Arranging Visitation After Divorce

Series Summary

Divorce is never an easy topic to discuss with your child. It is vital to talk to your child and let them know it is not their fault and mommy and daddy still love them. Just because mommy and daddy are leaving each other doesn't mean they love their child any less. It can have a long lasting affect on a child's life depending on when the divorce takes place. Communication and love is the key to helping a child get through this rough and awkward experience. In this free video series, let a childcare psychology expert show you how to cope with the after affects of a divorce. She will teach you how to arrange visitation rights and arrange vacations. You will also get instruction on relocating and maintaining a child's personal belongings. Most importantly, our expert discusses sitting down with your child to tell them about the divorce. Help make this period as smooth as possible for your young one with help from an expert.

Video Transcript

"Hello, I'm Dr. Felicia and I'm here to speak to you about how to arrange a visitation after a divorce. Now, this is never a happy time for any family, but, for children in particularly, it's their world that crashes the most. Whether they remain with mom or with dad, visitation between each other has to occur. If you have a high conflict divorce situation, the best way to handle visitation is to have either parent pick up the child at the school. For instance, a dad might pick up on Friday afternoon from the school and have visitation for the weekend and bring the child back to school on Monday and then of course mom will get the child Monday evening after school, if that's the arrangement. A particular arrangement that does not work is when you have a child in a split week, where they might leave school on a Tuesday evening, take a bus home to the parent's house and then on, on following week, on a Wednesday, they might take a bus to the other parent's house. So you want to be as congenial as possible. If you mix the split week with the children, they usually get very mix up and sometimes even take the wrong bus home. So please, when you arrange visitation, try to split it through a school day so that neither party has to negotiate with each other, either party has total ownership, each party has shared custody and certainly the right for visitation with their child and the right to privacy while they're visiting. So, when you arrange this visitation, try to use the school as an impartial mediator to pick up and deliver your child. And also, if you need to communicate, communicate by email. Email takes the emotional blunt out of a typical phone conversation, if you should get into an argument or fight. Every time you do that, it's your child that suffers. So try to detach by one; using the school system for pick up and drop off; two, by using email for conversations and any arrangements that need to be made and three; by all means reassure your child every chance you get that you still love them very, very much. Happy visitation, enjoy."