If this is Tuesday it must be the Cote d'Azure. How should an ex-wife feel when a husband is taking two young children on a grand tour of Europe? A reader asks "Do I have a right to ask for an itinerary, and phone numbers for hotels, when he's dragging them across Europe? The kids are 9 and 10, two boys, and I can't imagine they are going to be very happy."

It's up to the ex-husband to deal with two unhappy boys. As for the rest of the question, about your right to an itinerary:

"Absolutely!" said Susan Reach Winters, an attorney at Budd Larner, P.C., in New Jersey. "You have every right to know where your children are, especially for emergency situations." Moreover, if you feel your ex is taking the children on something dangerous, or something you do not approve of, you may ìneed to go to court," she said.

"Day trips? Not so much. But longer trips, yes," said Jacalyn Barnett, whose law offices are in New York.

"When a parent asks for an itinerary for an extended trip the child is taking with the other parent, it shows the child that the parent loves them enough to want to know their whereabouts," says David Young, a former Circuit Court judge in Miami-Dade County.

It is best, the lawyers say, if guidelines for situations like these are laid down in the divorce and custody agreement. Every divorce is different, but itís important to focus on the needs of the child and not fall victim to revenge.

If you keep your children from speaking to their father, you are making them casualties in your battle with your ex. There are instances where a parent will call too much, and that is also interfering with the other parentís right to have private time with the child.

Either way, the child is hurt.

Operate a family under written rules? Not possible in your chaotic life? Too much like running a strict boarding school?

In his seminal book “Family Rules,” Dr. Ken Kaye explains why written rules solve most children’s issues, prevent squabbles, shape behavior, and keep parenting even handed. Not only that, but children can learn from watching those rules applied to their siblings.

Dr. Kaye’s book stresses that written rules can be just as useful, maybe even more so, after a divorce. Here are excerpts from “Family Rules” (2005):

The events that create a single-parent family are power forces in shaping a child’s development. A parent’s death, desertion, or divorce leaves emotional wounds in the child just as it does in the remaining parent.

Discipline may be necessary, but it will not be sufficient to heal the wounds. Don’t be afraid to acknowledge, “My child is in pain and needs professional help.”...

When the bitterness between you and the ex-spouse has slacked off a bit, it feels good to exchange a remark or even just a knowing smile with the one other person in the world to whom your children are as special, their development as marvelous, their needs as urgent as they are to you.

But there are dangers on that road. All forces converge to pull the two of you into over-involvement with one another.

The reality is that your family has broken up. You are divorced or you are getting divorced, and if the children are living with you then you have to make the decisions

Keep the co-parenting consultations to the minimum necessary to sustain Dad’s cooperation. But the children’s father should not be the main person you rely on as your sounding board or counselor in setting rules.

Since you cannot afford to be undermined, you will need to respect your children’s father’s feelings, values, and opinions.