Help the Father or Mother with Distance Parenting Ideas, Which may Include:

Regular phone calls to children, are a very important form of contact, handled in an age/development appropriate way. Out of school talking with parents is evidenced to be very important for children’s educational and emotional development:

• 0-5: children are unlikely to be able to converse for long, but hearing their parent’s voice often is reassuring. Ask a couple of questions – (what did you see today? What did you have for dinner?) but be ready to do most of the talking, jotting a few reminders if you need them e.g. things you have seen or done. Have a story book ready to read and sing songs together – get a tape if  you need to learn some. Jokey routines with lots of variations can work: ’I am sending you a kiss – it is going out through my letterbox, down the road, onto the bus, it’s coming up your street (etc) and on to your cheek! Don’t be hurt if it is short. Finish with a phone hug with an appropriate sound effect as if you can feel them squeezing you.
• 5-11: children are able to talk a little more, and join with jokes and stories, which can build on the above but be more elaborate. Lots of praise, and interest in what the child has been doing is good, but questions about other family members risk putting the child in a difficult position
• 11-18: during adolescence the telephone can even lead to more open talking than face to face, especially about sensitive subjects. If trust is built up over time the non-resident parent can be a useful sounding board and second opinion. Listening and asking open questions will help the young person to think through their choices.

Phone calls using software such as Skype can provide huge savings when used instead of landlines and mobiles.

Recording stories for bedtime onto cassette or CD

Sending letters, pictures, stories, photos, texts and e-mails – All of these modes are worth exploring and will suit different people and situations. Texting is a particularily easy and immediate form of communication that can help build up relaxed, informal communciation. Keep copies when possible in a scrapbook for the child to see when they are grown up, as some may not be passed on by the resident parent. Remember that anything sent can be seen by everyone else in the house and could even be used in court.
 
Tell them about web-based contact (see links) eg www.talk2dad.net. Social networking sites like Facebook provide messaging services, a one-on-one chat room and an array of fun applications for a parent and child to participate in together. Children are also likely to find this an appealling form of communication given its popularity among young people.

For parents who are unable to obtain contact of any kind, suggest they keep a scrapbook or diary with words and pictures for the child to see at some point in the future. This should perhaps be about love and thought for the child rather than a blow-by-blow account of the rights and wrongs of the situation. Explanations of what happened might be best in a separate letter.

Help the father or mother take a long-term view
Imagining children as adults who understand the efforts they made, and feel loved as a result, can be a powerful way of dealing with bad times. The self-respect that flows from having tried hard and ‘done the right thing’ are important too.

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