Hands-on parenting is challenging, and it becomes more challenging when one parent is miles away. As tough as solo parenting is on me, I know it’s tougher on my other half. Thankfully, including the absent parent in the kid’s lives is easier now than ever before.
Pictures and videos are great and now there are even more things we can do to bring the far away parent into the parenting process, especially where school is concerned.
Our kids have a daily email sent home that lists their current grade and assignments. I forward this to my husband as there are various links to class information. He can go through it and bring it up to the kids when they talk. My youngest reviews his ‘Sight Words’ with daddy as he learns them more and more. It makes my husband feel like a part of his learning process. They are so happy that he knows what’s going on in their day to day school life.
I used to type out the grades when report card time came out. The report cards of today, at least here, have too much to type and it’s hard to put all of the markings and comments in the right context in an email. This time around, I simply scanned the cards and sent them in an email. He commented to me that he liked putting ‘eyes on’ and printing them out.
Our kids love to show their art work on Skype, have daddy see any changes in their bedrooms or to the house and computer projects they’re working on. So my husband gets picked up on the laptop and shown these things. He even Skyped in at the right time to watch the 4th of July fireworks with them at a hotel. They got a huge kick out of that and so did he!
I’m reserving one of the traditions he does with them for his return. The growth chart on the wall. I can’t wait to see just how much they’ve grown. I’m sure he can’t either.
How do you ensure that your deployed spouse stays tapped into the daily grind of life while he or she is away?
