DHS/Child Support Services is pleased to announce that the online child support guidelines calculator is now available on our website. This calculator will allow you to calculate child support pursuant to the Oklahoma Child Support Guidelines. In addition to calculating the guidelines, this calculator now will allow you to print a computation form to attach to your orders and decrees using the “Print” function of your web browser.
The guidelines can be found on CSS’s Attorneys & Judges page on the “CS Guidelines” tab, or by clicking here: http://www.okdhs.org/services/ocss/pages/computation.aspx
What’s the Right Age for a Child to Get a Smartphone?
NOT long ago, many parents wondered at what age they should give their child full access to the car keys. Nowadays, parents face a trickier question: At what age should a child own a smartphone?
The smartphone, after all, is the key to unfettered access to the internet and the many benefits and dangers that come with it. But unlike driving a car, which is legal in some states starting at the age of 16, there is no legal guideline for a parent to determine when a child may be ready for a smartphone.
The topic is being increasingly debated as children get smartphones at an ever younger age. On average, children are getting their first smartphones around age 10, according to the research firm Influence Central, down from age 12 in 2012. For some children, smartphone ownership starts even sooner — including second graders as young as 7, according to internet safety experts.
“I think that age is going to trend even younger, because parents are getting tired of handing their smartphones to their kids,” said Stacy DeBroff, chief executive of Influence Central.
The downward age creep is meeting resistance. James P. Steyer, chief executive of Common Sense Media, a nonprofit organization that reviews content and products for families, has a strict rule for his family: His children get a smartphone only when they start high school — after they have learned restraint and the value of face-to-face communication.
But Mr. Steyer added that other parents might decide that their children are ready sooner. “No two kids are the same, and there’s no magic number,” he said. “A kid’s age is not as important as his or her own responsibility or maturity level.”
So how do you determine the right time? To come up with some guidelines, I interviewed internet safety experts and combed through studies on smartphone use among children. I also asked for parents’ advice on regulating smartphone use and keeping children safe.
The takeaway will not please smartphone makers: The longer you wait to give your children a smartphone, the better. Some experts said 12 was the ideal age, while others said 14. All agreed later was safer because smartphones can be addictive distractions that detract from schoolwork while exposing children to issues like online bullies, child predators or sexting.
“The longer you keep Pandora’s box shut, the better off you are,” said Jesse Weinberger, an internet safety speaker based in Ohio who gives presentations to parents, schools and law enforcement officials. “There’s no connection to the dark side without the device.”
The Research
Let’s start with some of the data. Ms. Weinberger, who wrote the smartphone and internet safety book “The Boogeyman Exists: And He’s in Your Child’s Back Pocket,” said she had surveyed 70,000 children in the last 18 months and found that, on average, sexting began in the fifth grade, pornography consumption began when children turned 8, and pornography addiction began around age 11.
In a separate study published this year, Common Sense Media polled 1,240 parents and children and found 50 percent of the children admitted that they were addicted to their smartphones. It also found that 66 percent of parents felt their children used mobile devices too much, and 52 percent of children agreed. About 36 percent of parents said they argued with their children daily about device use.
There is also biology to consider. The prefrontal cortex, a part of the brain that controls impulse, finishes developing in the mid-20s. In other words, parents should not be surprised if younger children with smartphones lack impulse control.
Pros and Cons
Smartphones undoubtedly bring benefits. With the devices, children gain access to powerful apps, including education tools for studying, chat apps for connecting with friends and the wealth of information on the web.
But they also are one step closer to distracting games, sexting apps and social media apps where online bullies are on the prowl. Even older children are not immune: Last year, at least 100 students at a Colorado high school were embroiled in a scandal that involved trading naked pictures of themselves on their mobile devices.
In the end, such cons may outweigh the pros, Ms. Weinberger said. If you hold off giving smartphones to children, many still have access to technology tools through devices like computers and tablets, she added. The main difference with a smartphone is that it is with a child everywhere, including outside of parental supervision.
Teaching Responsibility
Ultimately, parents will determine when their child truly needs a smartphone. When that time comes, there are approaches for testing the waters before handing one to the child.
One popular option is to start the child off with dumbed-down mobile devices, like feature phones that can only send text messages or place phone calls, and to assess whether they can use those devices responsibly.
Lynn Muscat, a parent in San Francisco, said she had considered buying a “dumb phone” for her 10-year-old son to keep in touch while he was at summer camp. She ended up buying the LG GizmoGadget, a Verizon smartwatch that has calling and texting capabilities and a locked-down list of contacts so that her son could interact only with people she had approved.
Ms. Muscat said she did not consider buying her child a smartphone partly because she felt the device would make him a target for muggers. She also was not appreciative of how smartphones had affected other children around him.
“It drives me nuts when I see his friends on it all the time — it seems very antisocial,” Ms. Muscat said. She said she planned to use the smartwatch to teach the responsibilities of using a mobile device safely before her son eventually earns the privilege of carrying a smartphone.
When you decide that it’s time to bestow a smartphone on your child, there are ways to set limits. To help parents enforce rules consistently, Ms. Weinberger has published a family contract listing the rules of smartphone use, which includes promises never to take nude selfies and never to try to meet strangers from the internet in real life. Parents state what the consequences are for breaking the rules, and the child must sign the contract before receiving a smartphone.
Mr. Steyer of Common Sense Media said he set other limits, like no smartphones at the dinner table and no phones in the classroom. If his children break the rules, he takes their phones away.
Parental Controls
There are some phone settings that can help keep children safe when they do get smartphones.
For iPhones, Apple offers a switchboard full of features that parents can enable or disable, including the ability to restrict the Safari browser from gaining access to adult content and the ability to prevent apps from using cellular data. The iPhone’s parental controls live inside the Settings app in a menu labeled Restrictions.
Android phones lack similar built-in parental control settings, though there are many apps in the Google Play app store that let parents add restrictions. Ms. Weinberger highlighted the app Qustodio, which lets parents monitor their children’s text messages, disable apps at certain times of day or even shut off a smartphone remotely. While that can be an aggressive approach to restricting a child’s smartphone, Ms. Weinberger said her job as a parent was not to make her children like her.
“My only job as a parent is to prepare you for the day you leave,” she said. “If that’s the case, I have to keep you safe, and you’re not going to like some of the things I say — and that’s O.K.”
PreNuptial Agreements
By Rachel Grate
Prenups: They’re not just for celebrities anymore. In fact, more of your engaged friends may be getting them than they admit. Prenuptial agreements are more popular than ever, and millennials appear to be driving the trend: In a 2013 survey by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, 63% of divorce attorneys say they’ve seen an uptick in prenups.
“Historically, most people that were getting prenups were people with substantial wealth or family money, or people who were getting married for the second time and wanted to make sure their assets were protected for the kids,” Regina DeMeo, a Washington, D.C., divorce attorney, told Mic.
“Definitely since the Great Recession around 2009 there has been a spike in prenups overall, but the big surprise is the gain in use among the millennials, who often are marrying for the first time and may not have much.”
But despite their growing popularity, there’s still a stigma around prenups. Many people think prenups aren’t romantic, or they’re exclusively used by wealthy people trying to protect their assets against shallow gold diggers. Unfortunately, that fear of judgment discourages couples who’ve signed prenups from speaking up about what they are and how they actually work.
In the spirit of clearing the air, Mic spoke with three prenup experts to find out the truth about prenups — because you can’t decide it’s right for you without understanding what it actually is first.
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The ‘Quiet Power’ Of Introverts
How Parents And Teachers Can Nurture The ‘Quiet Power’ Of Introverts
ELISSA NADWORNY
LA Johnson/NPR
When Susan Cain wrote Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking in 2012, it was a big success. The book made the cover of Time magazine, spent weeks on the New York Times best-sellers list and was the subject of one of the most-watched TED Talks, with more than 13 million views.
From that grew The Quiet Revolution, a company Cain co-founded that continues to produce and share content about, and for, introverts. The site offers an online training course for parents and stories submitted by readers about being introverted. There’s even a podcast.
Kids, Cain says, “are at the heart and center of it.”
“Introverts often are really amazing, talented, gifted, loving children, and they feel like there’s something wrong with them,” she says. “And our mission is to make it so that the next generation of kids does not grow up feeling that way.”
In her latest book, Quiet Power: The Secret Strengths of Introverts, she’s taking her message about introverts to teenagers. Though the book is written for young adults, it’s also a tool for teachers and parents.
I talked with Cain about her mission of supporting introverts, and asked her advice on how to teach them.
So what does it mean to be an introverted child?
It’s really not different for a child than for an adult. It’s a person who feels at their best and at their most alive when they’re in quieter, more mellow environments. And it stems from a neurobiological difference between introverts and extroverts. Literally, different nervous systems. Introverts have nervous systems that simply react more to everything that’s going on around them, and that means they feel more in their sweet spot when there’s less stuff happening. And extroverts have nervous systems that react less, which means that they don’t get to their sweet spot until there’s more stuff happening. And so this is why you see these different behavioral preferences. An introverted kid would rather draw quietly or would rather play their favorite sport with one or two other kids. A more extroverted child would rather be part of a big gang and a big noisy birthday party, and not only not be fazed by it but seem to really relish all that stimulation.
And it’s different from being shy?
It is different. Shyness is much more about the fear of being judged. It’s a kind of self-consciousness and not wanting people to look at you and feeling easily embarrassed or easily shamed. These are all the feelings that a shy child would have. And in practice, many introverted children are also shy, but many are not, and you can also have children that are quite extroverted but who are shy, and as soon as they overcome their shyness, you see them being in the middle of the big gang. So it’s really important when you’re working with children to understand what is actually happening inside them so that you make sure that you’re responding to the right thing.
So let’s talk about schools. Where do they come in?
You know, lots of schools are really hungry for information on how they can do a better job of working with these kids.
They’re asking good questions: What indeed are the right ways to think about class participation? And are we over-evaluating as an educational culture? We overvalue the person who raises their hand all the time. Why is that important? Do we overvalue in quantity, as opposed to quality, of participation? Are there ways to think about class participation differently? Like we [at Quiet Revolution] have been encouraging schools to think in terms of classroom engagement rather than participation. Take a more holistic way of looking at how a child is engaging with this material or with their classmates.
Grant Snider/Dial Books for Young Readers
One of the anecdotes I loved in the book was when the teacher had her students think for a minute before answering. What other kind of good ideas or tips can teachers use like that?
Another idea is the think/pair/share technique, which I think many teachers are familiar with already, but may not realize the power of it within a population of students. This is a technique where the teacher asks the students a question; asks them to think about the answer. They pair up with another student to talk about their reflections. And then, once they’re paired, once they’ve articulated it with that partner, then you ask each pair to share their thoughts with the room as a whole. And this does a lot of great things for introverted kids. No. 1, it gives them the time to process. No. 2, it allows them to get the experience of articulating their thoughts out loud. But in front of only one other student, they don’t have to do it in front of the whole class. And then, often, once they have had that warmup period with one other student, they’re then much more likely to want to share with the whole class.
So this is a technique that works, it works equally well for introverts and extroverts. It’s great for the extroverts, too, but it just happens to work well with the more reticent kids.
What do you think about using social media or technology in the classroom? Helpful for introverts? Harmful?
Helpful. Well, of course social media is such a big thing, so for introverts, there are pros and cons. But my first impulse is to say helpful, and there are teachers now who are starting to incorporate social media into their classrooms and report that the more reticent children are much more likely to participate when their means of expression is through their screens. They can type their answer into a screen, the other students then see what they have written or typed or whatever, and then “real life” dialogue begins based on the initial ideas that were contributed through the screen.
So in general I’m a big fan of social media. I think incorporating it creatively into the class can work. If we’re talking about it as an educational technique, then I am all for it.
This brings me to another school-related trauma: the public speech. Should teachers kind of push introverts along, out of their comfort zone?
Yeah, so I think that it’s important, of course. The key, if we’re talking about public speaking or really anything that kids are fearful of, is to think of anxiety levels on a scale of 1 to 10, and to make sure you’re pushing kids within a zone of 4 to 6.
If you have a kid who is really freaking out, they’re really in that 7-to-10 zone, it’s just too dangerous to push them at that point. They might succeed, they might, you know, do well and feel this is great. But there’s too big a risk of it backfiring and the experience going poorly and the fear being further codified in their brain.
So you’re much better off meeting a fear in small steps. The answer is not: ‘OK, you never have to do … ‘ The Answer is: “OK. You’re afraid of public speaking. Why don’t you prepare your speech and work on it first with your best friend?”
Give the speech to your friend. And then, when you’ve done that, maybe you can give it to another, smaller group. From there, you work up in stages, to finally giving the all out speech. You look for ways to make the experience less anxiety producing.
In the book, you mention that loving the topic can help kids get into their speech.
Making sure that the child is speaking about a subject that they’re truly passionate about and excited to speak about is important. Because again, this is … biochemical. If you tap into your body’s behavioral activation system by speaking about something you’re excited about, then that overcomes the body’s behavioral inhibition system. Which is the system in your body telling you, stop. Slow down. Get the heck off the stage. So it does require extra work on the part of the teacher and an extra degree of thought and care, which I recognize is not always easy, you know, for overburdened teachers. But it goes a long way.
What about group work? Is that good for introverts?
In my experience, it depends a lot on how the group is structured. How carefully it’s structured. Because I’ve seen group work where it works really well, you’ve got kids who work well together, everybody knows their role. That can be a really positive experience. And then I’ve seen big free-for-all groups where it’s Lord of The Flies and you’ve got the most dominant kids taking over. Everyone else is checked out. So it can really go both ways.
Source: http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/02/18/465999756/how-parents-and-teachers-can-nurture-the-quiet-power-of-introverts
Halloween
As Halloween nears, it’s important to talk to children about staying safe during a night of trick-or-treating. Though the night is full of fun and festivity, children can be particularly vulnerable to lurking dangers on Halloween. The Tulsa Police Department would like to offer several tips to ensure that everyone has a safe celebration.
• Children should trick-or-treat with an adult
• Trick-or-treat in areas that are well lit
• Cross streets at corners, using traffic signals and crosswalks where available
• Look left, right and left again when crossing
• Walk on sidewalks or paths; if there is no sidewalk, walk facing traffic as far to the left as possible
• Wear light-colored costumes decorated with reflective tape or stickers
• Carry a flashlight or glow stick to increase visibility to drivers
• Only eat treats and candy that are properly wrapped in their original packaging after being checked by an adult
• It’s also a good idea to carry a cell phone while trick-or-treating in case of an emergency.
•When possible trick-or-treat in groups
It is also important that drivers do their part to keep trick-or-treaters safe.
• Be alert in residential neighborhoods
• Drive more slowly and anticipate heavy pedestrian traffic
• Remember that costumes can limit children’s visibility and they may not be able to see a moving vehicle
• Enter and exit driveways slowly and carefully
Happy Safe Halloween Everybody!
How Parents’ Behavior Affects Children During a Divorce
Co-authored by Sara Au
If you’re divorcing, it’s very likely that your world is being rocked like no other time in your life. You may feel shell-shocked, unmoored, enraged or depressed. All of those feelings–and more–are completely normal, and you need to deal with them or find help if you cannot. It’s natural for you to want to lash out at the world, or withdraw from it, or otherwise act on your feelings, but when you’re a parent you need to consider how your actions will affect your children and their behavior.
It’s so hard to hold it all together, but here are some do’s and don’ts that will go very far in helping your child adjust to this change in their lives, and protect their positive development during a difficult time:
It’s important not to share with your children how distressed, frustrated, or depressed you are about the situation. This does not mean you can’t show emotion. Showing and managing emotions help kids learn to do the same. But intense feelings that you struggle to manage should be dealt with using your own support system. You can’t expect your children to handle the burden of being your primary emotional support.
Keep your promises. If you say you’ll be somewhere with the kids, then make sure you are there. If your children are due to spend time with your ex, make sure you’re respectful of that time. Children need both parents in their lives whenever possible. It’s important that your kids have regular contact with you both.
Give your children privacy and space to freely interact with their other parent without feeling like you’re monitoring them. Of course, you need to know they are safe, but when they are with your ex, let them be with them, and let your ex shoulder the responsibility for them. (This might be a good time to get your children a cell phone, if they don’t already have one. Even if it’s a bit earlier than planned, that gives them the freedom to contact you both, and you the opportunity to contact them if needed. Just don’t be in constant contact when they’re away from you.)
Don’t take actions that undermine the other parent. If the other parent is actively undermining you, and you don’t have a civil relationship where you can compromise, then just focus on your own home’s stability and rules. Resist the urge to retaliate or complain to your children about the situation. Don’t grill your children about your ex-spouse and his or her activities, either. You can be a good role model for behavior regardless of whether your ex-spouse is doing so.
Don’t be a victim of divorce. Strive to be a model resilience and self-reliance. This is a horribly emotional thing to go through, but it’s just as powerful of a message when your kids see you bounce back. They do need to know that terrible things can happen in life, some of which are outside of our control, but we do not let such events ruin our lives forever.
If your family life has already become acrimonious, it’s not too late to take steps to turn that around. It will take time, but it can be accomplished. An amicable relationship between divorced parties is best for all involved, but if that cannot be managed, civility and avoidance of conflict between the adults will foster the best outcomes for the children.
Your choices and behavior have far-reaching consequences when you’re parenting through a divorce. Being able to partition your feelings and your reactions to problems between you and your ex is essential, so that you can be a role model for your children. (Finding an adult outlet to vent your feelings with is also essential–for your own well-being.)
Even though divorce can be difficult, children can make it through resiliently and can even thrive in homes where each parent is happier and potentially more fulfilled in their own personal life.
Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-l-stavinoha-ph-d-/how-parents-behavior-affe_1_b_8133150.html?utm_hp_ref=divorce&ir=Divorce
5 Things Divorced Parents Need to Know Before the Next Tax Season
{4:20 minutes to read} As spouses finalize their divorces, agreements are usually reached as to how the parents will account for their child on their separate individual income tax returns.
Here are five things you need to know about child-related deductions and tax credits:
1. It doesn’t matter which parent provides the greater amount of financial support. In recent years, the support test has been replaced by what is called the “place-of-abode” test. The child must still receive more than half of his or her support from the parents in order to qualify as an exemption, but the parent with whom the child resides with most of the year will be the parent who may claim the child, assuming that all other qualifications are met.
2. The non-custodial parent may claim a child. The qualifying non-custodial parent may claim the dependency exemption if the divorcing couple is in agreement, but that parent must attach a Form 8332 to their federal tax return. The form will include the signature of the custodial parent releasing their right to claim the child. Reliance on the agreement itself without the signed form may result in a denial of the deduction and related child tax credit.
3. The parent who qualifies as head of household does not need to claim the dependent child to file as head of household.
4. Credits and benefits are still available to the custodial parent who releases the dependency exemption. Therefore, the parent who is considered the custodial parent by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) still may claim the credits for child care expenses and the earned income credit, even if they do not claim the child on their return.
5. The agreements do not apply once the child reaches the age of majority. When a child reaches the age where he/she is considered to be an adult, then he/she is no longer considered in custody of either parent. Facts and circumstances of the previous year will determine whether that child may be considered a dependent for tax purposes, but the child is no longer under the rules of the divorce agreement.
The most common misconception that I hear is from the parent who says, “I pay child support; so I can claim him on my taxes.” And that statement is not necessarily true. Once again, because the support test was replaced by the “place of abode” test, it no longer matters which parent provides the larger amount of support, but rather, where the child lives most of the time.
These days many parents have “shared parenting time,” which is a 50-50 arrangement. But, because there are 365 days in a year, it could be argued that one parent, or the other, had physical custody of the child for one additional night.
A divorce financial professional can help you make informed decisions about child-related deductions before tax season arrives. How will you and your ex-spouse decide who will claim the child(ren) as exemptions on their tax returns?
Susan A. Moussi, CPA, CFP®, CDFA
SMD Tax & Divorce Financial Planning Consultants, Inc.
Phone: 614.429.4172
[email protected]
How Will Marijuana Use Affect Your Child Custody Case
How Will Marijuana Use Affect Your Child Custody Case in New York State?
A lot of people don’t realize that New York State became the 23rd state to legalize the medical use of marijuana. We still don’t know – and probably won’t know for a couple of years – who will be allowed to prescribe it and for what illnesses. Medical marijuana will only be prescribed as a pill or through vaporization, and will not be legal to smoke.
A proposal was made by Senator Liz Krueger earlier this year to legalize recreational marijuana in New York. This would mean you could:
- enjoy marijuana;
- grow up to six marijuana plants at home for personal use; and
- possess up to two ounces of marijuana.
The reason this is important is that marijuana has been prohibited in New York for over forty years – prohibition lasted only thirteen years – and over those forty years, the use of marijuana has not declined. It has resulted in 20 million arrests, costing the state tremendous tax dollars and losing the taxes which could have been charged, like the taxes charged on liquor.
So people are smoking marijuana, and it’s not a big deal to the point that the state may legalize it. So then, what’s the big deal if a mother or a father tests positive for marijuana while going through a custody dispute?
The answer: “It’s really not a big deal.” Marijuana is now treated very similarly to alcohol. A positive test is insufficient proof of any sort of neglect.
Brooklyn Family Court recently dismissed a child neglect case filed by ACS. Despite a positive drug test for marijuana, the court ruled that there was no proof of intoxication and no proof of any danger to the child. Therefore, the neglect was dismissed.
If you’re going through a custody dispute, and marijuana use is alleged, in order to be important, you must prove that the other party smokes, ingests or vaporizes marijuana to the point of intoxication; and that they do so while the child or children are entrusted in their care.
** Joshua Katz does not endorse the use of marijuana or any other recreational drugs.
Tax Time 2015
For all of you who do your own accounting here is a link from the IRS explaining the most commonly asked questions for divorcing parents during tax season.
http://www.irs.gov/publications/p504/ar02.html
Disclaimer: This is not tax advice and we never give tax advice. Contact your accountant for important filing information.
Telephones
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