Q. My ex really gets on my nerves. Halloween’s coming up and I don’t want to spend the evening looking at her face. It’s supposed to be my night with the kids, but she wants them at her house to trick-or-treat and I’m thinking about letting them go just because I don’t want to deal with her. What’s good ex-etiquette?
A. If you have been reading this column, you know that I don’t say you have to be buddies with your ex, but you do have to learn to cordially interact with each other if the kids are going back and forth between homes. Many parents forget to put Halloween in the parenting plan. That causes all sorts of grief, so good for you for having a plan for an important day for your kids. Sadly, it sounds like navigating the plan is a problem.
In order to help you “put the kids first,” (Ex-etiquette for Parents rule No. 1) I’d like to remind you of a very important distinction — it’s not “your time” with the kids, nor is it mom’s time with the kids. It’s your child’s time with you. They are the ones who must share their time.
So, this is how you decide about where the kids should trick-or-treat: Ask yourself, where would the kids rather be? I did not say to ask the kids. That would put them right in the middle of their parents, having to pick one over the other. But you know your children. If you put your self-interests aside, you know the answer.
Halloween is a night your children trick-or-treat with friends — and their parents, of course — but the real fun is hanging with friends late into the evening on a school night and eating way too much sugar. So, if most of their friends live near you, making them trick-or-treat in another neighborhood they aren’t used to just because mom and dad can’t get over themselves seems selfish to say the least. Pick the neighborhood you know the children would prefer and let them have their Halloween with the parent who lives in that neighborhood overseeing the festivities.
Dr. Jann Blackstone is the author of “Ex-etiquette for Parents: Good Behavior After Divorce or Separation,” and the founder of Bonus Families, bonusfamilies.com./ Tribune News Service
