{"id":390,"date":"2006-12-18T14:23:15","date_gmt":"2006-12-18T18:23:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/shlep\/2006\/12\/18\/holiday-hell-week-at-family-courts\/"},"modified":"2006-12-18T23:20:33","modified_gmt":"2006-12-19T03:20:33","slug":"holiday-hell-week-at-family-courts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/2006\/12\/18\/holiday-hell-week-at-family-courts\/","title":{"rendered":"holiday hell week at family courts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0Holiday spirits are put to the test in mid-December at family courts across the nation, as divorced or separated parents battle over how and where their children spend various portions of the holiday season.\u00a0\u00a0While serving as\u00a0law guardian for many children caught in the middle of such disputes, I saw how often the parents placed their own emotional\/ego needs ahead of the needs of the children &#8212; <em>and<\/em>, how often lawyers made things worse by stoking the yuletide fires.\u00a0 The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.scfamilylaw.com\/\"><strong>South Carolina Family Law Blog<\/strong><\/a> has a number of recent postings that might help to avoid court or to bring out the estranged parents&#8217; better spirits.\u00a0 (via<em> <a href=\"http:\/\/kansasfamilylawblog.lexblog.com\/2006\/12\/articles\/family-law-basics\/divorce-and-separation\/ten-tips-to-minimize-divorce-trauma-during-the-holidays\/\">Kansas Family Law Blog<\/a><\/em>)<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"83\" alt=\"espMazeN\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/shlep\/files\/2006\/12\/ESPMazeN.jpg\" width=\"75\" \/>\u00a0 Their Dec. 15 posting <a href=\"http:\/\/www.scfamilylaw.com\/children-tips-to-help-divorced-parents-resolve-holiday-visitation-issues.html\">Tips to Help Divorced Parents Avoid Holiday Visitation Issues<\/a>\u00a0has some good advice, and is based on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/10386234\/from\/RSS\/\">this article<\/a> by Dr. Ruth Peters, which covers keeping it civil, accommodating schedules, coordinating gifts, respecting each others&#8217; religious traditions, and more.\u00a0 The posting Ten Tips to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.scfamilylaw.com\/divorce-ten-tips-to-minimize-divorce-trauma-during-the-holidays.html\">Minimize Divorce Trauma During the Holidays<\/a> is also worth reading by parents <em>and<\/em>, if they have them, their lawyers.\u00a0[via <a href=\"http:\/\/oc-divorce.typepad.com\/california_divorce_and_fa\/\">California Divorce and Family Law<\/a> weblog]\u00a0 You can find a link to an article on Holiday Blended Families issues, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.scfamilylaw.com\/relationships-magazine-article-helps-blended-families-with-holiday-issues.html\">here<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0 I suggest you wait until after the holidays to deal with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.scfamilylaw.com\/children-dependency-deduction-guidelines-for-noncustodial-parents.html\">Tax Deductions and Non-Custodial Parents<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.abanet.org\/family\/advocate\/\">Family Advocate<\/a><\/em> magazine, from the ABA&#8217;s Family Law Section, often has excellent materials on parenting after divorce and finding alternatives to ugly divorces. Many editions are turned into Client Manuals.\u00a0 For example, check out:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Client Manual:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.abanet.org\/abastore\/index.cfm?section=main&amp;fm=Product.AddToCart&amp;pid=51311002601\">What Your Children Need . . . Now!<\/a>\u00a0 <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"44\" alt=\"stockingR\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/shlep\/files\/2006\/12\/stockngR.jpg\" width=\"40\" \/><\/li>\n<li>Client Manual: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.abanet.org\/abastore\/index.cfm?section=main&amp;fm=Product.AddToCart&amp;pid=51311002901\">My Parents Are Getting Divorced<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"95\" alt=\"espMazeG\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/shlep\/files\/2006\/12\/ESPMazeG.jpg\" width=\"85\" \/>\u00a0Here are my own <a href=\"http:\/\/www.singlesoutreach.org\/Resources%20and%20Links\/tipsforparenting.htm\">Tips on Parenting-Apart<\/a>, which I used with a course for separated parents.\u00a0 If you&#8217;ve been warring with your &#8220;ex&#8221; over parenting issues, consider changing your ways in the New Year &#8212; for the sake of your children.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0Holiday spirits are put to the test in mid-December at family courts across the nation, as divorced or separated parents battle over how and where their children spend various portions of the holiday season.\u00a0\u00a0While serving as\u00a0law guardian for many children caught in the middle of such disputes, I saw how often the parents placed their [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":437,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[896,897],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-resources-consumer","category-resources-practitioner"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/437"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}