…sending stuff to them (I love to make cookies for them), webcam visits, phone calls…and them having good quality time when they are with us with lots of hugs and affection will be remembered and cherished…they will keep them warm even when our arms aren’t there to hug them.

– Deb, a long distance mom

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?

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 all of the promises you make.

If you’ve got pictures of him as a baby or even better, you and him, those could be good to show him. He probably does have SOME memory of you.. it’s just not shaped into ‘parent’. Telling him what you remember or showing him pictures can be a good way to reconnect what memories he has with you.

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 none the less.

At the beginning of the school year, here are the necessities to have :

• School address and phone number
• Teacher(s’) name(s)
• Teacher(s’) contact information
• Class schedule
• School handbook – gain understanding or grading periods, testing etc
• Principal, Vice Principal and School Counselor’s names and contact information

Once YOU are all set, use this as an opportunity to connect with your child about the big day!

• 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.

This is a really touchy situation from the mailbox.

First, I would recommend finding support – either through this site or the other sites out there geared towards long distance parenting. Via these resources, start to put together a realistic idea of what you’re facing before you make your final decision. It’s a hard road to hack and not every parenting relationship is cut out to handle it.

If there is one thing I work with on a regular basis with my life coaching clients who are parents, it is to walk the walk. Kids are smart and they read more between the lines then they actually do the lines themselves.. because let’s face it… they don’t listen to a word we say.

If you’ve decided to move, you HAVE to be able to see it as a positive yourself or you are not going to be able to convince your child to see the positives. If you see it as a horrible thing, your child will pick up on that and see it as a horrible thing, no matter what comes out of your mouth or how real your fake smile seems.

So your first assignment is to make a list with three columns : the positives, negatives and remedies. For each negative, write something in the remedies column… a few things that you can make it a little better. The remedies will NOT completely solve every negative but they will… (More)