Kids in Crisis 97
money out of the family budget that are going to the kids of the
prior marriage.)
Even those visits that do get implemented are then often fol-
lowed, in turn, by a wrenching separation. I have had many cli-
ents tell me that it is so painful to depart from these short-burst
visits that they would almost rather not exercise their visitation
rights at all.
My personal experience has been that most moms seem to be
pretty good about at least tolerating dad’s visits, and quite a few
of the more enlightened ones see the positive benefits of same and
are downright supportive. I do, of course, run across the occa-
sional ex-wife who now has custody and who will seemingly do
anything in her power to prevent visitation from occurring, but
I always try to discourage this type of behavior. (Author’s Note:
I am phrasing these examples in terms of mom having custody
and dad having the visitation because that is still the situation in
a majority of the cases. Dads can get custody too, of course—and
more and more often they do. According to the Bureau of Labor
Statistics 2007 report on the current status of single-parent house-
holds, 77 percent are headed by moms and 23 percent by dads.
But regardless of whoever takes primary physical custody, they
should try to remain supportive of extensive visitation periods.)
Unfortunately, my own relatively positive experiences with
(and recommendations to) my firm’s clients seem to be out of
sync with the various studies indicating that in an incredibly high
number of cases nationwide (perhaps as many as 40 percent) the
dads virtually never visit their kids following the divorce. If these
statistics are anywhere near accurate, I shudder to think of the
huge sense of loss that those kids must feel.
The key to a successful visitation framework seems to be to
allow the father and child a sufficient amount of quality time
together so that they are able to rekindle a naturally close and
intimate personal feeling. Only in this way can the child become
comfortable enough to really feel a sense of the father’s love and
caring.
As noted earlier, this is particularly important for the linkage
between teenage and adolescent boys and their natural fathers.
Perhaps one of the best formats to ensure this kind of closeness is