Christmas is a week away. Hanukkah is right now. Families are gathering to celebrate their most intimate times as a family. Your marriage may not be in the best of shape; you wouldn’t be on this site if it were. But your children don’t need to be exposed to that; chances are that they know it already. Children are utterly dependent on their parents; they are highly sensitive to any threat to their support.
This is an opportunity to put aside your resentments and anger toward your spouse and give the children the warmth, love, and sense of security that is crucial for their development into healthy and successful people. There is time enough once they are back in school to give us a call and deal with the marriage that you cannot tolerate any longer.
If you are already separated or divorced, don’t put the children in the middle. Maybe Dad is supposed to pick the kids up at 5:00 pm and he is an hour late. Is that right? Of course not. It is not fair to you and it makes the children anxious. But this isn’t the time to made a scene. Let the children enjoy their time with Dad; he is going to have to shape up and the time to tell him is later, when the children are not around.
If you are Dad, picking up the kids on time and Mom isn’t there, just to spite you, is calling the police really the best response? Again, that puts the children in the middle during a family holiday season that is very important to them. It may be your 30th Christmas; it may be their third or fourth. Don’t spoil it for them with adult conflict.
Does that mean that you should just let things like that go? No, it does not. A child custody and visitation agreement is, first and foremost, for the benefit of the children. Children need both parents. You may hate each other, but that is not a problem for the children to deal with. Put them first.
Once the holiday season is over, you may need to come to mediation, or go to therapy, to work these issues out so that they do not occur again. If that is not going to work you may have to go to Family Court, to get a Judge to intervene with an enforcement or contempt order. Best is that you put your children first, rather than using them as pawns in your own continuing battle, and make decisions that work best for them
Merry Christmas; Happy Hanukkah, happy whatever holidays your may have now of which I am unaware, and have a happy and prosperous New Year. May blessings be upon you all.
Fred Klarer
