Los Angeles Custody Evaluation

This session started with me and my co-parent. The first thing in each session was always "are there any co-parent crisis"? I thought the fact that we had been in court on contempt charges the previous week was a crisis given the details of the case, so I raised the issue. We discussed it and still, I was amazed at how the moderators of the session really seemed to be endlessly optimistic.

Well, the theme of this session was to read one of our three "Polite Request" to each other and finally put in writing how we would each change OURSELF to improve the co-parent relationship. I chose the request which I asked him to return our daughter home on Sunday night instead of taking her to school on Monday morning because I was concerned about the commute time and the school's carpool requirements. His response was to take her to carpool which was upsetting for me because while it meets the carpool requirements, it increases her comute by about 1/2 hour AND she has to arrive about 1/2 earlier at carpool dropoff than she would to school so this is increasing her comute by 1 hour. I was really unhappy with that solution.

He chose to politely request that I allow him to take our daughter on out of state vacations when he requested. This was very difficult for me because I have NEVER denied him taking her on an out of state vacation. I did deny an out of the COUNTRY one and considering this was a country which is not party to the hague convention (a treaty between countries' government to assist in the return abducted children) I said no. I assume he was not happy with my response either because my answer was 1) I can't comment on this out of state issue because you have twice asked to take her out of state and I have twice said yes. As for the out of the country issues, it would be on a case by case basis depending on what I believe is best for our daughter at the time. You can read more about the Jamaica trip request in the August postings for this blog. I put some of the real letters from the attorney here.

That was basically it. In my statement as to what I would change about myself, I truthfully stated that I really didn't know what he wanted from me (which I truly don't) and that I would try my best to keep the lines of communication open when he was ready to discuss them with me.

As promised, I was assured by one of the group counselors that I could re-produce the material from the class, so as soon as I can either scan or re-type it, I will post if for those interested.

There will be one more post to this blog on the Parenting Without Conflict workshop which will address my makeup session from week two.