Here's a question I haven't seen here before. How do you secure yourself against an irresponsible, unreasonable, vindictive or otherwise wayward ex with respect to things you would trust with your kids? For example, how do you give your kid a house key, whilst ensuring your ex doesn't get a hold of it? What about an i-tunes account that has your credit card info on it? What about a cell phone? Imagine your ex running up long distance charges on a cell phone YOU are paying for! What about anything else with an account that you would otherwise happily sign your kid up for, but could mean that your ex either gets access to your information that could be misused or takes advantage of a free service you suddenly provide?

Has anybody successfully dealt with this?

I don't know if you can really make yourself totally safe. I usually take my daughter's house key back before you she leaves for the weekend to be with her father. She left her cell phone at her dad's house this last weekend so now I am stressing about the possibility of him taking the phone and wracking up charges on it to be vindictive. When I plan a vacation, I always buy trip insurance now in case he decides to sabotage the trip somehow. I think you can just do the best you can to safeguard yourself and then deal with it if he does do some crazy action.

Sure, my daughter enters the code on the keypad to open the garage door, so no key for my ex-wife to have.

I don't set up her accounts linked to any credit cards. If she wants something on iTunes, she buys a gift card and enters the code into the account.

My ex-wife provides the cell phone for my daughter, so that's not a problem for me. The problem is when she is on her phone all the time instead of being engaged in family activities, so she's been asked to leave her phone at her moms for periods of time until she proves to be reliable, or to give me her phone until she goes back.

I suppose you could provide a pay as you go phone, or get unlimited voice and text plans. (That's what we have.) So unless they are calling internationally, there is little chance of damage there.

EE, do you tell your daughter not to tell her mom the keypad code? How do you discuss keeping secrets from her parents with her?

As for i-tunes, you need to register with an email. My friend set up a new i-pod for a 9-year old using her email which was already registered with an account with apple, therefore, her cc info was already in there. There was no way to set it up without giving the 9 year old her own email which my friend feels she is too young for. I don't know if there are any other account-related things that might crop up but there could be.

My cousin had an issue with cell phones as her ex kept taking it away as "punishment" but really he just wanted his own phone for free. It was a damned if you/damned if you don't situation with no good possible outcome (either she pays through the nose or teenage kid loses phone or both). He did this with her laptop computer as well which she needed so she could do homework at both parents' house.

I never had problems as serious as this, though my ex used my then-18 year old DS to break into my house and steal stuff, and he's also used him to get furnature and other items from me. He also used other tactics not involving my son to try and sabotage my credit rating. Because my son was old enough, there was no custody, he had his own credit card and paid for his own cell. I am certain that had he been younger and needed to be on my accounts, my ex would have found a way to take advantage of it.

I ask the question because it is something important to consider and make arrangements for when either going to Plan B or divorcing. There is a wealth of knowledge here to help BS's get their financial ducks in a row, get IMs in place, improving custody issues, talking to children about their emotions, but not that much after the fact. Basically, how do you give these things to your kids, which are all important steps to growing up, learning independence, and building and maintaining trust without putting yourself at risk of sabotage from someone who targets you for sport?

Incidently, law enforcement tends to turn a blind eye to this stuff. They may take domestic abuse very seriously but when it comes down to petty crimes - small thefts, fraudulant credit card use - even defrauding the government for an ex's tax return (ask me how I know) - they do nothing.

My son's Itouch is registered on my ITunes account, but it is password protected. He can't even do free updates without me putting the code in. He is almost 11. He is annoyed by this many times, especially when he is at his Dad's and wants to update something....but oh well.




Why doesn't she just set up a seperate email account for a second ITunes account without it being the nine year old's email?




I am going to get my son a lap top soon....but he won't be taking it to his Dad's, or anywhere for that matter. I think he is too young to responsibly haul it around without risking damage.

Basically the things you are talking about are NOT necessities for kids. Life can go on without cell phones, lap tops, keys to the house, etc.

Thanks for your input, SmilingWoman. As for these being necessities, I think it's largely age-dependent. Kids nowadays pretty much need computers for homework in high school. They even take notes in class on their laptops now. You could make your kid write notes and reports the old fashioned way, but it could be his/her grades that suffer as a result. They even write exams online nowadays!

While I agree with you about cell phones, modern day teenage social life revolves around them. Not to mention it's nice for a parent to be able to contact their teenage children (wish my DS had one when he was that age!). And keys to the house - are you really going to send a 17 year old to daycare because they get home from school before you get home from work?

You probably could keep this stuff away from your kid to protect yourself from your ex, but is it really fair to your kid? Is this any different than putting your children in the middle of any other aspect of divorce?

I do see that teens need laptops for school. By the time they are that age I imagine they will have to learn to stand up for themselves with vindictive parents...I'm thinking specifically if a non custodial father punishes a teen in a self serving way (taking away a computer so the father can use it himself) it won't be long before the child no longer goes to visit the father.

In other words, when they are still young enough to be FORCED by the courts to go to visitation, I would be doing all I could to protect myself from my X. My child won't have a key to our house, or the passwords to any account that I want protected. By the time he is old enough to HAVE those things, I would expect him to guard such info and other things like keys from anyone who is not permitted to have access to them. That would include naturally -- his father.

Ok, I'm just playing devil's advocate here. But what about the non-custodial (or even partially custodial) parent who is vindictive towards their ex, but otherwise a good parent to the child? Or even if they aren't necessarily a good parent, but the child loves them and enjoys their company (e.g. the parent that lets them watch video games in bed or feeds them tons of junk food)? Chances are that particular ex won't take the laptop but they could use the cell phone or hack into the I-tunes account. My ex was on good terms with my DS when he convinced him to allow him to enter and remove items from my house. It was a case of DS being used to obeying authority- not that WXH threatened him in any way but when he asked, DS found it hard to say no.

How do you deal with this situation?

For the record, I didn't deal with it very well at all (threw a screaming hissy fit at both my ex and my DS). DS has a key to my house and has since been dropped of there by WXH but has no allowed him in. He is a few years older now, though, so that may help.

Honestly I just can't think of too many situations where my X could really mess me up. I dont give my 10 year old access to any credit card because, well he is 10.







Well, I suspect he won't let his dad in because of this--


Which begs the question....Did you (prior to the theft) ever specifically tell your ds your X was never to be allowed in your home or to remove anything from it?

Ds is never brought home when I'm not here...but he has been told his father is not to come in our house, our garage or remove anything.

Not in so many words, specifically. He knew I had changed the locks and that his father no longer had the key. He knew that I did so because his father has started helping himself to stuff in my house specifically when I wasn't home to the extent that I had to hire house-sitters while I was looking after my mom (she was undergoing pre-op procedures for heart surgery and WXH chose her appointment times which he read off the calendar to come to the house). As soon as I could legally lock him out, I did. DS knew all this, but I didn't specifically tell him not to let his father in the house.

I don't think DS fully appreciated what a lowlife his father had become. He was at college when all this was going on and only came home weekends so he missed a lot of the drama. I'm sure WXH told him I was exaggerating or making mountains out of molehills or something - you know how waywards are. It could be that this incident opened his eyes - WXH actually went through my tenant's room while DS protested - I think he got a clearer picture of the family dynamics that day.

I realize your son is only 10, but he will get older and you will need to give him more open access to things that you still need to protect from your ex. It is worth thinking about if you have a crazy POS ex like mine. Mine isn't even all that bad compared to some I read about here.

Do you still live in the marital home or have you moved? I've since moved and I actually feel a little "safer" even though he knows where I am. Neither DS nor WXH has ever resided here so I feel a little more in control.

I've told my daughter not to share passwords or codes with anyone, including her mom. Heck, I don't even know her password.

Now being an IT pro, I can get in to her stuff should I need it. But I don't have her passwords.

Only my wife and I have admin rights to the computers in the house. The kids share a computer that is in a public area, helping to protect against visiting inappropriate websites. But they cannot install any software, and I give them the 3rd degree and do research on things they want to install.

It also makes the computers so much more reliable. My wife's kids (and my wife) used to install all sorts of tool bars and crap and wondered why their computer was so unstable. A few years of only me having the admin rights demonstrated that tight control over what goes on the computer makes it more stable.

My wife has now bought in and I've opened up the admin rights to her. My view was if I'm the one expected to fix it, then until I know I can trust folks, I'm the only one allowed to perform admin tasks.

But that's just me.

I sold the marital home to X and bought a new house last June. Then remarried November 5, 10. Even before I remarried I don't think XH would have dared to enter my new house...or do anything illegal really. Not because he is such an upstanding guy (gag) but because he would not want to look like the low life he is.

You are right that ds will need more access to things as he gets older. But like EE I believe ds will be taught that he is to share passwords and keys with no one...including his father.