Q : My son is young and I have been out of his life probably for as long as he can remember. I would like to start contact again but I don’t even know where to start. Any tips on how to start or what to do?

A: I would recommend talking to a child psychologist to get some good insight. They be able to give you good pointers and reliable advice based upon your specific situation and your specific child - and should you ever need to go to court, that is a mature, responsible approach that will be on your side.

Past that, slow and easy. Write letters or cards, even if you live in the same city. Do supervised visitation for a while to make sure he feels completely comfortable with you before you ask for unsupervised time. Don’t expect miracles and try to remain humble and hopeful even if you have a tough day. Get onto a schedule that he can depend upon. Be reliable. Don’t make promises you won’t keep and keep…

This one is from the mailbox :

“My ex continues to make excuses as to why she does not answer her phone, which is my only contact with my kids. She is in one state and I am in another. My question is…is there anyway to make my ex legally responsible to answer her phone when I call? “

I’m not an attorney and this is not legal advice. I don’t know the whole story, only what’s been presented. This is from my own limited experience only.

Although a judge might never tell her she has to answer the phone, a judge will definitely enforce reasonable requests to talk to your kids. The ONLY way to prove that this is happening is to document every single instance that you call and the outcome for each time. Back this up by getting copies of your phone records. Once you have a bit of proof (more than a few phone calls), then you don’t call the authorities but instead, you put together a ‘motion’ and take her to court.…

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So you’re in one place, your child is in another and they are getting ready to go back to school. As a long distance parent, if you want to keep up with your child, how they are doing and what they are doing, school is a big part of that. Your child spends a good portion of their life in school so the school has a lot of information about how your child is doing. The school is also obligated by law to cooperate with you.

Here are the first steps to getting involved in your child’s schooling.

Here is a letter to send to the school to remind them of your rights as a parent. You should send this each year, just to be safe.

Once you’ve got all of that under your belt, they key is to be persistent. It never fails that the school will ‘forget’ to keep you in the loop and the other parent will think it is unnecessary. It is necessary and you have to be your own advocate. Insist… politely, perhaps, but insist…

• Send your child a back to school care package with cool pencils, folder, notebooks or even back to school clothes.
• Call your child on the morning of his/her first day of school before school to wish them luck and/or after school to check on how their day went.
• Keep a binder, folder or letter tray for your child’s school information, progress reports etc for that year. At the end of the year, close it up, stash it and start a new one.