Category: Split Family

Is Business Travel Easier in a Split Family?

I don’t travel much for my job at Microsoft but as I’m heading to Minneapolis to attend this year’s Grace Hopper Celebration Conference, I’m feeling grateful for one of the few benefits of having a split family: the flexibility to travel worry free.

I share custody with my kids’ dad.  While I’m at the conference, focused on learning, networking and recharging my batteries, I won’t be worried about my kids because they are in great hands.  And they are literally at home.  Since their dad handles things just fine on his own all the time, the routine isn’t even that out of the ordinary.

My son has Autism so changing the routine can be especially difficult for him.  We plan these trips well in advance, put the information on the family calendar as well as our shared Outlook calendar that my son can see on his phone.  When he knows what’s coming, he can anticipate the change in the routine and handle it quite well.  As he headed to his Dad’s after school yesterday with our babysitter, OFF our normal Monday schedule, he sent me a text message, “Have a good time on your vacation.”  🙂  He knows the routine is different.  He knows why.  And he’s just fine.

It’s not always easy for spilt families to get along.  And things aren’t always coming up roses for us either.  But one thing we’ve never argued about is knowing that we need to do what is best for our kids.  Part of this is a fundamental understanding that supporting one another in our careers is one big way that we can do what is best for our kids.

Two weeks ago, my ex-husband had a business trip AND needed to be in a wedding in another state.  We give each other advance notice.  We adjust the schedule.  The kids stay stable in their home and school routines and we are able to do the things we need to do for work and even our personal lives.  It works.  Sure, I could get help from other family members in a pinch but since being with their dad is also being at home for my kids, it’s the best option for them, which makes it the best option for me.

How do we keep track of all of these exceptions in the schedule?  Outlook Calendar.  I keep a calendar that I share with the kids AND our babysitter.  I share appointments with my ex that show what day the kids are with him, what day they are with me, and any other appointments related to the kids.  He can see all of these appointments in his work calendar, his single calendar.  We’re always looking at the same calendar and it helps keep things straight.

As I travel this week, it will cause OTHER exceptions to the weekly routine.  My husband is traveling with me (ANOTHER bonus!) so he won’t be going to guitar lessons with my son this week.  We’ve updated that appointment in the calendar to say “No Guitar Lesson / Jeff is out of town”.  This will serve as a reminder to the babysitter and will also remind my son of the change, making it easier for him to handle it that day.

 

So if things aren’t this smooth in your world, I highly recommend making changes so you can find this same level of flexibility and coordination with your ex.  It will help get both parents focused on a common goal:  stability and predictability for the kids AND it will let you both focus on your careers or whatever personal goals you’re working on.  Happy parents = happy kids.  Isn’t that what we’re all working for anyway?

Using Outlook to Keep a Split Family Working Together

It’s hard enough for a typical family to keep track of everything between school holidays, career deadlines, soccer games and business trips.  How does a split family do it?

I’m divorced and I’ve found that sharing a calendar is the key to successful communication and coordination.  To be blunt, I really don’t like needing to talk to my ex. 🙂  Before we got our calendar together, I felt like I was talking to him more than when we lived together.  Sharing a calendar has solved that.

We split custody 50/50.  We both want to be involved.  I’m already keeping a calendar so why no share it with him?  I put all of the dates in the calendar like:

  • Kids at Dad’s
  • Kids at Mom’s
  • School Holidays
  • Parent Teacher Conferences
  • Track Meets
  • Stuff Like That

I’ve set up this calendar in Outlook.com.  I use Outlook to see both my work calendar (with Office365) AND this Outlook.com calendar which I’ve named “Family Calendar”.  For the events I listed above, I “invite” my ex and those events are sent to his work calendar.  He only keeps one calendar, that work calendar, so this was the best way to get this stuff in there.  When we first got organized, the number of “invitations” was a lot.  But now that it’s set up, it’s easy.

Both of us are pretty busy with work so we try to be very flexible with each other in terms of scheduling.  By using Outlook, we can run changes by each other over the phone or even via text message and then I make the updates in Outlook.  When an update is made, the updated appointment is sent to him.  It may feel formal, but it’s a great way to confirm the conversation we had and make sure things are straight – BEFORE we hit a conflict or have a miscommunication.

I also share this calendar with my husband and babysitter.  We just use basic calendar sharing.  My husband accesses the calendar when he’s trying to plan things and wants to see if we have the kids or not.  My babysitter uses this calendar to manage each day.  I add additional items that I don’t invite my ex to like Guitar Lesson, Piano Lesson, Reading Tutors and things like that so the babysitter has that schedule.  But I don’t add my ex to those items so they won’t fill up his calendar over the top of his busy afternoons at work.

Each Sunday night, I email this calendar to my ex (along with my son’s Autism specialists who work with him in my home).  It serves as a reminder for all of us to look at the week ahead and update anything that was forgotten.  This is especially handy in terms of support work schedules.  As conferences and business trips come up, they can be managed ahead of time.

Even though we’re divorced, we both need to support each other in our careers – as we do this, we’re helping each other do the best we can for our kids.  And by having all of the kids school commitments in one place, we can also coordinate so that we can BOTH attend or make sure at least one of us is attending.  Again, it’s the right thing to do for the kids.

So if you’re pulling your hair out trying to coordinate your custody schedule with your ex, AND stay on the same page with your shared babysitter, give this a try.  You’ll be amazed by the amount of harmony it will bring.