I know what overwhelm feels like.  In the early days of my divorce, overwhelm and fear were my constant companions.  I was very lucky though, that I never let these feelings get in the way of my accomplishing my biggest task to date – the raising of my daughters.  They were my number one priority and I’m so glad I made them such a priority, because they are now lovely, successful, productive young women and I’m proud and happy of the job I did as their dad.

How do you accomplish this ultra important task?  One of the best ways is to listen to your kids with complete attention. Oh, I know, it was hard not to be off in la-la land with the boys playing poker and smoking cigars, but when my girls wanted my attention, they were my number one priority and they got my attention.  When I wanted just ten minutes to watch the news without interruption, too bad.  I had them; I got a divorce; they were my priority so they got my attention.
It’s a proud moment when a soldier gets a medal for some element of bravery or honor, but as a single parent, you should be awarded medals throughout your day.  When you selflessly set aside your own desires, and you stop what you’d prefer to be doing to focus your complete attention on your child, it’s medal time!  My kids were such a precious commodity, that the nurturing they needed (and sometimes it seemed to be a relentless, gaping maw) was a privilege to me to provide.  I think that parenting is a sacred trust and should be dignified with your full attention.  Stay-at-home moms are the Executive Directors of the souls and minds of our nation’s incubators.  They are the accomplishers of gargantuan tasks.  
Well, you might not have the privilege of staying at home.  You might have to be out in the work place.  That doesn’t mean your kids play second fiddle.  They don’t play second fiddle to anything you want to do.  They must come first, or the bruises of your inattention will show in society.  When a plant suffers from inattention, it dies.  Think about how inattention touches your kids, and resolve today that they will get your complete attention.

My Virtual Assistant told me the story of how she accomplished attention with her sons.  They got her complete attention up until the time when they went to bed for the night.  After that, it was “her time” and they could no longer make requests of her unless they were ill.  It took a while for the “Mommy, I want a drink of water” comments to stop because she just told them “I have given you my entire day.  This is my time now.”  It was good for her to set these boundaries.

Your children will blossom as plants do that receive full attention.  They are worth all the effort it takes. Once your focus becomes “them,” your overwhelm, stress and fear from the divorce will all disappear.

Len :: Aug.26.2008 :: Caring for your Children :: No Comments »

Your kids worship you.  They are unaware of many of the details that life involves.  All they know is that there is this Big Person standing over them who radiates love toward them and they feel good being loved.
Sometimes your love for them assumes the form of stern insistence.  Sometimes your love for them creates balloon jump rides at birthday parties.  Sometimes your love for them points determinedly at the bathroom where their toothbrush lives that should be now moving up and down over their teeth before they go nightie night.  Sometimes your love sees them in a cute outfit and you just have to buy it.
Your love means that you keep your kids at the forefront of your thoughts night and day until they can take over that job for themselves.  One portion of your love is occupied with their becoming adults because you are the main influence on their lives.
I suffered with trepidations when my girls went off to school for the first time because I knew that I wasn’t going to be the only source of information for them any longer.  I knew that they’d bring home to me what they had learned and that I would remain the judge of it’s rightness or wrongness for them.  I’d have preferred they not experience wrongness, but they had to see life as it is, not as how I wanted it to be for them.
My influence on my kids ran it’s fingers through every aspect of their lives.  I was their chief cook and bottle washer.  I was their launderer.  I was their nurse.  I was their teacher.  I was their maintenance man.  I was the parent with the main presence in their lives.  It’s not uncommon in a divorce for one parent to be doing the real parenting – all the little stuff, day in and day out. Buying the groceries, helping with homework, monitoring their computer use, etc. And sometimes the other parent is mostly concerned with the big events. You know, being front-and-center for their birthday party; buying them jewelry from where they went on their latest vacation, and never buying them tennis shoes.
If you’re the Big Event Type, ask yourself if what you’re doing is for you or for your kids. Are you doing the showy things to make yourself look good and ignoring what really matters? If you are, I’ve got a newsflash for you – it doesn’t make you look good. Your fifteen-year-old doesn’t really need diamond earrings. It’s not a competition. There’s really only one question that matters. Are you contributing effectively to the upbringing of your children? If you really feel the need to do the showy things, go ahead, but make sure you also contribute in little ways. The stuff that really matters to your children are the things that no one sees when you’re doing them.
On the other hand, if you’re a divorced parent who is really conscience about parenting, good for you.  Keep it up. Don’t feel sorry for yourself. Being a good parent is truly its own reward. You are doing important work. It’s the most important job you will every have. I have clients that have tens of millions of dollars, but they cannot buy what you have with your children. So remember, you influence them everyday. Make it a point to teach them something positive each day.

Len :: Aug.21.2008 :: Caring for Yourself After Divorce, Caring for your Children, Disciplining Children :: No Comments »

When I was thirteen years old, my moral foundation was tested when my best friend called me all excited and said to come over to his house.  He lived in an old two-story house with a big attic that you could walk in.  He had been in the attic and found an old Playboy magazine with a photograph of a young model, staring into the camera not wearing a top.  We could see her bare breasts.  Moral behavior aside, other than National Geographic photos, it was the first time we had seen bare breasts.  

To us, this photo was a treasure and there might be more treasures down in the walls of the house!  Imagine these two thirteen-year-old boys, up in the attic, reaching down between the 2 x 4’s into the walls of this old house trying to find more pictures of naked woman.  

Everyone knows that is just about what you would expect from thirteen year old boys.  But back in that day, there was no cable TV and we watched shows like The Brady Bunch and Gilligan’s Island.  There was no Internet, nor were there magazines at the grocery store check-out promising you the top ten sex secrets to make your lover go crazy.
Neither my friend nor I turned out to be sex perverts, but we both had parents that gave us rules and they enforced those rules.  There weren’t many outside influences countermanding those rules.  Today, a child can get on the Internet and find pictures and even videos of people doing things we never imagined when my friend and I were thirteen years old.
As I grew older, I look back and realized that whenever I was facing different and challenging conditions, I had been blessed because I had been given a strong moral foundation. It was my parents and your parents’ role to give each of us a strong moral foundation.  Once we had that foundation, we could say no to all the negative influences in the world.  
It’s our role as parents now to give our children strong moral foundation.  If you can establish a strong foundation, your children will become successful adults and they will carry that foundation with them through whatever the future has in store. The scary part about today’s world is that there are more outside influences than ever and they have an influence on your children.  Again, every generation has its challenges. Here are the steps you take to establish your moral authority so that you can create young adults who have the same basic values you do. 

Five Tips for Establishing a Moral Foundation for Your Children.
     

1. You are the most important role model and influence that they have or ever will have.  They will model your behavior for years.  So, in colloquial terms, don’t just talk the talk, walk the walk.  Live the way you want them to live.  That’s the most powerful influence in their lives.  As adults, we’re always looking for cues on how to behave.  Children are especially looking for clues, and you’re the most important one, so live your life the way you want them to live theirs.  Be honest, treat people the way you want to be treated, make your decisions on love – not fear.  Give more than you receive.
     

2. Control their access to the Internet.  If they have their own computer it should not be in their room. It should be out in the open where they’re using it.  If there was an Internet when I was fourteen, and if I had my own computer, I would have spent an awful lot of time on Google looking for sex and naked women.
     

3. Communicate with your children but don’t be their best friend. They have lots of friends; if you’re their best friend, you’re on equal level with the other friends.  You need to establish more authority than just a friend.  Friends come and go.  Friends can be influential.  You need to be the rock that they can always count on, the compass that always points to true north.  Nowadays more than ever, kids need parents to be a parent, not a buddy.  The world is confusing and you need to point the way.
     

4. Establish your home as a safe place.  What I mean by that is you have to impose rules and consequences if those rules are broken, but they have to know they can talk to you about anything and that you always have their best interest at heart.  They have to know they can count on you when they make decisions that may not be popular with their friends.
     

5. Keep your finger on the pulse of their life.  Know who they are hanging out with, know what they’re watching on TV, and know what they’re listening to.  I don’t mean go through their drawers and snoop.  You won’t know everything they do; you can’t.  You’re not going to be standing next to them, but you can get a feel for what kind of friends they’re hanging out with.  Don’t let them retreat into a world of their own where they’re listening to their MP3 player all the time.  There is a lot of poison being sold under the label of music.  What are they watching on TV?  My kids watched MTV and sometimes I made them turn it off.  Other times, they watched things I didn’t care for.  Personally, I don’t think there’s anything worthwhile on MTV but ultimately they weren’t harmed by it because we had a balance.  You can’t protect them from everything, but don’t get so wrapped up in your own life that you aren’t aware of what they’re doing and who their seeing and how they’re interacting with people.

If you’re fortunate enough to have relatives nearby who can help mold moral behavior – grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins – they can also be a positive influence.  If you don’t have relatives, there are friends, neighbors, parents of other children, school teachers, community programs, etc.

It’s that old saying, “It takes a village to raise a child.”  You want to create that virtual village to surround your children as much as possible with positive healthy influences so you can establish a strong moral foundation.

Len :: Aug.21.2008 :: Caring for your Children, Disciplining Children :: No Comments »

Throughout the course of any marriage, property is accumulated.  You’re in love, and as you stroll through shopping areas, you think that certain things will make the relationship happier.  You started out with an empty apartment or home and before you knew it, there’s no room left for anything.  If a divorce enters this scene, all this “stuff” becomes one of the biggest issues, because now this property will have to be divide between the two parties upon the finalization of the divorce. You’ll need to determine spousal support.
A divorce property settlement is an enormous challenge.  In addition to the splitting of the acquired assets, you have to form an agreement about tax liability intrinsic to those assets as well because some of your assets might come with a huge tax bill. You’ll need to discuss the ownership of stock options, IRA accounts, state and local taxes, any existing Retirement Accounts, the capital gain for home ownership, and any ownership interests that may exist in a business with their value.
In Ohio, marital property is most often separated equitably.  This means, however, that the divorcing couple must agree on what items are marital property, pre-marital property and separate property.  Separating the marital property equitably doesn’t necessarily mean equally; but it does means fairly.  The court will take several factors into consideration to decide what is fair in each individual case.  These factors include the duration of the marriage, the assets, custody issues, and tax consequences.
Additionally, not all divorce cases in Ohio include spousal support payments. These decisions are made on a case-by-case basis and vary in amount, duration, and terms of payment.  Again, there are several factors that go into deciding if spousal support will occur and of what it will consist.  These factors include each individual’s income, earning ability, retirement benefits, duration of the marriage, standard of living, and custody and other circumstances surrounding children.
With so many factors involved in the division of property, it’s difficult to say exactly how your property will be divided in the event of a divorce.  An equitable agreement between you and your ex taking into consideration all the factors you are aware of is a great beginning.  Doing research on the internet for the laws in your state is another practical step.  Seeking the advice of your family lawyer can help you better anticipate what you might be able to expect from this portion of the divorce proceedings. When you get a divorce, be sure to examine all the property assets and the resolution of spousal support.

Len :: Aug.12.2008 :: Caring for Yourself After Divorce :: No Comments »

When you go through the painful divorce experience, sometimes revenge runs rampant inside your mind, doesn’t it?  You certainly don’t like what’s happened to you.  You want to blame someone because certainly you are faultless and blame free.  You wouldn’t mind it too awfully if someone else hurt as much as you do.  You frequently turn this type of thinking toward your ex, whom you think of as the ogre.  
The bottom line is that is really does take two to tango. Regardless of who is to blame for the divorce, you are one of that partnership and you’re in this specific experience for your own good. I’m going to share with you a few ideas about how to glean that good from all the goop.
Lots of our spiritual leaders have told us to forgive and forget.  Sounds great, but how do we do this with all those raging emotions caroming around inside of us?  Through choice, deliberateness, putting our children first on the list, and being introspective.
Choice.  You always have a choice in your life.  You can live it awash with emotion, or you can choose something different.  You can choose to take a deep breath.  You can share with your children that you are getting in control of your emotions.  Don’t forget:  you are their role model.  You can have a few moments of silence to recover your equilibrium, and then you can choose to deliberately be calm at that very moment.
Deliberateness.  Is it possible your ex will do things deliberately to stir you up?  It’s possible.  Can you do anything about their actions?  You can not.  You can only control yours, so why not decide today precisely what you will think the next time he/she tried to bait you.  How about this:  I am centered in my own truth and the lies that come at me fall away harmless without my emotional reaction.  Or create one of your own.  “I know you are but what am I?” won’t work, so you’ll have to dig deep and come up with something that will work for you.
Put Your Children First on the List.  You want to set an exemplary example for your children.  If your emotions are not in control, that’s what you are teaching them.  If you gossip about your ex in front of them, that’s what you are teaching them.  If you keep an undisciplined environment, that’s what you are teaching them.  If you are unforgiving and you refuse to forget what’s happened in the past, that’s what you are teaching them.  
Forgiveness can be easy.  You simply say the words “I forgive you.”  You follow those words with a good reason for why you forgive them.  “You must be in a world of hurt yourself to say something so hurtful to me.  You must be ignorant of how hurtful those words are to me.  You must be awash in emotions yourself to lash out so.”  You are forgiving and you are giving a reasonable excuse for his behavior to yourself so that you can let go of it.  Drop it and move on with your life.  Forgiveness is for giving yourself your own next best thing.  What a wonderful  thing to teach to your children.

Len :: Aug.11.2008 :: Caring for Yourself After Divorce, Current Affairs, The Pain of Divorce :: No Comments »