On behalf of MyOntarioDivorce.com, I recently made a donation to Give Kids Foundation.

Give Kids Foundation is dedicated to providing knapsacks to children living in shelters within the Toronto area. The knapsacks are filled with school supplies, books, and fun and practical gifts. Give Kids Foundation hopes to bring a “bit of brightness” during a difficult time, while promoting literacy skills and building self-esteem.

Many of the children arrive having left situations of acute crisis. Some are victims of broken homes, some of violence, some are new immigrants, and many are suffering from extreme economic and social hardships.

You CAN make a difference in a child’s life! To make a donation or to learn more about the many different ways you can help visit: www.givekids.org.

Helping you help yourself,

A man is talking to his lawyer about his upcoming wedding anniversary. He doesn’t know what to get his wife for a present and asks for advice. “How about a divorce?” the lawyer suggests. The guy thinks a second but then shakes his head. “No, I didn’t want to spend that much.”

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Have a lawyer joke you’d like to get off your chest? Share your laughs!

Helping you help yourself,

Served with divorce papers? You have 30 days to serve and file an Answer (if you were served in Canada or 60 days if you were served outside of Canada or the United States). An Answer generally responds to each allegation made in the divorce application by denying or admitting it, or admitting in part and denying in part.

Anyone’s clock run out?

Helping you help yourself,

Never treat kids like they’re stupid; they know a lot more is going on than what you’re giving them credit for. Even if they don’t know upfront what’s happening, kids know there’s a shift in what normally happens around them. They might act out, they might ask directly, “What the heck is going on?,” and others might become introverted.

Let your kids know what’s going on every step of the way and let them know that they’re loved. Keep them in all the extracuricular activities that they want to be involved in and that you can afford. Also make sure that they have a solid foundation to build on. Home should be and feel like a home, even if they have two homes now instead of one.

In your opinion, how can parents communicate divorce proceedings with children in a productive way while keeping sensitive to the issue?

Helping you help yourself,

Source

Being a lawyer myself, and having observed lawyers in their natural habitat, I can recognize how Mr. So and So from the Alabama Family Law blog managed to turn the courtroom into an episode of National Geographic in his article “The Lamb, the Pit Bull, and the Fox.”

The bottom line is: it doesn’t matter what kind of lawyer you have, he’ll still take a bite out of your savings.

Can you relate? Share your “tails.”

Helping you help yourself,

In early 2008, British playwright Tricia Walsh-Smith became known internationally after posting a shocking and uncomfortably personal YouTube video of herself discussing her divorce from her estranged husband Philip Smith, president of America’s oldest professional theatre company The Shubert Organization.

Airing the couple’s dirty laundry made headlines as this was considered the first known case where a spouse has used YouTube in an attempt to gain leverage over the other in a divorce case. Although those of you who are going through, or have been through, a divorce may sympathize with some of her erratic emotionas and understand the need to try anything when in such a situation, in the end the judge didn’t care about the video; nor would I recommend making your own (unless you’d enjoy an hour on the couch with Dr. Phil or have aspirations of becoming the next Spielberg). The message you can take from this, in addition to not making your own YouTube clip, is that you’re not alone.

Is the internet useful for taking revenge on your ex? Or is Walsh-Smith just “surfing” for fame?

Helping you help yourself,