At our home summer means that the children are going to be traveling to see their other parents.  Our paperwork states six weeks is to be spent in another state, and if we don’t agree to the dates, its the first six weeks of summer.  As little children six weeks was a very very long time to change households. We divorced when the children were very young, so letting a child go for six weeks was pretty tough. We recognized very early on that it probably needed to be adjusted and so we did.  We work very hard to work with both sides of our children’s families. The grandparents are very important to us as well as our children’s need for both families to know and spend time with them.

As teenagers it seems that the tightrope gets higher. Youth camps, work, sports and friendships mean that often teens don’t want to go for six weeks at a time. I feel strongly that they need time with their dad as well, but costs are prohibitive to travel them cross country multiple times. This summer we staggered when our 13 and 16 year old go to another state.  Their summer options and trips meant that 3 weeks was much more to everyone’s needs being met including their other parents. To be there three weeks with a break of a week or more at home meant that everyone could recover and at the same time have long enough to relax between another three weeks later in the summer.  Many parents I know have found this to be helpful or to break it up in to two weeks and two weeks followed by two weeks with weeks at the residential parents in between.

When the children were smaller it felt like I was always the “give” on the schedules that conflicted.  I understood I had the children all the time, but I also had the school hours, sleep hours and weekends they were often with their dad.  It is important for each family to have the fun times, vacation times, and down times as well as the parenting times of homework, etc. It felt like my side was heavy on the responsibility, his side was heavy on the fun.

As mine are now reaching college, I hear them saying the fun things they did with Dad, but they are indeed remembering the closeness of Mom….My belief is that there is enough in our children’s hearts to allow all of us to love them….and they will only be benefitted when we allow them to love us all!