Family vacations are a common occurrence in the summertime. Your children have time away from their academics and the beautiful weather typically motivates families to spend time away from their home state. Whether or not you and your family regularly took vacations, your summer will probably look different post-divorce. It is important to reflect on summer plans in light of your divorce with summer vacation beginning in a few weeks. Continue reading to help plan your summer and spend quality time with your children.

What You Need to Consider

1. Financial Planning: For most families, money is set aside to pay for family vacations. The planning is done well in advance to avoid budget issues and travel restrictions. Family vacations after divorce will problem happen less frequently due to the supply of funding coming from a single income rather than two. If you would like to take a vacation, it would be advantageous to plan it out well in advance.

2. Look at your Parenting Plan: You will now have to verify your plans with your former spouse if you share custody. Most parenting plans will have specified rules about which holidays are spent with which parent. The plans also have legal requirements on how much time must be spent with each parent. If you plan on taking your child for more than your usual time allotted, you will have to run this by your former spouse. This can typically be done without the intervention of an attorney depending on your relationship.

3. Traditions May Be in the Past: Many families have the family tradition to go on one vacation every summer. This can be difficult to let go of but is not always feasible for divorcees. A good outlook on things is to end old traditions and start new ones. You may have to trade in your tradition vacation spot for a newer, more economical option. Not only will this be helpful for your wallet, but it can also feel like a fresh start for many parents.

Contact a Kane County Divorce Attorney for Help

Family vacations may not be on your mind while you are involved in the divorce proceedings; however, this can be very important for some families. Discussing this with your spouse during the divorce process can help alleviate the stress once the paperwork is finalized. It can be helpful to divide holidays and vacations in the contract to avoid discussing this afterwards. If you are considering divorce and need assistance, contact our experienced St. Charles, IL divorce attorneys at 630-584-5550 for a free consultation.

In the 1960s, developmental psychologist Diana Baumrind identified three distinct parenting styles: authoritarian, authoritative, and permissive. Later, researchers Maccoby and Martin theorized that the parenting style identified as permissive by Baumrind has two types, indulgent and uninvolved. Identifying and understanding your parenting style can help you co-parent with your former partner and relate to your child more effectively. When the court develops a parenting agreement, it considers the child’s relationship with each parent and each parent’s ability to provide for the child’s needs, which can both be tied to the parent’s parenting style. Keep in mind that very few parents fit neatly into one of the boxes below. Rather, these types are the pillars of a parenting style spectrum, and nearly all parents fall somewhere between two or more of these pillars.

Authoritarian

Authoritarian parents are commonly known as “strict parents.” Rather than discussing why rules and boundaries exist, these parents expect their children to obey without question. Authoritarian parents often have high expectations of their children and generally use punishment as a means to encourage compliance with these expectations and control their children’s behavior.

Authoritarian parenting is correlated with insecurity, low self-esteem, mental health problems, and poor social skills in children.

Authoritative

There are countless aspects surrounding the divorce experience that parents are faced with when raising children throughout the separation process. Studies show that children are especially prone to the negative psychological effects that accompany the end of their parents’ marriage, due to the fact that they are still developing and learning to process - and cope with - rapidly changing emotions and circumstances. It is understandable, then, how something as anxiety-inducing as moving during or shortly after divorce can trigger a significant psychological struggle for children.

Moving and Divorce: A Psychological Toll

Recent divorce law changes in the state of Illinois now allow the primary residential parent to relocate with their child after divorce, as long as the move is made within a 25-mile radius. Because of this new guideline, that 25-mile radius can actually mean a jump over the state line, depending on which county you live in. Whether you are moving one neighborhood away or using up those permissible 25 miles, studies indicate that moving after divorce can be unsettling for children and can reap long-term psychological effects.

What Studies Suggest

The American Psychological Association (APA) reported studies that were conducted among students from an array of relocation scenarios, including subsets of students who experienced their primary (custodial) parent moving after divorce, and students who experienced no parental relocation at all. In general, the students of divorced families who relocated on some level were found to suffer more distress and perceive their parents in a less favorable light over the long term. Additionally, the students of divorced parents who relocated also experienced less life satisfaction and rated their physical and mental health poorly over time. They also felt more anger and hostility within their interpersonal relationships.