SUGGESTIONS OF HOW TO TELL YOUR CHILD ABOUT YOUR DIVORCE

There will come a time when you will have to tell your child that you and your spouse are divorcing. If possible you and your spouse should do this together, and if you and your spouse are able to put the best interests of your child first, you should meet with your spouse prior to telling your child in order to discuss when, where, how, and consider answers to questions your child may ask. So, if you can do it together with your spouse, that is in the best interest of your child, but if you cannot do it together with your spouse, it still needs to be done, and I suggest the following:

1. Be sure your child knows that you and your spouse love your child;

2. Let your child know that she has permission to love both of her parents;

3. That the divorce will not weaken any bond between your child and yourself;

4. That the child is not responsible for the divorce, but this is an issue between his parents;

5. Let your child know that anything during the divorce that will affect him, you will let him know as soon as possible to avoid the fear of the unknown;

6. Let your child know what changes may occur and how that will specifically affect her (time sharing, living arrangements, money for college, etc.)

7. Be simple, clear and honest when answering the question, “Why?” But at all costs avoid the specific details of marital fault (paramours / financial issues / etc.)

8. Let your child know that she is welcome to make suggestions to you at any time on anything;

9. Review a calendar with your child so he understands the proposed timeline of the divorce and projected timeline that will affect him;

10. The child should understand that he cannot change this decision, that this is between you and your spouse;

11. Explain to your child the benefits of counseling and let your child know that any time (with permission of your spouse), he may attend counseling to work on anything that he does not want to discuss with you or his other parent;

12. Suggest to your child to start her own “blog” where she can discuss her feelings and maintain a journal that may help other children in the future (and this will give you an excellent forum to review your child’s state of mind during the divorce);

13. And finally, tell her about questions / comments for application into any cultural or social preferences of you and your spouse.

Obviously, all parents and children are different, and the type of communication that may work with one child might not work with another child. Therefore, take the substance of the above questions and culturally modify them to the best interests of your child, as the main issue is just talking to your child and letting your child observe your calm and confident tone of voice and your calm and confident body language, and the ability of your heart to be unconditional to your child.

FRUSTRATIONS YOU MAY ENCOUNTER DURING YOUR DIVORCE LITIGATION

1.         Please understand that many dates are set on calendars, for example: Case Management Conferences, Hearings, Depositions, Mediations, Conferences with your Attorney, etc., and it is often that these dates are changed with appropriate notice and sometimes at the last minute due to conflicts in Judges calendars, Attorneys calendars and other reasons.  For example, if you have a deposition scheduled but the Judge sets a trial on one of the Attorney’s calendars, that trial will supersede the deposition and therefore cancel your deposition.  I can assure you any cancellation of hearings, appointments, etc. in your case will only occur if the matter can be reset at an appropriate time  It will be frustrating to you to see dates often scheduled and then rescheduled (sometimes multiple times.)

2.         You will be tendering a lot of documents and information to my office.  Often I may ask you for the same document two or three times.  This is because if you have given me thousands of documents and it only takes you three minutes to find that document versus it will take my staff 40 minutes to find that document, and it is more efficient if I just ask you to provide that document again.  So please do not be frustrated when you are asked to provide a document and you have already provided it once.  You will be asked to provide many documents during this process as well as updates to those documents.

3.         Please note your spouse will simply lie on many documents, including, but not limited to, financial affidavits.  He or she may lie in depositions or may lie to the Court during hearings.  Unfortunately this is reality.  If someone perjures themselves, which is providing false evidence or testimony to a “material” issue, a complaint can be filled out at your local police department for prosecution.  However, it must to be a “material” issue, and very rarely does this type of complaint tend to go anywhere. Our goal is to show to the Judge the “lies” and then your spouse has no credibility on any issues. This is very good for you.

4.         The process is emotionally draining and it will make you physically tired.  Your spouse will be pushing your buttons, and if you do not somehow figure out how to respond versus react to that button pushing, it will be a long 3 to 18 months for you.  If you find a way to respond versus react and you engage in proper extra-curricular activities to take your mind off of matters, the process will be much easier.  It is always wise, if you can afford it, to maintain a mental health counselor and go to counseling once a week for an hour.

5.         Other frustrations will occur during your case and you must remember that no matter what, five years from now you will be five years older and one of the issues that is of the utmost importance to you today, you may hardly remember five years from now.

6.         The reason this is a difficult process is because the Dissolution of your Marriage is dissolving a “business arrangement,” where the business arrangement involves emotional feelings and sacred bonds which have been violated.  Resolving issues in this context can easily make a rational person become wholly irrational and make a good person do many bad things during this process. 

You will get through it

CHILD SUPPORT

In most cases with children, one spouse pays child support to the other spouse.  It is interesting to note that often the person receiving child support assumes they have no obligation to spend more money on the children other than the money they receive in child support.  This is simply untrue.  As we have discussed in the past, child support is determined by “Florida Guidelines” in the majority of cases, which is a mathematical computation based on income, number of overnights, daycare costs and insurance costs.  When you review the child support guidelines, at the end of the computation is the amount of support.  This is the support obligation of both parties.  It is true the person receiving child support never receives enough support, and the person paying child support thinks they are paying too much money.  However, if you note the child support computation at the end of this writing, I have taken an example of a family with two children, where the mother earns $100,000.00 per year and the father earns $50,000.00 per year, and the children spend 2/3 of the time with the father and 1/3 of the time with the mother.  One child is under 5 years old, and therefore the father incurs daycare costs of $100.00 per week ($433.00 per month) and the mother pays health insurance costs of $300.00 per month for the children and $150.00 per month for herself.  Under this scenario the mother pays child support to the father in the amount of $1,126.00 per month (with the father paying the daycare cost and the mother paying the health insurance cost of the children.)  However, the father is incorrect if he assumes that the children should only be surviving on the $1,126.00 per month child support payment, as if you review the guideline worksheet, the father’s financial obligation is $415.00 in child support (to be paid to himself of course) in order to contribute to the cost of the child.  I think we can all agree that reality is a person having the children the majority of the time will always be spending more money on the children than their “guideline” amount, and because of this, this an actual issue whether a “Motion For Deviation Child Support” can be filed with the Court, if the father (in this case) kept track of all of his expenditures for the children and proved that they are reasonable, and that his expenditures are well in excess of $415.00 per month of his obligation, it may be grounds for the Court to order the mother to actually pay a higher guideline amount.  Please note I am unaware of anyone in the State of Florida attempting this procedure, but based on the reality of “day-to-day” expenses and the cost of living, it seems to me to be a reasonable procedure to attempt.  The way to resolve the confusion is to have a very detailed settlement agreement that specifically maintains who will be paying what additional costs for school clothes, entertainment, vacations, cell phones, etc. versus a general agreement that only states a child support number.  The second way to resolve this confusion is to maintain a fair and rational relationship with your former spouse to discuss and appropriately resolve these costs.  Unfortunately, if your spouse was reasonable, you would probably still be married to him/her and this is why you are divorced, because they were/are unreasonable.  The issue of additional costs often remain unresolved and as a point of conflict for many years.  The moral of this story is to have a detailed agreement which resolves these issues or a reasonable former spouse.  You decide which is more likely.

CHILD SUPPORT GUIDELINES WORKSHEET
		A. FATHER Husband	B.  MOTHER Wife	TOTAL
1.	Present Net Monthly Income From Florida form 902b or 902c ln 27. (see Income Attachment	3,737	6,121	9,858
2.	Basic Monthly Obligation [from child support guidelines chart] There is [are] _2_ minor child(ren) common to the parties.			2,217
3.	Percent of Financial Responsibility [Divide 1A by total on line 1 for father, in 1B by total for mother]	37.91%	62.09%
4.	Share of Basic Monthly Obligation [Ln 2 X 3A for father’s share, Ln 2 X Ln 3B for mother’s share]	840	1,377
Additional Support – Health Insurance, Child Care & Other
5a.	100% of Monthly Child Care Costs [Child care costs should not exceed level required §1.30(7), Fla Stat			433
5b.	Total Monthly Child(ren)’s Health Insurance Cost [Only amounts actually paid for health insurance for the children]			300
5c.	Total Monthly Child(ren)’s Noncovered Medical, Dendal and Prescripton Medication Costs			0
5d.	Total Monthly Child Care & Health Costs [Add lines 5a + 5b + 5c]			733
6.	Additional Support Payments [Ln 5d X ln 3A for father’s share, ln 5d X ln 3B for mother’s share]	278	455
Statutory Adjustments/Credits
7a.	Monthly child care payments actually made	433	0
7b.	Monthly health insurance payments actually made	0	300
7c.	Other payments/credits actually made for any noncovered Medical, dental and prescription medication expenses of the child(ren) not ordered to be separately paid on a percentage basis.  [See § 61.30 (8), Florida Statutes]	0	0
8.	Total Support Payments actually made [Add lines 7a through 7c]	433	300
9.	MINIMUM CHILD SUPPORT OBLIGATION FOR EACH PARENT [Line 4 plus line6; minus line 8]	685	1,532
Substantial Shared Parenting (GROSS UP METHOD) if the noncustodial parent exercises visitation at               Least 20 percent of the overnights in the year (73 overnights in the year) complete Nos. 10 through 21

CHILD SUPPORT GUIDELINES WORKSHEET
10.	Basic Monthly Obligation x 150% [Multiply line 2 x 1.5]			3,326
		A.  FATHER	B.  MOTHER	TOTAL
11.	Increased Basic Obligation for each parent [Ln 10 x ln 3A for father’s share, ln 10 X ln 3B for mother’s share]	1,261	2,085
12.	Percentage of overnight stays with each parent The child(ren) spend(s):   245.0 overnight stays with the   father each year.  [multiply by 111/365 for 12A] The child(ren) spend(s):   120.0 overnight stays with the   mother each year.  [multiply by 100/365 for 12B]	67.12%	32.88%
13.	Parent’s support multiplied by other Parent’s percent of Overnights [Ln 11A X 12B for 13A, 11B x 12A for 13B]	415	1,386
Additional Support – Health Insurance, child Care & Other
14a.	Total Monthly Child Care Costs [Child care costs should not exceed level required, 61.30(7)]			433
14b.	Total Monthly Child(ren)’s Health Insurance Cost [Only amounts actually paid for health insurance on child(ren)]			300
14c.	Total Monthly Child(ren)’s Noncovered Medical, Dental, And Prescription Medication Costs			0
14d.	Total Monthly Child Care & Health Costs [Add lines 14a + 14b + 14c]			733
15.	Additional Support Payments [Ln 14d X 3A for father’s share, Ln 14d X 3B for mother’s share	278	455
Statutory Adjustments / Credits
16a.	Monthly child care payments actually made	433	0
16b.	Monthly health insurance payments actually made	0	300
16c.	Other payments/credits actually made for any noncovered medical, dental an dprescription medication expenses of the child(ren) not ordered to be separately paid on a percentage basis (See § 61.30 (8), Florida Statutes)	0	0
17.	Total Support Payments actually made (Add 16a through 16c)	433	300
18.	Total Additional Support Transfer Amount [Line 15 minus line 17; Enter any negative number as zero]	0	155
19.	Total Child Support Owed from Father to Mother [Lines 13A + 16A]	415
20.	Total Child Support Owed from Mother to Father [Line 13B + 16B]		1,541
21.	Actual Child Support to Be Paid [Comparing in 19 and 20, Subtract smaller amount from larger]	$__________    -or-   $ 1,126

CHILD SUPPORT GUIDELINES INCOME ATTACHMENT
		A.  Father	B.  Mother
PRESENT MONTHLY GROSS INCOME:
1.	Gross salary or wages per month	4,167	8,333
2.	TOTAL PRESENT MONTHLY GROSS INCOME	4,167	8,333
PRESENT MONTHLY DEDUCTIONS:
3.	Taxes per month	112	1,424
4.	FICA or self-employment taxes per month	258	517
5.	Medicare payments per month	60	121
6.	Health insurance not for children per month	0	150
7.	TOTAL MONTHLY DEDUCTIONS	430	2,212
8.	PRESENT NET MONTHLY INCOME (Guideline Worksheet line 1)	3,737	6,121