hen you are 10 years old and face the immense task of deciding what to wear for your school photos, nothing is as important as Mom's advice. So Ashton Kaleita did what any little girl would do: She pulled outfits out of her bedroom closet and modeled them for her mother, then fixed her hair to show the style she was considering.

No matter that her mother, Tawny Kaleita-Sniderman, lives in Lancaster, Ohio, 800 miles from Ashton's bedroom in Winter Springs, Fla., where Ashton lives with her father, Gary Kaleita.

Since December, when her mother and stepfather moved out of the state, Ashton has had regular gab and giggle sessions with her mother through videoconferencing.

Jumping about in front of the camera mounted on her computer, she models clothes and shows off the sculptures she has made in art class. She pleads with her mother to corner her three dogs, including a 70-pounder named Rocky, and hold them up to the camera so Ashton can tell them she loves them.

"These are the things you can't get over the phone," said her mother, who sees Ashton in the flesh on long weekends, many holidays and much of the summer. The rest of the year, she keeps in touch in part through the small window on the computer screen.

Setting up the camera was more than a nifty idea, however. It was ordered by a judge. Ms. Kaleita-Sniderman had hoped to take Ashton with her to Ohio, where her new husband had been offered a job. She suggested videoconferencing to the Florida judge as a means of keeping her former husband in daily contact with their daughter.

To her surprise, the judge decided that Ashton should stay in Florida with Mr. Kaleita, a real estate lawyer who has also remarried. But the judge liked the idea of videoconferencing enough to order the parents to share the cost of the system.

They bought Web cameras and up- to-date computers that included Microsoft NetMeeting software, which has been bundled with Windows since 1996. Their voices and faces are sent almost instantaneously over the Internet and appear in a window on the other computer monitor.

Video visits have also gotten a nod of approval in New Jersey. In January, an appeals court judge commended a mother's offer to set up an interactive Web site for her 9-year- old daughter and the child's father as "creative and innovative." The mother, Kyron Henn-Lee, had asked to take her daughter to California, where she had been offered a job. A lower court had turned down the mother's request to move, but the appeals court said the Web site idea was viable and told the lower court to reconsider. Before the final ruling, however, Ms. Henn-Lee decided not to move.

Stephen J. Harhai, a divorce lawyer in Denver with expertise in technology issues, said that videoconferencing would soon become a bargaining chip for divorced or separated parents who want to move.

"There is enough merit to it that the parent, particularly the one who is proposing the relocation, will start using it very commonly," he said. "It absolutely aids the relationship with the left-behind parent and therefore makes it easier for the judge to permit the move."

That is just what alarms David L. Levy, president of an advocacy group called the Children's Rights Council. He fears the effects of any technology that helps one parent remain at a distance. "These virtual realities are being allowed as justification for a move-away across country," Mr. Levy said.

But legal experts say there have been few custody cases in which videoconferencing was considered. David E. Cherny, president of the Massachusetts chapter of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, said, "I don't think there is a groundswell of people running out of court with their Intel hookups."

Still, the cases have caused a stir in legal circles. Sharyn Sooho, a divorce lawyer in Massachusetts, said that all her clients and colleagues were talking about what Internet communication would mean to them.

"You hear all the anxieties and doubts from both sides," she said.

Noncustodial parents wonder whether judges will eventually substitute visits via the Web for face-to- face visits. "That was the concern," Ms. Sooho said, "that it would be an easy fix."

But custodial parents are wary of the technology as well. Where will the cameras be pointed? What else in the home will the other parent see? When can the cameras be used? And who pays for the equipment? The details are even more devilish when the parents are suspicious or spiteful.

Courts have long recognized technology as a way to ease the pain of separation in custody cases. Today, judges often order divorced parents to provide private phone lines, e-mail accounts and instant message accounts for children who split their time between two homes so the children can have private communications with each parent.

Although the videoconferencing technology is becoming cheaper, it is still used primarily as a business tool. Mr. Kaleita, who makes use of the camera when his daughter visits her mother, said the technology had a way to go before it became a fixture in homes.

"There are a lot of echoes," he said, "the picture is fuzzy, there is a time delay on the sound. It is not really a meaningful way to communicate."

And as with any new toy, some of the excitement has worn off for Ashton and her mother, who now use the equipment only about twice a week.

"More often than not, it's the phone," Ms. Kaleita-Sniderman said. "She's kind of centered when we're on the phone. When she's on videoconferencing, she wants to show me stuff. I get these little tracks of Ashton across the room."

Still, she sees the videoconferencing technology as worth the expense. "I use it because that's the only way I see her," she said. "We could just sit there, and I could watch her hair grow. That's worth it."