Business Travel 2: Staying Close to the Kids When You’re on the Road

Last week, I wrote about the unforeseen challenges of traveling for business. As a divorced parent with primary responsibility for raising my daughter The Bean, I underestimated the impact of my being away for a multi-day business trip. After taking a post-travel guilt trip, I’m back and doing what I do best: Research, research, research.

First, I turned to what’s widely considered a classic for co-parents, Mom’s House, Dad’s House” by Isolina Ricci, PhD. Although Ricci doesn’t touch on travel specifically in this ultra-handy manual for divorced co-parents, she does a fine job outlining how kids and parents who are separated can feel close when they’re far apart.

One suggestion that I really like, and will employ on my very next trip away from home is the “Thinking-of-You Box,” which Ricci describes as little things that you give your child when you reunite. Special pictures, pressed flowers from a particularly colorful place, a small piece of driftwood and the like are “concrete, retouchable, re-readable evidence of caring” for kids Ricci says.

Technology provides ample means of keeping in touch, and email, or even short, handwritten letters with lots of pictures sent by snail-mail are especially good for young children, “who are enthralled with having their very own mail coming to the door.” She suggests photos, postcards and stickers for small children who can’t yet read on their own. For older children, e-mail is a great way to maintain daily contact, to share your own experiences of the day and to tune into their daily happenings at home – even comparing notes on sports or TV shows that you know they normally watch.

The next bit of technology could really be a help to kids and parents who are separated by distance for business or other reasons, so I’ll be doing some homework on Skype. For those of you living under rocks, it’s an online service that allows users to talk, chat or make free video calls over the Internet. I’m not so sure how The Bean’s dad will feel about the sight of my lovely visage beaming into his computer, but I have a feeling he’ll hear me out on this, to prevent tearful bedtimes when I have to be on the road, and vice versa. Video tuck-in service, coming right up!