Parenting is a skill-set and long distance parenting adds a layer of complexity. Long distance parenting is easier and less stressful with the right long distance parenting tools on hand.…
A common question that long distance parents have is 'how can I stay close to my child, when I'm long distance?'. Of course, there are a ton of ways to…
My son went off to college last fall. In many ways, it was the end of what had been a very long long distance co-parenting saga. He would turn 18 shortly after leaving for college. No more child support. No more wrangling school and travel stuff with my co-parent. We had reached the finish line.
In many ways, our relationship is changing in the same way most relationships between young adults and their parents change. He’s coming to a better understanding of how real, pressing and heavy adult responsibilities can be. He has also, more than once, expressed gratitude to me for things I did in raising him or just adulting while raising him. I’m coming to a better understanding of him as a real adult person. I’m letting go of ‘parenting’ and getting my sea legs with just supporting and friending.
But in many ways, college is a different kind of long distance parenting relationship. My son is off to college about a day’s drive away and living in the dorms. He isn’t home in the afternoons or evenings after school and he still alternates breaks between me and his dad. So our interactions are brief texts, an occasional phone call and video chat, when I can talk him into it. Seems pretty familiar!
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Leading up to this moment, I'd been contemplating the co-parenting long game. How age 18 wasn't the end of the road. My son is 17 now and we are talking…
For the first time ever, you are a parent without your child. For the first time, you feel a million miles way from them, even if you are really only…
A long distance parenting plan is an arrangement for how you will co-parent a child when one parent is not within close physical proximity. It is one part of a court order.