and they can’t be the kind of parent that they dream of being. You don’t need to be specific about the kind of illness. Kids know what it’s like to be sick or to feel “not themselves.”

Remember, too, that rarely is a problem one-sided. Often a conflict grows out of a long-time personality clash that was never resolved and continued to grow. Both parents can contribute to the dis-ease of a marriage and we need to check our own behavior too.

If we can’t have a civil conversation with our ex, we are both responsible. Perhaps we have been unwell as well? If so, it’s time to own that and get some help for ourselves. If we don’t, we teach our kids that we’re not responsible for our own behavior and our own choices; some jerk is.

Not a very empowering lesson, is it?


Copyright Margit Crane 2011