Catha For Council Blog

Child care costs are are one of the most expensive costs associated with going back to work. Finding ways to cut down on child care costs without sacrificing quality child care is a top priority for all working parents. Here are a few ideas that can help trim your child care costs without sacrificing child care quality:

See if your employer has a child care flexible spending account. This is a special account that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) - http://www.irs.gov/faqs/faq-kw87.html - created that allows you to set aside money for child care expenses with pre-tax dollars. You ask your employer to take out a certain amount of money each month from your paycheck and you can use this money tax free for child care related expenses.

Inquire if your company has partnerships or offers discounts for certain child care provider services. some larger companies will sometimes negotiate discount plans with local child care providers to help offset child care costs.

See if your public school district offers a half day pre-kindergarten program for 4-year-olds. These programs are usually free and by signing-up your child, it will reduce your child care needs to a half day from a full day.

Check to see if your employer would be open to flex hours, job sharing or telecommuting. If so, you may be able to use these to juggle your schedule and cut your child care costs.

If both you and your spouse work, see if it’s possible to arrange your work schedules so they overlap as little as possible. This will allow you to reduce the number of hours your child has to spend at child care.

See if there is a relative or good friend that can help with child care.

Consider hiring a nanny and sharing the cost of child care with a few good friends. This will allow you to pay less individually for child care costs and the nanny will make more money overall.

For a list of child care resource and referral agencies, you can visit the Child Care Aware website - http://www.childcareaware.org - which is a nonprofit organization that helps parents find quality child care in their communities.

About the Author

Copyright Jeffrey Strain. He is owner of www.savingadvice.com - a website dedicated to saving you money.

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tune-up a stale relationship in 3 easy steps
Being taken for granted happens in any long-term relationship, friendship or marriage. With the busy schedules and outside concerns faced by married couples, compounded by children, it’s easy to let little things slide — the first to go usually being together-time and intimate niceties.

There are simple ways of rediscovering the person you married, getting back to the days when a conversation was more than a grocery list, a shouting match or a wall of silence.

Be Polite

When you are engaged in hostilities with your mate, the gloves come off pretty fast. At times, you’re probably nicer to your egotistical boss or co-worker than you are to the father of your children. Try using the same level of socially accepted veneer at home and see what happens.

Engage in some small talk; something funny that happened at work; an interesting article you read in the newspaper; a proud moment in the day of your child. Not every conversation with your partner has to be significant or pertain to underlying relationship issues, but it is important to have some peaceful verbal exchanges.

And it’s just as important not to think rude thoughts: when you automatically refer to your better-half as that “so-and-so”, even silently, you are being very counter-productive (although probably honest). Pretend your thoughts are amplified and heard by all.

Smiles are Contagious

If your (umpteenth) request about garbage removal (or bathing the kids or fixing the leaky faucet or whatever) is being ignored, do not allow yourself to be enveloped in the standard scenario of escalating arguments, demands, and blame. Heave a huge grin onto your face, grab the recalcitrant’s hand and white-lie heartily: “Here, I’ll help ya! I’m all gung-ho!” Once he’s on his feet and you’ve pushed him into position, it seems that gravity takes over and the job gets done.

I admit to once leaving the 20 (or so) full bags of stinking garbage in such a way that they blocked access to our front door. My husband couldn’t help but roar with laughter at the sight and my “hint” was taken.

Injecting humor into annoying (or worse) situations can be a wonderful de-fuser; I even sometimes have the presence of mind to pretend not to hear my husband make an uncalled-for remark, plastering a vacant smile on my face and saying: “Pardon me?” You don’t have to haul off each and every time, you know!

I am in no way advocating a rug-mat approach here, by the way. Your first aim is to make life, as it is, more pleasant for yourself - if that means not reacting to every single goad, and giving your husband a second chance to behave himself, why not? Once you are able to communicate in a meaningful manner with each other, you can deal with individual issues (perhaps one being hurtful offhand sarcasm).

Touchy-Feely

When you’re mad, you don’t hug much. Being physically intimate is not at the top of the pleasant list, unless it’s a stress-relieving workout with the punching bag.

However, touching is an important aspect when re-establishing trust and communication in a relationship and you can start small. Like mussing his hair with your oven mitt; or getting the kids involved for a “let’s cheer up dad” group hug; or sitting on his newspaper and tickling the scowl off his face until he begs for mercy.

As you feel comfortable, you can drop kisses on his hand (an exaggerated thank-you for doing some chore); you can rub his neck as you pass the computer; you can ask for a foot massage when you’re both on the couch.

That’s it??

Yup - simple, but it’s enough to re-connect. You’ve got to take it from there, you know. Deal with the personal matters. But when you’ve got a polite, funny and hands-on guy to deal with, the whole ball of wax takes on a different hue, n’est-ce pas?

About the Author

Stephanie Olsen is owner of Family Life Abroad: the expatriate place, where you’ll find informative and humorous articles by experienced expatriates on all aspects of living abroad, plus links, travel tips and more.

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A child custody proceeding is any case involving child
protection, adoption, guardianship, termination of parental
rights or voluntary placement of your child. The support order
will be based on the child’s needs, obligor’s ability to pay,
custody arrangements and the child support guidelines. The
Criminal Code makes it an offence to abduct a child to spite a
custody order. A custody order establishes both the custody and
parenting time arrangement for the children. Your child custody
order is also confidential.

When an unmarried mother has a child, the mother has legal
custody of that child until a court says otherwise. During
divorce, marriage, or annulment proceedings, the issue of child
custody often becomes a matter for the court to determine. The
Court must consider the following factors in every child custody
decision under the law regarding the best interest of the child.
The court retains the power to alter the custody arrangements
until the child turns 18 or is emancipated.

You may contest custody, child support, and alimony and property
division by appearing in court and filing appropriate legal
papers. At the hearing, the court shall hear evidence to
determine whether the child custody and support determination
should be modified. The fact that one parent has been the
child’s primary caretaker is often considered but is not enough
to guarantee a custody award. It is not that unusual for middle
class parents to spend $60,000 on a divorce and child custody
fight. Traditionally, divorce in the United States results in
one parent being awarded primary custody and decision making for
a child.

Rights

Each parent shares the rights and responsibility for the care,
custody, companionship, and support of their children. Some
states, such as Arizona, have fathers rights groups specifically
dedicated to helping fathers obtain custody of their children
(arizonafathersrights.com for example).

Definitions

Custody means that a parent has legal custodial rights and
responsibilities toward the child.

Joint child custody means that both parents have the legal
custodial rights and responsibilities toward a child. Joint
custody allows both parents to have a say in the child’s
upbringing. There is no evidence to support that a presumption
of joint custody is in the best interests of children. A study
found that only when parents were still actively fighting did
joint custody exacerbate children’s feelings of being torn
between parents. However, when both parents favor joint custody,
it can be a good solution for the children. Some parents have
chosen a joint-custody arrangement in which the child spends an
approximately equal amount of time with both parents. Some
states award joint custody in which the judge simply divides the
child’s time between the parents. Joint custody does not mean
simply alternating where the child lives from time to time. In
fact, there may be legal joint custody, but the child may live
with only one parent.

Legal child custody includes the right to make decisions about
the child’s education, religion, health care, and other
important concerns. A child may be placed in foster care while a
custody case is pending. Legal custody means the right to
determine the child’s upbringing, including education, health
care, and religious training.

Physical custody and residence means the routine daily care and
control and where the child lives. Physical child custody is
awarded to one parent with whom the child will live most of the
time. In most cases, both parents continue to share legal child
custody but one parent gains physical child custody. There is
also a presumption that it is in the child’s best interest to be
in the custody of a parent over a non-parent.

Visitation rights allow the non-custodial parent (the person
without child custody) time to spend with their child. A common
arrangement is that one parent gets custody of the child and the
other parent is given visitation rights.

Evaluation

A child custody evaluation is a report written by a neutral
professional about you, the other parent, and your children. It
is usually not necessary that formal psychological tests be
administered to each parent in the context of a child-custody
evaluation. The primary purpose and focus of the custody and/or
visitation evaluation is to determine what is in the best
interests of the child. Comprehensive child custody evaluations
generally require an evaluation of all parents/guardians and
children, as well as observations of interactions between them.
The children are also evaluated in a custody/visitation
evaluation.

Attorney

Because of the complexity of child custody matters and the
importance of the outcome, it may be advisable to contact an
attorney. The attorney should know several child custody
evaluators or guardian ad litems that they have worked with
successfully. If you proceed with a child custody action without
an attorney, you are acting as your own attorney.

In a child custody dispute, there are rarely winners, frequently
everyone is a loser, and the biggest losers are often the
children. When women fear losing custody of children the stress
can be overwhelming. However, in many cases, women are favored
as holding custody of their children.

For more information about child custody, visit
http://www.childcustodyinfohelp.com

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