Co-parenting is usually associated with divorced couples, but as parenting partnerships become more and more mainstream, sometimes ideas from co-parenting arrangements can be modified or applied to folks who have chosen to enter into a parenting partnership. When there is a divorce, the typical arrangement is to have the child or children live in two households. This can cause emotional issues to kids as they were already accustomed to living in one household with their parents. With a parenting partnership, it’s important to note that children are not being split up into two homes, but rather, they are being raised from day 1 in whatever their home scenario is. There is no disruption to what they once had because it’s always been a certain way. That being said, some who enter into parenting partnerships are adopting, so in those cases, there will be a transition period, just like any adoption.

“Bird’s Nest” co-parenting is a new trend that works for some couples who are divorced, and could inspire some ideas for those considering a parenting partnership. The idea behind “bird’s nest” co-parenting is that the children remain in one home while the parents rotate in and out. This would only work if the parents lived nearby each other and didn’t have a problem with sharing two homes between each other, while raising kids in only one of the two. Children would not have to be between two homes, but instead, the parents would take over those challenges. It’s not the easiest idea to wrap your head around, but it could work for some folks and it does sound like a more stable environment for children. More here. 

Bird nesting works best when parents are able to separate their co-parenting responsibilities from their previous marital conflicts, and remain amicable and cooperative as they confer about continuing household arrangements and the children’s needs. Both need to be prepared to maintain a certain level of consistency of purpose, discipline, and child-raising techniques to make it work well; this means being able to communicate clearly and peacefully rather than taking each discussion as an opportunity to argue. Household and house maintenance arrangements, and ground rules, must be absolutely clear, and each parent must closely stick to the agreed-upon arrangements; over time, as they settle into the new lifestyle, more flexible arrangements are possible. A clearly drafted co-parenting plan or negotiated schedule at the outset is essential. Ongoing mutual respect is vital; and although it is reasonable to assume that there will be arguments or disagreements about various aspects of the arrangement, it is critical that children are shielded from ongoing conflict.

Often, this form of co-parenting will end when the youngest child reaches the age of majority, at which time one parent may either buy the other out of their interest in the family home, or it is sold and the proceeds divided pursuant to the matrimonial property regime or separation agreement.

Norway is considering a sperm-donor registry to assist children who were conceived via an anonymous sperm donor, have a chance at learning more about their biological father. But it’s not just about finding out about a biological parent, it’s more about learning of potential health issues and also potentially meeting half siblings. After being told they were conceived using an anonymous donor, there is an obvious and expected shock, and after a period of confusion, questions as well as curiosities begin to take over. Meeting a half sibling could be something very exciting for a child in that situation. But what about the donor? As an anonymous donor, he most likely never intended to have any form of communication with offspring conceived by his sperm. He might have never imagined that his future children that he raised would meet a child that he didn’t even know existed. There are so many different scenarios here and with all the options out there to conceive children, it’s beginning to become a bit tricky, especially when an anonymous sperm donor is involved.  More from TheLocal below:

Some 26,000 children have been conceived with the help of a sperm donor in Norway since treatment began in 1984. About 1,000 of the pregnancy were made possible by an anonymous donor.

Lars Ødegård, chairman of Norwegian Biotechnology Advisory Board, told the NRK network that Norway should consider offering assistance to any children who want to find out more about their biological father, or indeed find any half-siblings.

When Maria Kathinca Nilsen Rydeng found out her father was not her biological father, she began looking into whether she had any half-siblings.

“It’s not important for me to find my biological father, but to find siblings would be very exciting,” she told NRK, adding that she was using Facebook to try to locate any brothers or sisters.

“To have a biological bond with each other is special. I always thought I was an only child, and now it turns out I might have a lot of siblings,” she said.

“I wonder if we look like each other.”

Regardless if you are a stay at home parent or working, most moms or dads need to rely on some form of help when raising kids. It could be a day care center, or a mother/grandparent, or friends to babysit while you go to dinner or evening business meeting. It’s important to keep the relationships with these additional helpers in good standing. Parents need to make sure that everyone is on the same page when it comes to certain areas such as discipline or rules. Caregivers need to respect your parenting styles, but remember that it might not be easy for them to do so all the time, especially if they are accustomed to their way. Gabriella Johr, a mom and licensed clinical psychologist has been posting weekly video tips on Go Ask Mom on how to keep the relationships with your “village” going strong. Click the link below to watch the tip from this week.

Click here to watch the video.

How savvy are you with social media? A new research study shows that parents shouldn’t be afraid to learn about social media and get connected. Interacting with your children on social media may create a better and open relationship between parents and kids. Parents who are on their kid’s social media accounts not only have the ability to monitor what they are doing, but also to learn more about them. Kids express themselves more nowadays on social media and having access to those thoughts and feelings can be extremely beneficial when wanting to understand your children more. via phys.org

Brigham Young University professors Sarah Coyne and Laura Padilla-Walker found that teenagers who are connected to their parents on social media feel closer to their parents in real life.

The study of nearly 500 families also found that teens that interact with their parents on social media have higher rates of “pro-social” behavior – meaning that they are more generous, kind and helpful to others.

Lead study author Sarah Coyne did a Q & A about their findings. The full report appears in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking.

Q: How does social media help families feel more connected?

A: You can do a lot on social networking sites. Your kid might post a picture, and you might show support by liking it or making a nice comment, or a status update that does the same kind of thing. It gives more opportunities to give positive feedback or show affection.

Social networks give an intimate look at your teenager’s life. It lets parents know what their kids are going through, what their friends think is cool or fun, and helps them feel more connected to their child. It gives a nice little window into what is going on.

Q: What’s the typical level of family engagement on social media?

A: Our study asked how often they interacted on social media. Half of the teens in our study reported being on social network sites with their parents and 16 percent interacted with parents every day through social media.

Q: Were more frequent interactions linked to more family closeness?

A: Yes, the more frequently parents used social media to interact with teens, the stronger the connection.

Q: Parents could take this too far presumably. Did you see any of that in your study?

A: It is the kind of thing that you can take too far. Parents need to be smart about how they use it. I think it is a really great tool to connect with your kids. But just like everything else, it’s got to be used in moderation. You don’t want to be the parent who posts embarrassing pictures of your kid all the time or makes snarky comments. You have to keep it at the level that’s appropriate and respectful of what the teen wants as well.

A survey carried out for Virgin Holidays and Universal Orlando Resort concluded that families are busier than every these days and don’t have much time to spend with each other. According to the findings, families are spending just over a half an hour a week together having quality time, and these low numbers are attributed to the demands of modern life. Other results showed that parents and children have less than eight hours together in each week. Weekends are the best times for family time with approximately two and a half hours being dedicated to spending time together.

Are we really that busy that we don’t have enough time to spend quality time together as a family? The new norm now is to just accept that we live in times where we are just too busy for our kids. This is just a small survey and doesn’t represent everyone in the United States, but it serves a reminder to take more time out for ourselves and for our families. More info from dailymail.com below:

The poll of 2,000 parents also found that grandparents miss out on time with their children and grandchildren with the average family visiting grandparents six times a year. Some mums and dads are so anxious about the lack of time their parents spend with their grandchildren that 65 per cent have, or are considering, arranging a holiday with them. Over half admitted the only ‘real’ time they get to spend together is when they go on holiday away from the distractions at home. Fifty six per cent said they have booked a holiday for no other reason than to enjoy some real time with their family without the demands of everyday life.

‘Parents are working, children are at school and the evening and weekends are taken up with a host of clubs, sports and play dates with friends. ‘But this means that many families struggle with really getting to spend some time together and just enjoy each other’s company for a while.

‘And grandparents fare even worse as they seem to be a long way down the list of priorities when it comes to squeezing in the visits during the busy weekends.

‘Instead of getting to enjoy their grandchildren growing up, many have to make do with quick visits on special occasions or snatched moments in between weekend activities.

‘From the point of view of the youngsters, while our research found 17 per cent said their children were at an age when they didn’t want to spend time with their parents, we believe that a holiday is the perfect time to do this if they choose a location which can cater to everyone’s needs.’

They added: ‘The pace of modern life can too often mean that multiple generations of families spending time together is the exception, rather than the rule.

‘And when it does happen it’s often an ‘occasion’ requiring everyone to behave in a certain way.

‘With the summer holidays looming though, we’d urge families to see it as a time to re-establish bonds and create some really precious memories.’

An ideal situation for a parenting partnership is to have both parents within a close distance, but that may not be realistic for some. Work, life or unexpected occurrences can lead one parent to have to move and be distant from the other. In a world of unlimited technology, keeping connected shouldn’t be the most difficult part of the distance, instead the emotional impact and connection could possibly be. The New York Times has some suggestions on how to keep connected with your child if you are a distance away. We think these are great, and wanted to share them with you. Don’t let distance create a disconnect in the relationship with your child.

Keeping connected via The New York Times

Text messaging, instant messaging, Facebook, and email – Text messages, facebook, instant messaging and email are excellent ways to stay in touch every day.  Kids chat with their parent through cellular phones or computer keyboard.  This can help children feel an instant connection with the long-distance parent.  A computer is not necessary with portable email devices.

Mail- Children love to get their own mail! Writing frequently is more important than writing long letters.  Children can hold letters and re-read them, keeping memories and the feeling of being loved.

Telephone – Call to chat, to read a story, to say “I love you.” Keep conversations focused on the kids to keep them out of the middle of parental comments.  Readily available phones increase secure feelings of love and connection.

Movies – Send a ticket for a movie.  Both of you go to see it and talk about it on the phone.

Books/Magazines – Subscriptions can help a child practice reading.  The parent may have the same magazine and they can have a discussion about the articles.

Gifts – Gift certificates or small tokens can be used as incentives for grades, behavior, chores, etc., but they should not be used as bribes or one-upmanship trophies against the other parent.

Thinking of You Box – Children love to get things that remind them of time spent together.  Simple items can make lasting memories of being loved.  Pictures, clippings, and ticket stubs all have meaning.

Email/Mail Suggestions

DO: Write about feelings; Share parts of your life; Ask questions; Send Pictures, cartoons, stickers, jokes; Create a secret code and send messages; Send self-addressed stamped envelopes; and Say “I love you and I miss you”

DON’T: Write too much; Write to criticize or question the other parent; Expect letters as frequently form the child as those sent by you; Use sympathy or guilt to manipulate behavior; Say “I’m so sad without you”

Freezing eggs was always presented as a last option to women but now it’s quickly becoming a perfectly normal procedure that is being encouraged by many. Imagine being your own egg donor when you are ready to conceive. With women postponing becoming mothers, this might just be the right option for some. But the longer a woman waits to undergo IVF, which is the procedure used, the smaller the chances are of becoming pregnant. Those figures do not change. Scientists are now taking it a step further and researching how to screen eggs for chromosomal normality to better achieve successful pregnancies.

In 2006, a landmark trial at NYU Langone Medical Center found that frozen eggs could be used to achieve the same pregnancy rates as fresh eggs, used for in vitro fertilization, using egg and sperm to create an embryo in a lab that is then transferred into a woman’s uterus for pregnancy. “So all of a sudden now, it became an option,” says Jamie Grifo, lead author of the study and program director of the NYU Fertility Center. His team is now researching how to screen eggs for chromosomal normality to better achieve successful pregnancies.

Whether using fresh or frozen eggs, both procedures use IVF, which requires hormone injections that enable a woman to produce multiple eggs each month, which are extracted for fertilization. Frozen eggs require a process called intracytoplasmic sperm injection, in which a single sperm is injected into the egg.

The success rates of producing a baby from one round of IVF is about 60 percent at age 30, 27 percent at age 40 and drops to 6 percent between ages 40 and 44, says Grifo, attributing the declining success rates to the fact that a woman’s eggs develop abnormalities with age. And therein lies the hope of this new technology. “Egg freezing is a way to be your own egg donor,” Grifo says.

As to the cost of the process, the procedure plus doctor’s visits, medication and egg storage can run from $5,000 to $20,000, depending on the lab and the medical practice.

Source

A new type of tourism is emerging and it may surprise you. Apparently, according to research in Europe, egg donation is now one of the leading reasons why couples travel abroad. Couples are traveling to purchase eggs for fertility purposes. Some interesting statistics and figures of who the donors are and where they are from are detailed below.

European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE) which surveyed 1,423 egg donors at 60 clinics in 11 European countries, has found that the majority of the donors are keen to help infertile couples for altruistic reasons, but a large proportion also do it for money.

The study found a significant effect of age on altruistic motives : 46% of the donors under 25 said altruism alone as their motive compared to 79% of those over 35; 12% of those under 25 were purely financially motivated compared to 1% of those older than 35.

Among the donor groups identified in the study population were students (18% in Spain, 16% Finland, 13% Czech Republic), unemployed (24% in Spain, 22% Ukraine, 17% Greece), fully employed (75% in Belgium, 70% Poland, 28% Spain) and single women (50% in Spain and Portugal, 30% Greece). – Original source found here. 

It’s almost time for the Royal Baby, and websites all over the world are offering their best advice to the soon to be new parents…as if they need it. The Royals most likely have a fully trained staff at hand to assist with every diaper change, feeding and nap time, but what about the rest of us? If anything, at least we can benefit from the advice being given to Will and Kate. Below is a top 10 list of tips to “new parents” compiled for the Royal couple. The tips come from leading parenting experts.

Here are the top 10 tips for Will, Kate and other new parents:

According to a new study conducted by Pew Research Center, the number of single dads in the US has risen dramatically since the 1960’s. But how is a single father defined? For the purposes of this research, a single father was determined to be a man who is not married as well as a man who doesn’t have a significant other living in their household. What the study found is that 1 in 4 single parents in the US is a single father. Many factors are responsible for the large number shift, but one is due to the fact of the decline in marriage. 41% of births in the US are now occurring outside of marriage. A quick Wall Street Journal clip about the study can be watched here: The Rise of Single Fathers

The number of single father households has increased about ninefold since 1960, from less than 300,000 to more than 2.6 million in 2011.1 In comparison, the number of single mother households increased more than fourfold during that time period, up to 8.6 million in 2011, from 1.9 million in 1960.

As a result, men make up a growing share of single parent householders.2 In 1960, about 14% of single parent households were headed by fathers, today almost one-quarter (24%) are.

There are some notable differences between single mothers and single fathers. Single fathers are more likely than single mothers to be living with a cohabiting partner (41% versus 16%). Single fathers, on average, have higher incomes than single mothers and are far less likely to be living at or below the poverty line—24% versus 43%. Single fathers are also somewhat less educated than single mothers, older and more likely to be white.

Compared with fathers heading households with two married parents, single dads are younger, less educated, less financially well-off and less likely to be white. To view the entire study, click here.