When you live away from your kids and the custodial parent, exchanging checks or eyeballing the same physical document is not possible. Fortunately for us, these days, the internet hosts a variety of websites with services or tools that allow you to do just that.

There are a plethora of paid shared custody tool websites, which I will cover in a later post. However, there are ways to manage these tasks really simply, for free, and maybe even using tools that you already use.

Paypal

When parents don’t live close together, handing the custodial parent a child support check every month isn’t an option. Or when your child has an unexpected ER visit, it might not be feasible for the custodial parent to wait a week to receive your part of the medical expenses and for the check to clear their bank.

Paypal is quick, reliable and easy. Once your account is set up (which can be a rather lengthy process, if you don’t already use paypal), you can send money to anyone who has a paypal account – ie: the custodial parent, hopefully.

Best of all, it records every transaction that you can easily report on. No more hanging on to receipts,check stubs and bank statements in order to prove that you paid your child support on time or that you paid your part of the medical bills.

Google Docs

If you’ve ever had to go through one of those mind numbing conversations or email chains… (More)

When my son is here with me, there are a bunch of shows on hulu that we like to watch together. He snuggles up to me (don’t tell him I told you that) and we get into the show together. He anticipates what shows will be on when and we don’t watch the ones we both like until we can watch them together.

Yesterday, during internet visitation, I suggested we watch one of our shows together. In retrospect, I’m not sure why I never thought of that before. We picked out a show and synchronized pushing play. After each commercial break, because commercials are kind of random and we had different commercials, we’d pause until we were both ready to push play again.

We could laugh at the same times, he could ask questions, we could comment on what was happening. It was almost.. ALMOST like we were right there together again.

In the beginning of my long distance parenting arrangement, my son’s father and I agreed to split air fare in half with his half not to exceed a certain amount. This went into our long distance parenting plan.

However, if that’s not possible, in California, travel cost associated with the children becomes a credit in the child support calculation. In our case, since we split the travel, it’s a wash but if you can’t split the cost of travel, check with your state on how that can factor into child support.

It is a sad but often true scenario. The non-custodial parent moves away and the custodial parent gets angry. Not that non-custodial parents NEVER get angry. They do. But there are a few pretty typical perspectives in a moveaway that breeds resentment. From the perspective of the custodial parent, you are escaping. You get freedom. You have options they don’t have. They are tied down. They have all of the responsibility. You have none. Gah! I know. I know that isn’t necessarily the case. I know it might not be true. But if you can TRY to understand that perspective, you’ll be a whole lot closer to defusing difficult situations.

That said, very often, long distance parents and custodial parents find themselves on the other side of smear campaigns both legal and towards their own children (Parental Alienation Syndrome). And while custodial parents might ALSO find themselves the subject of similar situations, in the case of a non-custodial parent, these campaigns can very often cost them custody, visitation and involvement in their child’s life and even their relationship with their own kids.

To avoid the worst case scenario, non-custodial and long distance parents need to be on their A game. They have to be proactive and they have to know HOW to prove that they aren’t the monster they are made out to be.

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I was trolling the net for long distance parenting stuff and I ran across this gem : Instructions and Guidance for your Long Distance Parenting Plan by the 6th Judicial Circuit Court of Florida, Family Law Division.

It’s a really great rundown of the stuff to consider in creating a long distance parenting plan including a good list of links to other resources as well as to sample parenting plans including important aspects of long distance parenting such as travel arrangements.

It wasn’t so long ago that a ‘long distance parenting plan’ was unheard of and long distance parents were considered deadbeats by default and automatically discounted in their efforts to maintain relationships with their kids. Kudos to this court for being proactive in their effort to help these situations be easier and healthier to all involved.