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557920441-close-up-of-boy-kicking-soccer-ball-gettyimagesIt’s that time of year again – like it or not, the kids are back in school! This means busier schedules and more activities, but hopefully getting back into a routine is helpful for everyone in your family. Those open houses, parent-teacher conferences, sports, recitals, and other activities probably mean seeing your ex-spouse a whole lot more than you may have needed to during the summer. At the very least, it may be daunting to think about having to sit through these activities amicably, verses seeing your ex quickly during dropping off or picking up the kids.  How do you manage co-parenting for these activities? Some families choose to divvy-up which parent goes to which activities based solely on who has custody of the children during that given time, while other parents don’t want to miss a thing. This is a parenting challenge where those parenting plans play such an important role in your divorce. If you already agreed on how you will handle this it may be black and white for you and your family. However some grey area is to be expected; father-daughter dance falls on mom’s weekend? – do you want to be the parent that takes that away from your child because of a technicality? Probably not. There may be times that you think it will be impossible to be in the same room as your ex-spouse. You certainly don’t need to sit next to your ex on the bleachers during your son’s football game, but for the sake of the children you should sit down with your ex and determine what works best for attending activities. Whether you divide the games evenly and both attend the big games/recitals/conferences or you choose to formulate another game plan, it’s important to do this ahead of time to avoid arguments and misunderstandings later. It’s not always easy, but co-parenting amicably can give your children stability and close relationships with both parents. Some day you and your blended families may have that moment together on the bleachers, but you don’t need to push it before everyone is ready.
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DVOctober is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month. One in four women (25%) has experienced domestic violence in her lifetime. Separated and divorced males and females are at a greater risk of domestic violence. However, it is difficult to track the percentage of divorces that were the result of domestic violence simply because they are not recorded as such and because many divorcees hide that they were/are a victim of abuse. Even if you are not a victim of domestic violence, as a community, we owe it to one another to become educated in order to detect, and offer support and shelter for victims suspected domestic abuse. In a national survey of American families, 50% of the men and women who frequently assaulted their wives also frequently abused their children. Protect yourself and your children. Keep good records. As long as you are still living with your spouse or partner, record every incident of physical or emotional abuse that involves you or your kids. Write down the date, time, and place of every event, along with a description of what happened and any injuries to you or your children. Make a plan to stay safe – after you decide to get out, do some planning to put a safety net in place. Try to save some cash, and stash some clothes for yourself and your kids with a friend. Make sure that friend’s home is not somewhere your partner would immediately think to look for you (i.e. Not your best friend’s or parent’s home). If you are a victim of domestic abuse know that you can get help. There are programs across the country which provide immediate assistance for survivors of domestic abuse and their families. One amazing resource here in the Twin Cities the Domestic Abuse Project, or DAP, which helps victims develop safety plans, file protective orders, and find safe shelter. They also reach out to all victims of domestic violence identified in Minneapolis police reports to provide ongoing support and make critical resource referrals. DAP Therapy works with adult male perpetrators of violence, adult women survivors of violence, and children and adolescents who have witnessed or experienced abuse. To find out more about DAP visit www.domesticabuseproject.com. Other helpful links and phone numbers: – The Minnesota Domestic Violence Crisis Line is available 24 hours a day at 1.866.223.1111 www.dayoneservices.org – The National Domestic Violence Crisis Line is available 24 hours a day at 1.800.799.SAFE www.theHotline.org – Locate a domestic violence shelter near you at www.domesticshelters.org  
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78485715-family-talking-outdoors-gettyimagesIt happens all the time – the parents who stayed married “for the kids” eventually do go ahead with the divorce. When parents’ divorce while the kids are still young, or at least minors, the children really have no choice but to adjust to their new schedules, in most cases they still see both parents, and after a while their parent’s divorce is a thing of the past and eventually everyone learns to live with their new normal. No, it’s not always quite that easy, but as minors, even when the children are upset with one parent they have no choice but to accept that they are still under both parent’s roofs and rules, and generally they enter adulthood having established some form of relationships with both of their parents as individuals. When couples with adult children divorce things can be a bit dicer to navigate. Adult children are not forced to maintain a relationship or share custody with either parent. Taking sides and determining loyalty may be expected from parents knowing that their children are old enough to make their own judgements. Instead of these parents deciding where the children have to spend holidays those are now decisions adult children now need to make on their own. These decisions can make for very difficult situations for adults, and can even lead to family fall outs. Unlike when children are young, people don’t concern themselves with the emotional, physical, and financial toll of divorce on adult offspring. Watching the family home and assets being packed up and fought over shatters your world, no matter how old you are. So how can you make your divorce easier on your adult children? Encourage them to focus on their own lives. Don’t put them into a situation where they are forced to choose a side. It’s unrealistic to expect your adult children to spend Christmas eve with Dad and Christmas day with Mom, especially as they establish families of their own. Respect boundaries, divorce with dignity by not bad mouthing your ex to their children – just because they are adults and can handle it, doesn’t mean they should have to. This isn’t to say that you should keep things from your adult children, simply that unhealthy bashing is not good for either party. It’s natural to need to talk about the divorce and your past, but having a good friend to vent to rather than your children may help you to filter what is necessary for your children to know or not. Maybe you are not quite to the graying divorce yet – perhaps you are amongst those with younger children still and are considering a divorce or “Staying together for the children.” Research shows that adult children of divorce are less satisfied in their lives compared to adults from intact and happy families, however, they ARE happier than adults from families that were miserable but stayed together. This confirms that if you and your spouse really can’t stand each other, and “staying together for the children” means raising them in a miserable and unhappy home, divorce might be a better idea.
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Cooler weather, changing leaves, and pumpkin spice lattes, oh my! Fall is in the air and you too can enjoy it on a budget! As soon as the cooler weather hit in August it immediately felt like it was time to hit up an apple orchard or pick out pumpkins to decorate the front porch. Fall is a treasure here in Minnesota and there is plenty of free or low cost family friendly fun to be had this fall! We never know if we will get one month of fall weather before winter hits or three, so get out there and enjoy it while you can! Apple orchards and pumpkin patches seem to become synonymous in the fall, with many farms offering both. This is great for those strapped on time as well, especially if you only have the kids every-other weekend since you can essentially take care of them both in one stop. You won’t have to travel far to find top-notch apple orchards or pumpkin patches around the Twin Cities. Here are a few of our favorites: Emma Krumbees in Belle Plaine, Dehn’s Pumpkins in Dayton, Minnetonka Orchard in Minnetrista, Afton Orchards in Hastings, Deerdorf Orchard in Waconia, and Apple Jack’s in Delano! View a complete list of all 119 Minnesota Apple orchards here. Don’t forget to bring the camera! Fall photo opportunities are everywhere at orchards – start thinking about those Christmas card photos! Bring the fun home and bake an apple pie or two with the kids! Have you been to the Saint Croix River Valley in the fall? If not, you are missing out. Whether you take a day trip with the kids or want a low key but impressive date night, the views of the changing leaves along the river can’t be beat! Depending on where you live in the cities you can check it out within just a half hour to an hour drive. Take a stroll along the river in Stillwater, trolley tour, gondola ride, or one of the many charter cruises offered on the river. Looking to get a little further out of town? Head south a bit to the LaCross/Onalaska area on the Mississippi River in Wisconsin for one of the most scenic fall drives in the country! To ensure you hit the leaves at the peak times watch the Fall Color Finder on the Minnesota DNR website. If you need a little more action after a relaxing day trip check out one of the many corn mazes, haunted houses, and hayrides across the area. And finally, are all your friends posting about that coffee shop pumpkin spice latte? You too can enjoy that on a budget! Who needs a $5 coffee when you can make it at home for CHEAP! Thank you Pinterest! Just type in “pumpkin spice latte” in the search and you’ll have dozens of recipes at your fingertips to make your own at home! Here is one that’s perfect for a crowd, great to throw in a thermos for a cool evening football game or a hayride: Crock Pot Pumpkin Spiced Latte
  • 6 cups of milk
  • 4-6 cups of strongly brewed coffee
  • 1/2 cup of pumpkin puree
  • 1/2 cup of vanilla extract
  • 1/2 cup of sugar
  • 2 teaspoons of cinnamon
  • 3-4 cinnamon sticks
In a crock pot, combine the milk and coffee. Whip together the pumpkin, vanilla, sugar and cinnamon and pour into the crockpot. Mix together well. Toss in 3-4 cinnamon sticks. Cover the crockpot, and cook on high for 2 hours. Enjoy! Happy Fall!
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When you were married there as probably a time (or many!) when you thought that keeping track of schedules was difficult and time consuming. Now that you’re divorced managing schedules can feel downright daunting! Your family is now divided into two schedules, and possibly being pulled into even more directions if either spouse if remarried and have added even more children or step children into the mix. It’s perhaps every divorced parent’s worst nightmare – imagining their child waiting at school or another activity and no one picks them up. Depending on the age of your children this can be a very scary scenario, not only for the child, but for both parents, and can certainly cause a lot of friction and conflict amongst co-parents. So how do you keep schedules strait to avoid this sort of issue? Many former spouses may not feel comfortable sharing their full personal calendar such as Outlook or Google, which doesn’t merge the two schedules anyhow, or maybe you still haven’t upgraded from the paper calendar on the wall?  Luckily for you there are many online tools devoted to just that – managing divorced and blended family schedules. Websites like cozi.com and many more, offer free online access to a shared calendar, and you can also authorize stepparents, grandparents, etc. access to the calendar. Your co-parent may not be as committed to the idea of online communication and planning as you are. If you are in the beginning stages of divorce, your communication and schedule sharing is an important piece to add into your parenting plan. If your children are a bit older – preteens and teens, they would likely appreciate an online calendar that they can also access to give them a bit more stability in knowing their schedule. One could argue that it shouldn’t be difficult to manage a set schedule, say, if you have your children Wednesdays and every other weekend, however kids are much more over scheduled then they were years ago, and when you add activities, and more children into the mix you can never be too prepared.
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108746711-pointing-to-oneself-gettyimagesCo-parenting can be challenging even in the most amicable divorces, but there are some personalities disorders that make co-parenting downright difficult. Among these include, but are not limited to: bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, and narcissistic personality disorder. We are going to focus on narcissists in this post. Narcissists have a magnified sense of self-importance and lack they empathy for others. Narcissists insist on getting their way regardless of how it may affect others, even their own children. They may make promises to the children in order to gain compliance from the child, then refuse to honor the promises. They can be arrogant, self-centered, manipulative, demanding, and vain. As co-parents, these individuals often feel superior to their former spouse. It is challenging to reason with a narcissist, or attempt to try to get them to see the situation from someone else’s point of view, which makes co-parenting together a great feat. Sound familiar? Most importantly you must know that your ex’s personality disorder does not need to define your divorce. One of the best things that you can do in this situation is file a parenting plan with the courts. A parenting plan will outline anything from daily routines to holiday schedules. When dealing with a narcissist the more information you have laid out in writing, the more black and white it becomes. A parenting plan with help to maintain firm boundaries with your ex. When co-parenting with a narcissist you may need to keep your expectations low. You cannot expect the narcissist to tackle parenting with the same parental instincts that you have. What seems like second nature to you, may never cross a narcissist’s radar. Because a narcissist places no value on their children’s feelings, there will likely be emotional messes to clean up. Get your children (and you) into therapy and make it a regular and “normal”  part of their lives. Take comfort in knowing that you are not alone. There are support groups out there, both online and in person, that are aimed specifically towards coping with a narcissistic ex. Divorce is never easy on children. Coping with a narcissistic parent makes a stressful situation even more difficult, but not impossible. Educate yourself on co-parenting through these challenging times, and also commit to self-care to provide some reprieve.
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185223738-social-media-gettyimagesWhat do you remember about the 90’s? The band Hanson, the Backstreet Boys, and Céline Dion? Wayne’s World,  Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, The Titanic movie, and hyper-colored T-shirts? One thing you won’t recall – social media. For better or for worse, there was no social media in the 90’s, at least not what it is known as today. In the 90’s (and before) when you got a divorce you didn’t have to navigate whether or not to make your relationship status “Facebook official.” You didn’t have to decide when or how to tell your 345 Twitter Followers that your last name changed or better yet, see who notices and awkwardly asks you about it. Deciding when and how seems to be all personal choice based on what you feel comfortable putting out there online. So let’s discuss whether or not it’s a good idea to stay “friends” online with an ex. One could argue that if you have kids together, you want to see what photos of your children are being posted online. This becomes difficult in that it could be emotionally damaging for you to see every ice cream social, park play-date, snuggles by the fire, etc. that your children are having with your spouse while they are away from you. For some it is comforting to see these photos, for others it may be downright painful, and even create jealously. Photos of the children may just be the tip of the iceberg – what about when your ex-spouse starts dating? You see a man or women tagged in a photo, human nature leads you to want to know more, so you click on their name and find yourself looking through all the photos and status updates that you can get your eyes on. What you may have thought was harmless in staying “friends” with your ex has now become emotional self-destruction. Maybe you made it this far unscathed and now your ex is dating someone and you’re ok with that, but what about when the ex’s new partner is now in photos with the kids? Your kids. At that new amusement park YOU had planned to take them to. Do you see the emotional roller coaster that social media has created? It’s a double edge sword. As a co-parent you don’t want to miss out. You want to see every photo and moment of your children that you can, but you need to establish boundaries that create the least amount of hurt in the long run. Have this discussion with your ex. Maybe you decide that you both take a social media break until things are more stable. Perhaps being online friends with your ex is just not for you, that is realistic too, and perhaps the healthiest way to navigate social media with your ex.
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556243319-line-in-the-sand-gettyimagesIt’s Friday night and your children are with your ex for the night. It should be a nice quiet, relaxing evening, or maybe a great time to tackle that organization project? Possibly even a date night?! Instead, you’ve already burnt your own dinner because your ex has called you 14 times already with mindless questions about the kids. “Blake doesn’t want to eat chicken nuggets, what do I do? Can you just talk to him for a minute and see if you can talk him into eating?” “Kara had a potty training accident, what do I do? Can you bring over more clothes?” “Cole refuses to do his homework, what do I do?” Your quiet night alone has turned into YOU still doing the bulk of the parenting, when you just want to scream, “You’re their parent too!” to your ex. How can you set up boundaries to avoid arguments and resentment regarding your parenting time while away from the kids? Let’s face it, it’s not that you don’t love being a parent to your children. It’s just that you went through this divorce that (maybe) you didn’t necessarily want, then (maybe) you had to argue a bit over custody, and now that everything is settling you are trying to make lemonade from your lemons and actually enjoy your “free time.” You might also start to wonder whether all those calls are because your spouse is being needy or if they are trying to keep you from enjoying your kid-free time. You and your ex have children together; therefore, you must be in contact with one another on a regular basis. This also means that you should establish boundaries. Hopefully you have created an environment that supports you, perhaps you need to do ask your ex to do the same. Ask your ex to expand their network, reach out to siblings, parents, friends, etc. A network of people they can call before coming running to you first. Encourage your ex to evaluate how often and why they are calling you. If it’s multiple times during their custody visits maybe you need to give a specific number of times that you can be called, so your ex should evaluate how important the call is. There are several areas where boundaries may need to be established. Maybe you’ve had a fairly amiable divorce and your spouse still walks in freely into your home unannounced? It is best to lay down ground rules that said they are to knock on the front door just like any other house, now rather than in a sticky situation later. You can rest assured that setting boundaries, and maintaining the proper space between you and your ex (children or no children), is a healthy way to divorce with integrity. Setting boundaries will help you to feel more in control of your new life.
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535246039-conflict-arguement-between-african-descent-gettyimagesDid you wake up today and think to yourself, out of the blue, “I want a divorce.”? Not likely. Often divorce lingers in one’s mind and consumes one’s thoughts more months, even years. Contemplating divorce involves a lengthy process of weighing pros and cons, thinking about life without your spouse, what things will be like for the kids, managing finances, maybe having to go back to work or change jobs to make ends meet on a single income, and many other scenarios. Even once all things have been taken into consideration people sometimes get stuck on bringing it up with their spouse, that alone could take months. Then once they do bring it up, the spouse might convince them to stay and work things out. Months, maybe years later sometimes this cycle begins again. There are no right or wrong answers when considering how long you should “think” about it before filing for a divorce. Some circumstances beget immediate consideration, while many wish to attempt marriage counseling and other resolutions first. Whatever then length of time that you’ve been considering a divorce, here are some important steps to take before going forward:
  1. Make copies of federal and state income tax returns from the past five years.
  2. If you don’t have a credit card in your name, open one up in case of an emergency.
  3. Establish online access to your joint bank accounts and check the account regularly for any unusual activity, which could include excessive spending or withdrawals.
  4. If you have a safety deposit box, photograph and inventory the contents.
  5. Obtain a copy of your credit report to see if you have any liabilities you might be unaware of.
  6. Obtain a copy of your will and powers of attorney.
  7. Go for a consultation with a divorce attorney even if you are still unsure if you want a divorce. Knowledge is power.
  8. Consider seeing a therapist for your own sanity and an unbiased opinion.
  9. Remember that, “Divorce isn’t such a tragedy… a tragedy is staying in an unhappy marriage, teaching your children the wrong things about love. Nobody ever died of divorce.” – quote by Jennifer Weiner, Author.
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Divorce brings up many feelings, including feeling helpless. Sometimes you feel like your life is spinning out of your own control and you are left helpless. There is a quote by Aung San Suu Kyi that reads, “When you feel helpless, help someone.” So what does that mean? We have all experienced times in our life where we feel like the world is against and nothing is going right, divorce being one of them. The easiest way to get out of feeling this way: if you are feeling helpless, help someone. It helps us realize that we are all in this together, and we all have real life problems. In fact, it often helps us realize our problems are not nearly as big as someone else’s are. This is not to say that your problems are not important, but we are all fighting our own battles and you never know what the next person is battling. Not sure where to start? Strapped for time and/or cash? Whether it’s finding a cause that you are passionate about and seeing where you can best share your time and talents, or simply random acts of kindness, no gesture is too small. See if there is a committee at church where you can lend a helping hand, register for a 5K which supports a cause that you care about, ask an elderly neighbor what they could use a hand with over the weekend, etc. If you have children, of any age, but especially teenagers (good grief!), chances are they too are feeling like their lives are suddenly beyond their control, as they likely are. Help them find something they can control, because when you feel helpless, helping someone else is very empowering. Check into age appropriate volunteer opportunities at a local shelter to serve meals to the homeless, packing meals for children overseas, collecting coats and blankets and dropping them off for the homeless; the opportunities to help people are endless. Teaching your child that giving back to others will not only empower them in an otherwise helpless situation, but also helping others becomes a life lesson they will remember for years to come. As Ghandi stated, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” Start with yourself and then with your children.