Your marriage or partnership has ended and you or your partner/spouse has to relocate. What to do?  The best you can.  There are a variety of ways to be connected when you can’t be with your children in person.  Be creative and keep the contact as predictable and frequent as possible.

• Maintain a good co-parenting relationship to help ensure your availability.
• Get a good sense of their schedules and try to work with them.
• Ask their other parent when the children are most likely to be responsive to telephone calls, facetime and email messages.
• Arrange a visit or call to their teacher to learn your about children’s strengths and weaknesses as well as class trips and projects. You’ll feel more involved in their lives and they’ll know you are really interested.
• For younger children, you can record stories, or conversation, to be replayed at their pleasure.
• Watch some of their videos or favorite TV so you can talk about them.
• Keep them up to date on your side of the family if they are not available.
• Establish, or continue, shared interests whether it’s sports, the arts, collections.
• Walk down ‘memory lane’ about fun and memorable past times, even with small things.  They’ll know you remember and cherish those special moments.
• Make a calendar, if they don’t have one, so they can anticipate when you will be together for a visit or a vacation.  Keep them involved and offer some choices when possible.

Don’t be afraid to be creative so you can be apart together.