Divorced parents turning to laptops for virtual visits

Story here. Excerpts:

'CHICAGO — Greg Baddick helped his 9-year-old daughter learn the state capitals of the Midwest.

Later, when he asked Isabella how her test went, she said she got an A-plus — although she almost forgot the answer for Nebraska.

Baddick congratulated her by Internet video link, the same way he helped her study. "I’m proud of you.”

Because Baddick, a senior manager for a pharmaceutical company, is divorced from Isabella’s mother, he helped his daughter study using their laptop computers and the Internet. The virtual visits are a weekly date, in addition to the in-person weekly visits and twice-monthly weekend stays. Isabella lives in Elgin, Ill.; Baddick in Chicago.

"It’s been, honestly, a godsend,” Baddick, 39, said. "I feel like I’m there. I don’t feel like I’m missing anything.”

Language added to an Illinois law this month includes virtual visitation among the rights of noncustodial parents, making it enforceable by a judge. According to the measure, parents are entitled to electronic visits unless the court believes contact would harm the child.
...
But then the father and daughter adjusted, and in recent years, they discovered virtual visitation. In the Baddicks’ case, the visits aren’t part of an official custody agreement, but rather worked out informally between Isabella’s parents.'

Dads-at-a-distance: the farther, the better, it seems. "Contact" with dad is fine (for some) provided it is only via electrons running over metal wires.