Question for Single Fathers

Hey Guys

I am just finishing up a book called Being Dad, Fathering After Separation
of Divorce. I have one chapter in there called Keeping Your Child's Spirit
Alive which is all about how you keep the memory of your kids alive when
they are not at your home. Many have told me about hanging pictures and
things but I was wondering if anyone out there has some unique ways of doing
this? If you have anything you would like to contribute to this project I
would love to hear from you.

Cheers

Steve Van Bakel
Publisher / Father
Tall Tales Press
www.talltalespress.com

Being Dad wrote:
: Hey Guys

: I am just finishing up a book called Being Dad, Fathering After Separation
: of Divorce. I have one chapter in there called Keeping Your Child's Spirit
: Alive which is all about how you keep the memory of your kids alive when
: they are not at your home. Many have told me about hanging pictures and
: things but I was wondering if anyone out there has some unique ways of doing
: this? If you have anything you would like to contribute to this project I
: would love to hear from you.

I'm in that situation. Moveaway mom 115 miles away and a child that is
dearly loved by both of us.

Digital photography is great! I take photos of the fun things we do and
look at them frequently to stay close to my son even though he's not with me
(I do see him every week and have for his life ... 8 years old in a couple
of weeks).

Also, I phone him but not too frequently. He's not a big "phone guy" because
his mom uses the phone a lot... real estate person). When I talk to him,
I try to talk about things he likes vs. playing "20 questions". Last Monday,
he played his music he was studying on the piano for me over the phone.
He really liked that.

I've read in the news that some people are starting to use web cameras
to keep close to remote children although they shouldn't replace
parenting time. They should add to parenting time.

Now, I've had so many good times with him that his memory stays alive
with me in my mind so I'm finding I take fewer pictures of him vs.
when I was only able to visit him at his mom's area (before the overnight
parenting time which wasn't awarded until he was about 2 1/2 yrs. old).

The next challenge will come when he becomes a teenager and wants to
hang out with his local friends. My solution is to have friends for him
to play with at Dad's place too (although it takes some effort as I live in
a rural area).

Hope this helps,

barry (part time, "standard visitation dad" for nearly 8 yrs)

I bought each one of my sons a wallet. When I give them their weekly
allowance I update their pictures in the wallet. (With computers in
just about every house hold this is an easy task to do.)

My friend experienced this same problem. When he became seperated
from his kids, and only saw them every other weekend, he needed
something to keep their mem with him. What he did is he started a Big
projects with his kids...

Something that they could all do together. He has 2 daughters, so he
decided it would have to be something crafty, as both his daughters
were such. So one weekend he took his Daughters to the craft store,
and started buying supplies for the idea of doing an entire wall in his
house a painting and stickup wall type thing.

Every time his daughters would come over, they would work on this
thing together whenever the time allowed between soccer... ballet...
whatever else they had to do also. And well it took them about 8
months to complete.

Now he has this wall that they all decorated together. Everything
from pictures of them, to hand prints, to flowers the girls picked. To
the average person it looks gawdy... But when ever I go over I can see
how much he really loves it.

Now he has started other projects... But he only works on them when
they are around. He feels it's a good learning experience for both of
them. I think his current project with them is making a hammok... His
girls are 7 and 10.

SpiderHam77