Divorced Dads Struggle with Visitation

    For many children, the standard visitation model — every other weekend and a few hours on Wednesday — means that every few days they leave their home for a new one, where different rules, standard and expectations apply. For many children, this transition is a challenge. 

It does not have to be as bad as it often is, says Marjorie Engel, retired president of the Stepfamily Association of America . “The biggest thing is the attitude of the parents,” Engel says. “They need to continue to co-parent even if they have different roles.  There has to be communication between the parents.”  

According to Engel, an ideal back and forth would include a checklist of items the children need and a conversation beforehand to make sure each parent understand that “hey, our son has decided not to cut his hair anymore” or “he is taking this kind of medicine at this dose.” While Engel says the rules need not be the same in each, parents should keep badmouthing to themselves. “There will be times when the parents are still angry at each other,” says Engel who encourages parents not to let that anger influence their children.

That is easier said than done, says Elisa Cooper of Seattle, Wash., a child of divorce who is now the stepmother to a 9-year-old boy who stays with their family every other week for one night and selected holidays. “It’s two nights a month and only 26 nights a year. That’s just not enough time,” Cooper says.  When her stepson does come to the house, things are not always good. 

“We have our good weekends and our bad weekends,” says Cooper who says the bad weekend are compounded by the things the child’s mother often says about his father and also by the guilt she gives him about leaving her overnight. “Often he will get into our car crying about something his mother said or did to him right before he was dropped off. It takes him a day to unwind from the emotional battery,” says Cooper. “Then by the time he has relaxed, it’s time to go again and he starts to get angry and he closes down and whines about having to leave and he asks, ‘Why can’t I have more time with my Daddy?’”  

According to Cooper’s husband, Sean, things have changed somewhat over time. “In the beginning he would cry and tell me he didn’t want to leave,” he says. “Later he became distant when it became time to go drop him off. He would withdraw into himself and not talk about an hour before we had to drop him off. Now I can get small conversations going with him during our drive, but he is still distant.”  

Cooper knows firsthand how difficult things can be for children shuttling between two homes. But she saw how parents who generally get along can influence their children’s experience of the divorce and the back and forth. “She (my mother) worked hard, sacrificed and provided for us and still allowed us a relationship with our father,” says Cooper whose father eventually moved to Los Angeles, several hundred miles away from his children.   

The transition was difficult, she says. “I cried, my sister cried, my brother cried. It was awful. My mom encouraged us to write to him. We talked to him on the phone. Being able to look forward to his visits was comforting.”  It was that encouragement that Cooper credits with helping to form the bond she now shares with her father.  She worries that her stepson will not have that same opportunity.   

“My husband doesn’t want to be the proverbial ‘Disney Land Dad’ and have to bribe the child with expensive activities,” Cooper says. “Because of the limited amount of time that they can be together, that their bond is not very strong. And the mother doesn’t encourage the relationship at all.” The fight has worn the Coopers down. “We have gone to court and we have had to spend thousands just for his right for the every other weekend access to this kid,” Cooper says. “We’re honestly done, it’s so tiring.”