“The easiest way for your children to learn about money is for you not to have any.” – Katharine Whitehorn

One of the reviews on a Battlestar Galactica CD at Amazon.com is from a woman who says it ruined her marriage.

Her husband became obsessed with the television show, then went onto websites, Twitter, Skype, listening to podcasts, texting and chatting about the show.  Finally he went to a Battlestar Galactica convention in Texas and now lives with a woman he met on the website.  She says he forgot all about his wife, children, family, home and job.

They are now involved in a bitter divorce.  This can’t be good for his custody and visitation case.

LeBron James said last night that he asked his mother, Gloria James, for advice while he was making up his mind to play basketball for the Miami Heat.

In the meantime, Leicester Bryce Stovell, 55, was filing suit in the U.S. District Court in D.C., claiming that he is LeBron’s father.  Stovell is a lawyer in private practice, formerly with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The 22 page, 95 paragraph complaint alleges Stovell met Gloria in a Washington bar in 1984 and goes through the history of their relationship.  Stovel is suing both LeBron and Gloria for $4 million for fraud, defamation, misrepresentation, breach of oral contract and tortious interference with contract.

Robin Rivers has posted an interview on OurBigEarth.com with Calvin Sandborn, lawyer and author of The Kind Father.

Sandborn says that we learn to talk to ourselves in our heads with the same voice that we learned from our father.  In trying to teach children to be successful and assert control or power over others, the traditional father addresses his son from a height and treats him harshly.  (“Show him you’re boss!” “Suck it up!” “Don’t be a wuss!”)

The son uses the same voice that his father did when talking to himself.  As a result, the son’s inner life becomes a harsh place.  He tortures himself with cruel self-talk, has contempt for himself and then transfers that contempt to those around him.

The answer, says Sandborn, is to begin to treat yourself compassionately.  Banish the Harsh Father in your self-talk.  Speak daily to yourself with kind and encouraging words.  If you can do this, then you can become your own Kind Father and have more compassionate relationships with your children and others around you.

Christopher Perry, at CNN.com writes about his painful conversation five years ago with his five and seven year old sons that he and mom were not going to live together any more.  The seven year old tells him “It’s going to be ok.”  The divorce, however, was less than cordial.

Perry tells of the tears, frustrations, laughter, joys, happiness and awe with his children as each Father’s Day ticks off the years.  At the third year, the youngest asks him when he is moving back.

Now after five years, he realizes that it really is going to be ok.

My most important client is not the diplomat who called from overseas for wire instructions so he could send me his retainer for a post divorce dispute.

My most important client is not the stock broker who made a million dollars last year and is looking at life time alimony and his soon to be ex-wife’s mounting legal fees that he may have to pay.

My most important client is not the wealthy businesswoman who brings her daughter to my office for a parenting plan and separation agreement.

Last night, my seven year old son looked up at me and said, “Dad, can you come to my school play tomorrow?”  I set all those urgent cases aside this morning and spent three otherwise billable hours waiting for my son to say his three lines.  Because he is my most important client.

My son finished the last two problems on his math homework a bit two quickly I thought as he stuffed it into his backpack.  I asked him to let me see it.  It was multiple choice.  His answers were wrong.

“I just guessed,” he said.  He was in a hurry to get to his DSI, which if you have kids you know is a handheld electronic game.  I wish he applied just ten percent of the energy and time he spends on that game to his school work.

This morning, I had an idea.  I told both my children on the way to the bus stop, “Boys, life is like a giant DSI game.”

“It is?” they chimed.

“Yes, each grade in school is a different level.  Every grade you get in a class is like a Pokemon (pocket monster) that gives you additional powers.  There is a Pokemon for math, one for reading, one for spelling, one for science and so on.  Show up.  Be aggressive.  Attack your work.  Get as many Pokemons as you can.”

“Gee, Dad, you must be on level 100 by now.”  I smiled.

In a recent New York case, a judge decided that the father should have unsupervised visitation with his child after a transition period to be supervised by a transition therapist.  Then, when the therapist decided the time was right, visitation would be unsupervised.

However, the appeals court found that “The court improperly delegated to a mental health professional its authority to determine issues involving the best interests of the child, i.e., when unsupervised visitation should commence.”

The court told the parties that they would have to make another application to the court regarding unsupervised visitation, at which time the court may render a decision on that issue, with the assistance, if necessary, of further reports from the intervention therapist.  Linda R. v Ari Z., 71 AD3d 465 (2010)

The court has ruled that Joseph Reyes will be allowed to take his 3-year-old daughter, Ela, to church according to the Chicago Sun-Times.  Rebecca Reyes, who has full custody of the child in their divorce proceedings, said the father was breaching an agreement they made that Ela would be raised in the Jewish faith.

The court also ruled that the father would have Christmas and Easter holidays with the child and the mother would have the Jewish holidays.

But Reyes still faces contempt sanctions for taking his daughter to church in violation of a previous court order.

The legal standard in deciding who will get custody is what is in the best interest of the children. Every judge sees it differently.  If the judge’s father abandoned his family and the judge’s mother slaved day and night to help her son through law school, then the judge will have a hard time understanding why a father should have custody.  The mother does not have an automatic edge in litigation.  The fathers win in at least half of the litigated cases.

There are also certain doctrines and presumptions (but not inflexible rules or requirements) which aid the court in determining the best interest of the child:

Parental rights, Parents must be shown to be unfit before the children will be given to someone else, such as grandparents.

Continuity of placement. If children are doing well where they are, do not mess things up by moving them.

Children’s preference. A judge will consider who the children want to live with. The judge may talk to the child in private and may talk to a child younger than fourteen years of age. The judge is not bound by what the child wants.

Other. The court can consider the custodian’s age, health, wealth, religious beliefs, conduct, type of home, psychological evaluations; the location of the residences of the child’s siblings; the child’s school performance; or anything else the court considers important.