Archive for the ‘Child support’ Category
If you’re child has received an autism diagnosis, you may feel like all of the hopes and dreams you had for your child’s future have ended. These feelings of guilt, grief and fear are normal for parents when they first discover their child is autistic. However, you need to know that you’re not alone and there is help out there for both you and your child.
To help you cope with the autism diagnosis, the following are 10 guidelines for you to take into consideration:
1.Don’t Panic – Feeling overwhelmed is natural at first, but this drowning feeling will pass. You need to remember autism – although a challenging condition – is not a life threatening illness. Autism isn’t the end of the world; take the time to calm down and rationally think things through.
2.Your child is still the same – An autism diagnosis doesn’t mean your child is any different than he/she was prior to your knowledge of his/her condition. A diagnosis has only provided you with the chance to better understand your child, so you can provide him/her with the support that will allow him/her to have the best life. The love you have for your child and all the good you see in him or her will remain their forever. No diagnosis can change that.
3.Educate yourself – Find out everything there is to know about autism. You can find information in books and articles in your local library, bookstore and online. The internet is a fantastic resource for autism.
4.Ask questions – don’t forget to address any questions or concerns you may have with your doctor.
5.Find out what your child needs – Depending on the type of autism diagnosis your child receives he/she may have many or few special needs. Carefully analyze your child’s behaviors and discuss them with your doctor to determine the best course of action for treating the issue. For instance, does your child have sensory problems? Speech delays? Social deficits? Etc.
6.Find out what is available – Just because you discover what your child needs, doesn’t mean you’ll have immediate access to the therapies required, or even know how to work them into your lifestyle if they are available. . You also need to find out if your medial insurance will cover any of the therapies your child will need. Once you have everything sorted out, you can begin to set up a program that can meet your needs.
7.Stick to basic therapies – When you research therapies, you will discover that there are numerous treatments. Instead of becoming overwhelmed, focus on the basic therapies that are readily available, appropriate to your child, and funded. The basics usually include speech therapy, physical therapy, and occupational therapy. There may also be therapies offered within schools.
8.Introduce treatment slowly – Remember, most therapies are a slow process that take weeks or even months until you begin to see a difference in your child. Therefore, try not to introduce too many therapies after the autism diagnosis. When you take it slow you are able to observe how your child responds to each, and determine what is successful and what isn’t.
9.Relax – The wellbeing of your child is important, but so is yours and the rest of your family. It’s imperative that you find ways to relieve your stress, take breaks, and enjoy your own life. You will be able to better care for your autistic child when you are well rested.
10.You’re not alone – There are many autism support groups you can join both locally and online after receiving an autism diagnosis. Talking to other parents with autistic children, and hearing and sharing your experiences can be very helpful and therapeutic to you and your child.
Rachel Evans
http://www.articlesbase.com/medicine-articles/what-to-do-after-an-autism-diagnosis-for-your-child-109639.html
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For many children the death of their pet will be their first experience of death or loss. Children today often have a particularly significant relationship with their pets as families are smaller and both parents may work outside the home, leaving children to spend more time alone, with the family pet taking the role of daily companion.
For many children, a pet can be a source of comfort and a supportive, uncritical friend, always available to listen. Pets often give children a valuable sense of self-worth because they will not judge or make children feel inadequate. Children frequently describe their pets as a best friend or sibling.
Reactions to grief
How a child responds to losing a pet really depends on the intensity of their bond, as well as the child’s maturity and circumstances surrounding the loss. Children tend to show grief in spurts and for longer periods than adults. Children often show their grief in less direct ways than adults. One day they will seem fine and the next day they may show that they are feeling pain. Children may try to get closeness, care, information, reassurance and support from adults.
Even the most sensitive adult may feel uncomfortable discussing death, loss and grief with children. Parents often want to protect children from pain by shielding them from painful experiences, particularly if the pet will be euthanized. Children are often excluded from the decision to spare them the guilt associated with such a difficult choice.
What you can do
Ensure that your child can express their feelings safely without judgment. Depending on your child’s age and maturity, feelings can be expressed through play, water play, writing a letter, a story, a poem, painting or drawing.
Give clear and honest information to your child in a way that they can understand. Children need to know what is happening even if they don’t ask.
Allow your child time to talk, ask questions and share their worries with a caring adult. They might be very confused and need to ask lots of questions. If you can’t talk about it, find another adult who is close to your child who can. If children can’t talk to you about the loss, they might feel that it is not safe to talk about it at all and so continue to have muddled and scary feelings. You may have to answer the same question over and over as your child learns to understand what has happened.
If the child is acting angrily or withdrawing, try to make times to talk, without pushing for answers. If it continues, talk to a health professional.
Be honest. If you don’t tell them what has happened, you may prevent them from dealing with the loss and grieving. This can cause problems when they have other losses in their lives.
Consider letting your child’s teacher or childcare worker know if you think they will be sensitive. Teachers and friends at school can help to support your child.
Although you may feel uncomfortable, don’t be afraid to share your sadness. It may help your child to see that their own feelings are normal. Learning to cope with the death of a pet may make it easier to deal with other losses, which are a natural part of life.
Allow times for extra closeness and comfort.
Shortly after the loss, the pain may outweigh the pleasurable memories of having a pet. Once the pain has diminished, you and your child may feel ready to become attached to a new pet. Your child may feel guilty about replacing the pet that has gone, perhaps worrying that they might forget about that pet. Grief is essentially about wanting to maintain a connection with someone who has died. There are many healthy ways to maintain this connection. Your child may feel better if they keep the pet’s collar or put a framed photo on display.
Jenny Jackson
http://www.articlesbase.com/pets-articles/pet-death-helping-your-child-cope-with-grief-393862.html
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What is child custody?
Child custody and guardianship refers to the practical and legal relationship between a parent and his child, which includes caring and making decisions for the child. The concept of the terms ‘custody’ ‘access’ or ‘visitation’ have now been replaced by ‘residence’ and ‘contact’. Instead of the courts stating that a parent has ‘custody’ of a child, the child is now being said to ‘reside’ with that parent.
Child custody is an issue that typically rises from incidents such as divorces, annulments and legal actions that involve children. Common statutory provisions state that the child born within a marriage will get the joint guardianship of the parents and the right of either parent to the child’s custody after their Separation is equal.
However, the issues involving residence and contact will be determined based on what the courts see as the most positive for the child’s interests. In fact, legal professionals are already referring to custody and visitation as ‘parenting schedule’ in order to remove any negative connotations about the distinction between the parent who gets child custody and the parent who does not.
Who decides?
Most laws regarding child custody are state laws. In case of a divorce, it is the court which has jurisdiction over the proceedings who will determine which parent or guardian gets child custody. In most cases, parents with children under 18 years of age will be required to file for custody in case of divorce or annulment. For children under 21, both parents will be mandated to provide support following the Child support Standards Act.
Who gets custody?
Child custody is determined on the basis of what the court deems ‘in the best interests’ of the concerned child or children. In cases of parents or guardians separating, the court will decide on which parent will be better able to provide for the child’s needs. Child custody proceedings are child-centered and the standards for custodial awards are designed for the protection of the child.
As long as there is no evidence of misconduct on the part of either parent, their rights to child custody are considered equal. For this reason, the parent’s history, mental state, financial capability and relationship with his or her child will be considered when the court has to make a decision.
In the case of married parents filing for custody or divorce, legal custody of their child or children will be automatically shared between them, albeit temporarily. Sole legal custody to one parent will only be awarded if the court finds evidence that it is really for the child’s best interests.
The court may also schedule specific periods to be followed by both parents, depending on the needs of the child. Older children and those in their teens may need longer time spent with each parent and don’t require frequent shifts between guardians. Younger children, on the other hand, may need shorter and more frequent periods spent with each parent.
Issues that may affect a parent’s request for child custody
Some issues will be considered by the court as evidence that a parent is unfit to have custody of his or her child, including use of alcohol, drugs and illegal substance, mental disorder, desertion, unwillingness or inability to participate in the child’s care and family abuse.
Both past and present evidences of abuse or neglect will be considered by the courts to determine which parent is best suited to have custody of the child. However, this presumption is rebuttable and the abusive parent may challenge it in the court if he or she so wishes.
For a child with unmarried parents, it is the mother who automatically gets custody unless a family court decides otherwise. If the court finds evidence that the parents can perform joint responsibility and can both provide for the child’s best interests, both parents (if they agree) may be awarded with shared physical or shared legal custody.
Bob Janeway
http://www.articlesbase.com/law-articles/child-custody-88876.html
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A child custody agreement can have serious implications on your tax filing and your taxes overall. This issue should be addressed with your attorney or with your accountant while you are going through the process of negotiating or litigating child custody or a divorce agreement. Waiting until after you have finalized a child custody agreement to investigate the tax impact is not adviseable.
State law on child custody does not dictate who gets the tax deductions. If your child custody agreement is entirely silent on this issue, the parent with primary residential or sole custody will have all of the tax benefits available through the children. That party will be able to claim the children as deductions, and so forth. This can be a significant issue. There are parents who simply assume that if they are paying thousands of dollars per year in support, they will be able to take the children as deductions. Not so. This is incredibly important when you consider that all child support payments are not tax deductible to the payor and they are not taxable to the recipient parent.
Thus, when negotiating your cusody agreement, you must address the issue of how custody will be structured and who will recieve the tax benefits. This negotiation should be a part of an overall financial scheme that encompasses a consideration of all issues, including child custody, Child support, property, alimony, and tax impact.
The ability to claim head of household instead of married filing separate or even filing single can be incredibly important to your overall tax scheme. You can claim head of household if you have your children for more than 50% of the time. Thus, a head of household tax filing should be a part of the overall negiating outline in a divorce or Separation situation. A child custody that is silent on this issue is really not a well negotiated or written agreement.
Your child custody agreement can address this issue in a number of ways. If your child custody agreement provides for joint shared custody, it must state who has the children for 50% of the time. If you have two children, you can divide that up so that each parent has the possibility of fiing for head of household. If you simply have joint custody and one parent has residential custody, you can still provide a head of household deduction to the other parent by wording the agreement in a way that allows for that filing.
There are other tax benefits available to parents that have to be considered when negotiating a child custody agreement. Many or most of those tax benefits are variable depending upon your income level ad whether or not you can claim the child or children as deductions. If you are really thinking through your child custody agreement, you will negotiate all of these benefits. The objective should be to maximize all available benefits for both parties, thereby providing an overall highly advantageous tax impact for your child custody agreement.
John Pawlett
http://www.articlesbase.com/law-articles/child-custody-agreement-and-taxes-90763.html
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Losing a child is one of life’s biggest tragedies. All that promise, all those hopes, all those possibilities for a bright and successful future disappear in an instant. Whether you’ve lost a young child or a young adult child, the feeling of loss cuts deep. We are simply not programmed to deal with the death of a child. We accept the loss of parents and grandparents as inevitable. But losing a child, that’s never something we expect to deal with.
We bring children into the world with great hopes for their future. We imbue them with all kinds of possibilities, like education, marriage and career success. We look forward to these events as a series of experiences we will celebrate and enjoy. Never are we prepared to have our child taken away by some brutal accident, war, murder or suicide. None of these enter our mind until something tragic actually happens.
When confronted with this type of loss we are shaken to our very core. The experience of losing a child unnerves us. All of a sudden the world we thought we knew is no longer safe. Our remaining children are not safe. We collapse into a puddle of nerves and tears.
What does it take to get over losing a child? A lot of investigation into our own nature and behavior seems to come up right away. Why did this happen? What could I have done differently? How did I fail? Should I have said No when asked for the car keys on that fateful night? The questions, guilt and remorse come at us fast and furious.
I am the father of two daughters. Thankfully, I’ve never lost a child in the manner described above. During my practice years I helped a lot of parents come to terms with such a loss. Oftentimes I cried with them. I could feel their despair and anguish. Car accidents, suicide, murder, disease and freak occurrences were all part of the mix. One boxing day, in the late 90s, my wife and I witnessed a 14 year old boy being run down by a car. He was killed instantly. We were shaken. We were scared. Our thoughts immediately ran to our own daughters. Where were they? Were they safe? And so on.
We stayed at the scene and provided statements to the investigating police. We remained badly shaken. We just couldn’t believe what our eyes had shown us. We actually saw a young life snuffed out in an instant. At one moment we saw this boy crossing the street, heading for a bus stop. Seconds later he was lying on the ground in a crumpled lifeless heap. His life had been taken away by a series of freakish circumstances.
One year later my wife and I were in court testifying as to what we had witnessed. We learned that the victim was an Iranian boy whose family had come to North America to escape the tyrannical rule of their home country. His parents and extended family exhibited all the signs of a recent trauma. They were still locked in their grief as if the incident had just happened. The woman driver, responsible for the accident, was being prosecuted for dangerous driving. She was a virtual mess and was heavily medicated. Every time someone testified as to her behavior and the boy’s death, she noticeably flinched. The boy’s family wanted answers, and perhaps some retribution. There were no winners here.
On another occasion I was asked to address a meeting of “Compassionate Friends”, a support group fro grieving parents. As each member of the group recounted their story I began to see the range of experiences which had brought them all together. Their children had died by the variety of circumstances listed above, including suicide, the most difficult of all. These parents were at different stages in their grieving process. Some were almost healed, while others were still stuck back in the moment they first heard the news. It was sad to watch because I knew that with some prodding, encouragement and support they all could be much further along.
I did what I could in addressing their loss. And I urged them to engage in a proper recovery program. Support groups are just that, they offer support but no direction. These parents were simply recycling their pain and not moving forward with their recovery. A few of them came to see me afterwards and we put them through our recovery program. Everyone that took this path recovered.
In the end it doesn’t matter what took your child from you; the grieving and healing process you must undergo remains the same. Dealing with feelings through therapy, group work and guided journaling are the tools and practices necessary for recovery. I successfully used this approach for all my grieving clients. Everyone who pursued this program completed their recovery and got on with their lives.
Lately I’ve met people who are still stuck in their grieving experience. Their child may have died years ago but, for them, it may as well have been yesterday. They have not gained an inch. There is no substitute for working through your grief if you truly want to heal. Some people simply refuse to move forward, hanging on to their grief as if they were hanging on to their child. They don’t accept that they can actually heal and hold on to that precious child in a loving and expansive way rather than continue with their suffering.
You have to choose healing in order to recover from grief. You have to commit to your own recovery just like any other person who is stuck in some disabling condition. Imagine for a moment you are the deceased child looking down at your parents and siblings. What would you want for them? Healing or Suffering? And those wonderful memories you had of each other before the tragedy, where do they go if you choose suffering? When you die, do you want your loved ones to remain in a state of perpetual grief? Likely not! Good then, you know what you have to do.
http://www.howtocopewithgriefandloss.com/Grieving-A-Child.html
Maurice Turmel PhD
http://www.articlesbase.com/self-help-articles/grieving-a-child-son-or-daughter-740845.html
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