7. Starting transitions right

Have your children ready—physically and emotionally—for the time they must say goodbye to you and join their other parent. Use the “packing up” time to recall something fun you’ve had a chance to do and to preview the good about being with their other parent.

Give yourself up to 10 points on your Score Sheet for the extent you can say, “As sad as it is to get our children ready to leave, I use this as a time to let them know I value the relationship they have with their other parent. And I let them know that I’m okay when they’re away from me.”

“As long as there is one upright man, as long as there is one compassionate woman, the contagion may spread and the scene is not desolate. Hope is the thing left to us in a bad time.”

—E.B. White