Holiday Child Custody tips for Divorced Parents

For divorced parents, the holidays can be a stressful experience. All too often, divorced parents cannot agree on who will get the kids and where they will spend the holidays. The arguments begin around Thanksgiving, peak at Christmas carry on through New Year’s Day.

This is not just hard on the parents. Holiday arguments can deeply affect children of divorce as well. For children of divorced parents, the childhood holiday memories many of us look back on fondly become filled with arguing and holiday stress. With holiday visitation around the corner, the Huffington Post’s Stacy Schneider wrote an interesting article featuring her tips to ease holiday custody fights. We would like to share of her tips and some additional tips with you.

Planning holiday visitation is incredibly important and is not something to be left until the last minute. This helps to avoid last minute arguments. When planning visitation, do so in detail. Include every detail you can think of, including pick up and drop off times and locations as well as who is spending what part of the holiday where. Putting a plan in writing can help resolve any miscommunication ahead of time.

It is not just important to plan and communicate with your ex-spouse, it is important to communicate with your children as well. Children can deal better with holiday stress when a plan is in place and they understand what is going on, so it is best to include them in your plans. Additionally, some children will feel guilty when leaving a parent behind on a holiday visit. Having a plan for what you will be doing while they are gone and communicating that plan to them will help to alleviate any guilt the children may be experiencing.

Sources: Huffington Post: Avoiding Holiday Custody Tug of Wars; Stacy Schneider, 11/10/2010

Evansville Courier & Press: Planning, new routines can ease holidays for children of divorce; Davi Stein, 11/30/2010