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On her blog, NonCustodial Parent Community, Rebekah Spicuglia captions the above picture of her and her son: "This is what 'visitation' looks like."
Think you know what "noncustodial" really means? Think again, and check out our interview with a woman whom MSN calls a "Mom Inspired to Change History"...
One of your goals in creating NCP Community is to raise awareness about the issues noncustodial parents face. What are some of the key issues?
Noncustodial parents face many of the same challenges that custodial parents face. We want to instill our values in our children, ensure they are doing their homework and studying for that big test tomorrow, treating others with respect . But it is much harder to do when you aren’t in the same house as your children.
Parental disagreements are common, and a noncustodial parent can often feel helpless in decisions ranging from whether or not a child should have a cell phone to medical care. But once you get past divorce and mediation issues and settle into everyday life, it’s engaging our children’s teachers, maintaining regular communication with our children, and arranging visitation that are the big issues. Visitation in particular can be very difficult – there is scheduling with the custodial parent, figuring out childcare, trying to arrange playdates when you may not have much of a parenting community to speak of, and trying to make those visits really meaningful for our relationship with our children.
Yet, despite our best efforts and loving intentions, noncustodial parents often feel shut out from our children's day-to-day life, academic progress, and major decisions. In extreme cases, there might even be concern about child’s well-being, even child abuse, in the custodial parent's home. Societal misconceptions about what “noncustodial” means can wrongly limit a parent’s access to their children's education/medical records, and parents often do not have access to legal resources or even understand their parental rights. This can be discouraging for a parent who is truly striving to do the best s/he can.
What are some common misconceptions about noncustodial parents?
One of the biggest issues noncustodial parents face is a lack of understanding generally in society about what “noncustodial” means. This leads to a great deal of frustration when dealing with authorities, and we regularly find ourselves explaining legalities to people to defend our right to be involved, our right-to-parent.
Just to clarify, there are two kinds of child custody, legal and physical, and there are varied combinations, which can even include a noncustodial parent sharing joint legal AND physical custody. I do not have physical custody, but I share joint legal custody with my son’s father, which gives me full parental authority under the law. But someone has to move out of the house, right? Every divorce naturally creates custodial and noncustodial parents, but the stereotypes of the deadbeat dad/disappearing mom leave a stigma that noncustodial parents are irresponsible or don’t want their children, or worse – that they are dangerous and should be viewed with suspicion. I have written about this many times on my sit, two examples here and here. In fact, the majority of noncustodial parents are law-abiding citizens and loving parents who want to be involved as much as possible in our children’s lives.
Recently on your blog, you posted a Globe and Mail article about "parental alienation syndrome". The article noted: "Court proceedings are not conducive to peacemaking; they tend to increase acrimony between parents, which is bad for children. Many non-custodial parents simply walk away from an impossible situation, devastated to lose contact with their children, but consoled to know that their children's exposure to a toxic tug-of-war is over." What support is available to parents in these situations? What resources can they find at NCP Community or elsewhere?
What I loved about that article was the focus on the best interests of the child, which often gets lost in discussions of Parental Alienation Syndrome. Sadly, many of us have seen how a parent might bad-mouth or poisoning a child against the other parent. Whether or not people agree on the definition of “parental alienation” or that PAS exists as a “syndrome,” few people would disagree that the problem exists. Even if both parents have legal custody, the custodial parent is
