A quiz for Divorced Parents and Stepparents

Every writer has a cause or a common theme in their stories. Mine seems to be finding family again. I'm guessing it comes from losing my father when I was only three, my mother at 25, and my sister a few years ago. Growing up, I would have done anything to have a father, but my father was in heaven, and my mother loved him too much to ever remarry.

While researching my next book, I joined a stepmother group and became aware of various common issues surrounding stepfamilies. I found the link below on one of their websites and wanted to pass it on.

If you're a divorced parent or stepparent, please take a look at this quiz. If you're doing even one of these things, you're irreparably damaging your child (no matter their age). This is serious stuff and a theme in a future book, as I've mentioned previously. No matter how much you dislike your ex or your spouse's ex, you are not doing your children any favors.

http://www.stopparentalalienation.org/quiz.htm

This is truly a form of child abuse, and it happens way too often. The length some parents will go to is staggering.

A friend of mine found out that his ex filed domestic violence charges against him in order to keep him away from his adult children. Luckily for him, the judge threw them out because the ex refused to have him served. Her charges were erroneous since he'd had no appreciable contact with her in years and lived across the state from her. He has no idea what the details of the charges were as she had the records sealed. In fact, he accidentally discovered the records a few years after the fact, while researching an identity theft case.

Another acquaintance's mother actually murdered her ex-husband because she couldn't stop the children from seeing him. After countless trips to the courts and bogus charges brought against her ex, she failed to convince the children he was a bad person so she murdered him. How tragic.