Mediate Michigan

An article by Stephanie Esthers which provides great insight into how to handle the holidays when parents live apart can be found here.

Among the tips the article provides:

Holiday advice

Advice for parents who are separated or divorced and possibly living in a blended family — to make the holidays happy for you, your children, your stepchildren and everyone involved:

• Respect the custody order.

• Be amiable, friendly and respectful to the other parent and others involved in trying to work out holiday arrangements.

• If you are the host parent for the holidays, respect and be as consistent as possible with the rules the child follows in his primary home. Make sure your expectations of the child are well spelled-out so she knows what’s expected of her.

• Give the child coming to stay at your home a space of his own. The space does not have to be an entire bedroom but should be a place — a closet, drawer or side of the room, for instance — where he can store his belongings while visiting.

• Do not use your child as a spy or tattletale about goings-on in the other parent’s home.

• If you are the host parent, allow your child to telephone the custodial parent during the holiday visit.

• Ensure that all children in the home receive the same number of gifts and that those gifts be of about equal value.

• Be inclusive: Don’t exclude or overlook a child based on your feelings about that child’s parent. And don’t exclude stepchildren from family activities involving relatives not related to them by birth.

Sources: Diane Marquess, Family & Children Services, Kalamazoo; Cheryl Parente-Roggow, Plainwell Counseling Center, Plainwell; Jane Nelson-Holmes, Mid-America Psychological Services, Portage; and Tom Flemming, Divorce & Family Mediation, Kalamazoo.