Francis and his wife Stephanie came to me for help in mediating their divorce settlement almost ten years ago.

By mutual agreement — supported by a healthy firewall between information shared by either side — I’ve continued to work with each of them, individually, on ad hoc issues as they arise. That’s actually quite ironic. In all those years, working with me is the only point on which they’ve ever seemed to agree.

They practice what I’ve labeled “over-the-transom” co-parenting. Researcher E. Mavis Hetherington calls it “parallel.” It’s practiced by half of all divorced parents: They “simply ignore each other.”

In Francis’ case, however, he seemed to do this with a bit more vigor.

Francis (who prefers to be called “Frank”) shares parenting time, week-on, week-off, with Stephanie. They have one son, who’s now a freshman at Saline High School.

Frank and Stephanie largely follow both the details and spirit of the divorce settlement we all hammered out in 2001. Early on, it became clear that mom’s tastes in clothes for Number One Son were a bit more extravagant than dad’s; so I facilitated an agreement whereby they’d split the “ordinary” cost according to their ratio of incomes, and Stephanie would cover what we’ve come to call “the designer-jeans” amount running over and above.

“Reasonable” as this may sound, a couple of years ago, the son started showing up at mom’s with his designer-jeans quite a bit more worse-for-the-wear than might otherwise have been anticipated after a week with dad. Stephanie noticed a pattern and approached the former love-of-her-life a few months later.

Frank denied volition. Then he went on, curiously, to point out that it wasn’t his job to care for “her” things.

Well, okay — I’m a parent, I know that “boys will be boys” and that we do need to teach our children to be responsible for their own things. Still, how big a deal could it be to put a bug in your kid’s ear, suggesting the still-well-fitting sneakers from last year seem a better choice for yard clean-up than his new Nike Air Max+ 2009s?

That said, the hard reality is that no authority on earth is capable of making Frank “get” that he was on the wrong path. And that he was actually teaching his son a set of values here. Negative values, in this case.

Then came the son’s birthday, summer of 2010. Frank indulged the standing request for a top-of-the-line iPod Touch.

Within a week, it was no longer functional.

Don’t get ahead of me here. Because if you’re thinking Stephanie had anything to do with the premature decommissioning of that exotic bit of technology, you’d be mistaken. Frank’s son had careless destroyed his new iPod before ever leaving his dad’s house.

He knew no different: In an understandable invalidation of Exodus 20:12, Number One Son had internalized the idea that it’s perfectly acceptable to dishonor so many things about his mother and her ways of expressing care for him.

How should dad be any different?

Dell Deaton is a Christian counselor specializing in divorce (and alternatives), available through independent professional practice since 1983. Contact on www.divorcepastor.com or by phone at (734) 668-2001 in Saline. Local volunteer with the Boy Scouts of America. Dad, remarried, three dogs. Internationally-recognized expert on Ian Fleming and James Bond watches.

Note: Names and other identifying details are always changed for Divorce Pastor columns to respect, protect privacy.