Darryl Payne of New Jersey was married with three adult children and living with his wife when he began dating Emma Walden.  Darryl and Emma had a daughter together.  When they split up, Emma  got custody of the daughter and Darryl got visitation on Saturdays.

During visitation, the daughter would spend some time with Darryl, his wife, her half siblings and some time with Darryl’s new girlfriend and the new girlfriend’s son.  Emma was opposed to her daughter being exposed to such behavior and asked the court to require supervised visitation.

The trial judge threw the case out with a brief decision, “Your application to modify visitation and [for] supervised visitation is denied.  Thank you very much. Have a pleasant holiday.”

While the Appellate Court said the trial judge should have explained his decision better, Emma had brought this objection up in previous hearings and had not shown a change in circumstances had occurred that would justify changing visitation to supervised.

Read more at New Jersey Family Law.

Highway 20 Ride

by the Zac Brown Band

I ride east every other Friday but if I had it my way
The day would not be wasted on this drive
And I want so bad to hold you
So much things I haven’t told you
Your mom and me couldn’t get along
So I’ll drive
And I think about my life
And wonder why, that I slowly die inside.

Tax breaks available to taxpayers with children are:

1.  dependency exemption,
2.  head of household filing status,
3.  child tax credit,
4.  child and dependent care credit, and
5.  earned income tax credit.

But each of these used to have a different requirement for when a child qualified for favorable tax treatment.  Now the IRS has created a uniform definition of a qualifying child.  This was done to streamline the tax rules related to children and make the regulations more consistent.  There are still a few variations left.  For more information.

A judge for the highest court in Brazil today ordered that 9 year old Sean Goldman be turned over to his father , David Goldman of Tinton Falls, New Jersey, by 9:00 am tomorrow.

Sean’s step father and maternal grandmother in Brazil said they “will not pursue any more legal channels” and will obey the order.

The Brazilian family will obey the order and “will not pursue any more legal channels,” an aide to a lawyer told the Associated Press.  Another appeal would have meant delays until February at least.  If all goes smoothly tomorrow, David will return with Sean to the US after a five year custody battle for his son.

Read More.

David Goldman flew to Brazil for the fifteenth time today to pick up his son after the Brazilian Courts ordered that Sean Goldman be handed over to he U.S. consulate in Rio de Janeiro.

But the boy’s stepfather filed a writ of habeas corpus in the Supreme Court of Brazil which was granted.  The order prevents Sean from leaving Brazil until a hearing can be held for him to express his own wishes.

According to this report, the hearing may not be held until February.

Yesterday, a Brazilian appeals court ordered the return of 9 year old Sean Goldman to his father, David Goldman of Tinton Falls, New Jersey, at the U.S. Consulate in Rio de Janeiro within 48 hours.

Buran Bianchi, Goldman’s wife, took Sean to her native Brazil in 2004 for a vacation and never returned.  She divorced Goldman and then remarried.  Goldman started legal proceedings for the return of his son when she unexpectedly died.  Sean has lived with his stepfather since then, Joao Paulo Lins e Silva, who has battled Goldman for custody for over five years.

Goldman and his lawyers are bracing for another appeal.  President Obama, Congress and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton have all urged return of the child to Goldman.

More here.

We tell our children to use their indoor voice.  But sometimes we use our outdoor voice and yell at them when they are misbehaving or not doing what we want them to do or whining about something they want to do.   This makes them yell back.  They feel badly.  We feel badly.   It may correct their behavior for a short time out of fear or sadness, but it may also well up inside them and cause them to act out later.

Erin Kurt, teacher and nanny, says in this article at Lifehack.Org,  the reason we yell is that we were yelled at as children.  She says this is the wrong parenting choice.

We should all stop yelling at our children and instead, train ourselves to take a deep breath and then state the behavior they want from their child in a matter-of-fact, assertive tone of voice.  She recommends the “time out” approach if they continue to misbehave.  This is a more effective approach to parenting than yelling.  I know this would make life quieter and more tranquil at my house.

Lisa Belkin of the New York Times Magazine writes that more fathers are getting custody in divorces.

“There are now 2.2 million divorced women in the United States who do not have primary physical custody of their children,” she says, “and an estimated 50 percent of fathers who seek such custody in a disputed divorce are granted it.”

She attributes some of this to the recession.  More men are being laid off than women, and for the first time in history, women are about to outnumber men in the American workforce.

She predicts that the percentage of fathers with primary custody will likely increase, as social views about parenting continue to change.

Mishcon de Reya, a law firm in London, England, has completed a study in which 2000 parents and 2000 children involved in divorce were interviewed.  According to the London Times, the findings were:

• one in three children permanently loses touch with a parent, usually the father, after the divorce.
• one in five parents said that their primary objective during separation was to make the experience as unpleasant as possible for their former spouse.
• one in five of the children said that they felt used by their parents.
• One in three of the children said they felt isolated and lonely.
• Half of parents said that they had been to court to fight over residential custody arrangements despite knowing it made matters worse for their children.

“The adversarial, blame-focused system is polarising parents and prevents them thinking forward about the long-term interests of their children,” says Sandra Davis, head of the family division at the law firm.  “As a result the courts are drowning, trying to sort out what are fundamentally behavioural and family issues, with lawyers being drawn into disputes over what time a child is picked up from school.”

Sometimes it is just easier for co-parents to communicate online with messages and visitation schedules so they don’t get distracted and drawn into arguments.

I have seen a few websites devoted to this idea, with visitation calendars and other features for a fee.

But today I ran across Cozi which says it is a site for organizing your family life.  It is completely free, totally user-friendly, and has a color coded family calendar, photo upload, list maker, email, journal and more.  I signed up and was able to use it in about five minutes.  While probably designed for the intact family, it occurs to me that this is a perfect tool for visitation schedules and messages.