Here’s a stellar example of two divorced parents handling an exchange. Parents have an obligation to act this way.
Here’s a stellar example of two divorced parents handling an exchange. Parents have an obligation to act this way.
[Consult with a family law attorney in your state; I am not an attorney]
As an airline pilot who has gone through the family court system too many years to remember, I’m asked frequently what custody arrangements should be used from fellow divorcing airline pilots.
The answer initially depends on how far the pilot lives from his children. If the pilot lives more than an hour’s drive or so away, alternating weekend possessions don’t work. Instead, request the ability to choose two weekends per month in your decree.
If the pilot lives in the area of the children, however, then approximately 50% of the time the children should be legally allowed to be with him or her.
The problem is our irregular schedules, and getting the legal system to understand how they interfere with seeing our kids if a standard visitation template is given to us. Most judges really don’t understand the changing schedules of pilots, firefighters, police officers, doctors, etc. They’d prefer to just approve a standard visitation template to make their jobs easier. This is where you need to find an attorney who understands variable possession orders, or airline employee possession orders (each state has its own name for it).
As an airline pilot, you’re aware that there are rare flying jobs with a typical 8am to 5pm schedule that most workers have. So a standard visitation order of alternating weekends (first, third, and fifth weekends typically) or weeks will not work for the vast majority of pilots.
So this is what you need: a variable possession order based around the airline pilot parent’s schedule. The alternative is severely diminished time between you and your kids.
The best way to go about this is to hire a family law attorney who’s familiar with these types of custody arrangements. This is critical. If he or she is board certified, all the better. If you don’t hire a family lawyer, your lawyer’s lack of knowledge in this area could result in a decision by the judge that steers towards the default standard possession order.
Once you hire an attorney, help him or her draft the language in an order to best enable you to see your kids on your off days. Many attorneys don’t understand the kind of schedules we have. This is your decree and your kids, so take an active part in making sure the language doesn’t hurt your ability to see them.
The important point is this: you and your attorney should demand a decree that offers possession of your kids on all or most of your days off, up to a maximum of 15 days per month. 50/50 physical custody, or as close as possible.
Seeing both parents equally, or as close to it as possible, is clearly in the best interest of your children— a standard used by every state. Don’t expect your ex to agree to this, however. There are many, many ex’s who will try to limit your ability to be with your kids.
Typical (weak) objections by the other parent to variable possession orders:
Some sample language for your decree, or as arguments to opposing counsel [Consult with a family law attorney in your state; I am not an attorney. Many family law attorneys will, in fact, find the below helpful]:
Other things to consider (run these by your lawyer, too):
I have noticed that in the majority of airline pilot divorces that the ex does not go along willingly with this visitation arrangement. So be prepared to have to fight this in the family court system.
Sample airline pilot possession orders [Consult with a family law attorney in your state; I am not an attorney]:
If you remember only one thing, please remember this:
You and your kids should not be penalized by your employment as an airline pilot. Fight for the common sense right to see them as much as they see their other parent.
One lie that many brainwashing parents do to their children is making up completely fictitious stories about why the ex did not appear for, or appeared late for, visitation drop-offs or exchanges.
In my case, I told my son and his Mom that I wouldn’t be able to pick him up for consecutive weekends ahead of time. Funny thing is, I actually figured his Mom might bring him to the normal 4pm Friday exchange location anyway. Sure enough: she did. The next time I saw my son, he mentioned that Mom has been taking him on those Fridays to the exchange point in order to wait on me. He said that he was “confused.” Of course he was– confusion between my words of “I won’t be there on these weekends” and Mom’s act driving him there in order to wait on me, knowing full well that I won’t be there.
This is another sad example of parental soul-destruction leveled onto children. To take pleasure in watching your children absorb with heartache the lie that the other parent doesn’t care enough to show is very sick.
Here are some examples of how these mentally abusive parents operate:
SITUATION #1
You are 5 minutes late.
MEANING GIVEN BY YOUR EX TO YOUR KIDS
You don’t really care that much about seeing them. If you did, you would never show up late.SITUATION #2
You need to move the time back 30 minutes due to traffic, work, etc.
MEANING GIVEN BY YOUR EX
Ex shows up at original time and explains how inconsiderate you are to be 30 minutes late.SITUATION #3
You let ex know you’ll be out of town for a weekend or month.
MEANING GIVE BY YOUR EX
Ex shows up at your weekends’ normal time and place with your children, and informs your children that their Mommy or Daddy must not love them very much and doesn’t want to see them.
Parents willing to do this are completely OK with seeing their kids suffer. Instead of building the little tikes up with excitement, which is what nurturing parents do, these bad exes would rather plant a mean lie into their kids’ heads in order to poison the relationship to their very own parent.
So it’s important to always talk about any missed or late drop-offs or exchanges with your kids. Mention how you’re sorry you’re a bit late, and the reason. If you’re gone for a weekend or more, let them know ahead of time, and also address it when you see them again. Ask them directly, “You haven’t waited at all where I didn’t show up, have you?”
You’ve got to be assertive but calm with issues like this involving your brainwashed children. Once your ex pulls this harmful maneuver, you also need to tell your children this:
“Son, if you ever show up and I’m not there at all, know that there’s a misunderstanding or a missed phone call or something. As I would never not pick you up unless it was something big or was a big misunderstanding.”
And if your children have a cellphone, instruct them to text or call you if they are ever waiting and it seems that you won’t show up.
Remember, you need to be assertive in these matters around your kids when they’re in the midst of a brainwashing campaign.
Dreading the post-visitation shakedown
When your child is dropped off with your ex following your weekend or other multi-day visitation, a brainwashing parent will usually give your kid(s) a post-visitation “shakedown”.
The goal of the parent doing this is to extract all the details, looking for those that put the other parent in bad light.
The poor child knows the parent wants to hear only the bad (nevermind that he/she just learned how to, say, ride a bike for the first time during this visit). So the child states the case the alienating parent wants to hear, often exaggerating or even lying.
How do you combat this? You can’t, mainly because you know it’s going on but you can’t prove it. Moreover, you simply can’t control the other parent’s behavior. So what you do is not think about the “shakedown” event. As long as you’re being the best parent you can be and do not engage in the awful behaviors the alienating parent is, you’ll come out fine in the end. And the child will remember the campaign against you eventually, and how fraudulent it was.
This, in turn, turns into the brainwashing boomerang.
It’s a shame what parents will do following a child’s time with a parent. The attempt to strip the bonding moments down and label them something different is without question child abuse.
Because time with you is damaging, of course!
I’m experiencing in my case severe programming in a desperate attempt to sever my son’s relationship with me. One of the things my son’s mother does is place him into counseling after every father-son time we have. That’s right, usually the very next Monday or Tuesday after the Sunday evening exchange he is placed into child therapy. This has been going on for many months now.
It’s very frustrating to see my 9-year-old son go from a highly enjoyable visit with me (my tactics in fighting back the brainwashing are slowly working, thank God), to being dropped into counseling.
I set myself an appointment with the child therapist a day after my son was placed there, and the therapist said there were no issues in my son’s nearly 3 weeks with me.
So why was he brought in? Counselor couldn’t answer.
I believe that his mother thinks that time with me is harmful to him, that my being in his life is harmful to him, and that the way to “recover” from the awfulness of spending time with a (unwilling to be acknowledged by her) loving father is to get help from a therapist.
Unfortunately in my case the therapist is completely clueless to the brainwashing mother is doing– so clueless that he denies any active brainwashing is going on! Just some “influencing” in my son’s mind. By whom? I ask? “Perhaps a parent”… Please… This after the countless stories I’ve told him and the video and audio tape showing my son’s anguish. It’s a “he said; she said” thing according to him.
When an ex places your child in counseling after nearly every visit with you, what message is that sending the child? That being with you is not a normal, OK thing. That obviously something not good or harmful certainly happened to the child during that time.
It’s sick.
If this happens to you, you need to be assertive in standing up to the child therapist on what exactly it is he or she is treating. See what codes are being documented on the billing to the insurance company. Sit in on sessions like I have, and take good notes. There are many incompetent child therapists out there.
In my case, the therapist didn’t have much to say, and even prevented me from seeing the progress notes when I asked to see them– he needed to see legal proof of my rights to see them. Can you imagine any divorce decree where a parent is specifically denied access to medical records? Amazing.
My battle is just beginning with that incompetent child therapist. Never assume that a therapist knows what he/she is doing and isn’t aligning with one parent over the other. Get your own trusted child therapist always.
Parents who view visitation with the other parent as something that’s a necessary evil often count down not only the days in front of their child, but hours too.
If a parent says to the child “Honey, I miss you so much, only 40 hours until I see you,” what is that telling them?
First, it tells them that there’s a mental clock counting town the time until “freedom” occurs. Until the misery of having to be with the other parent is over. It’s simply not healthy for parents to use such countdowns.
My son’s mother does this. Just yesterday it was “40 hours.” Not 2 days, mind you. 40 hours.
What she should be doing is asking him what he’s doing, to support those things, and then say “have a blast tomorrow, I’ll talk to you then.” Period.
So if your child mentions “only 35 hours until I see Mom,” you know what’s going on the the parent’s mind.
There will be situations when your ex will demand that he/she be allowed to appear at an event, or else the child won’t be allowed to come.
Last week my nephew was prevented from accepting a trophy at an awards banquet simply because his Dad wasn’t allowed to attend (Dad is involved in a highly toxic divorce with my sister).
Dad said that if he’s not allowed to attend, then his son won’t be there, either. And that’s what happened: I, as the uncle, was there to see the trophy, while my nephew sat at home because Dad was punishing his ex.
Yet never mind the punishment meted out on his own son– preventing him from the thrill of accepting a trophy won in a horse riding competition.
This is just another form of using children as a pawn, and it happens too often in separations and divorces. Instead of doing what’s best for the children in all instances, bitter ex’s lash out, and damage their kids in the process.
I’ve experienced this now several times, so it’s time to expose it to other parents.
When your child is with you but talking on the phone to their other parent, one tool the parent uses to lessen the value of your child’s visitation at your home is to tell them great stuff that awaits them back home.
The past two visits, my son has been reminded of both a horse purchase and a fish tank purchase. “Aren’t you excited to come back and see your new horse?” “This aquarium is so amazing, don’t you wish you could see it?”
You’ll see other variations such as:
1. Parent telling the child that he missed his friend’s birthday party, or some other function
2. Parent telling the child how much he’s missed, multiple times, to make the child feel rx generic viagra guilty about being away
3. Parent acting as though the stay is terrible for the child, saying things like “everything will be alright, Charlie, you’ll be home in just two days and things will be fine again.”
Tips to combat this pointless behavior from the parent who’s lashing out?
Have a normal, fun time with your kids. At the end of every day of your visitation ask them, “What did you enjoy doing most today?” And take a few pictures and videos every day. Post them online, or somewhere that the child can see them. Make the actions memorable, which will be far more powerful than the other parent pulling down the child’s enjoyment with you using words.
In today’s computer age, there are some very cool, innovative ways to stay in contact with your child who’s living with your ex. So when you can’t be there in person, here is a quick rundown of the top 7:
1. Telephone/cellphone (directly speaking to child)
2. Telephone/cellphone (leaving a nice message when unable to speak to child)
3. Email (kids start using it as young as 4-5 years of age)
4. Text messaging, or text messaging apps like Whats App or Viber
5. Skype video conferencing (both computers must have the software, but the video chat is free. Great for long distances)
6. Send postcards (or better yet– personalized cards where you can draw funny things or make longer comments)
7. Send letters (timeless)
When you have your kid for your visitation time, oftentimes the other parent knows he/she has only one way of brainwashing your kid during those days. The tool used?
The telephone/cellphone.
The alienating parent will try one or several of the following tactics:
1. Keep the child on the phone for a long time
2. Inquire in a negative spirit how the visit is going. Instead of “tell me what you did today,” the sentiment more like “Are you doing OK?” “How much do you miss me?”
3. Tell the child about a big surprise awaiting him/her upon their return
4. Tell the child how much the parent misses them, that the time apart is very difficult