In değil|se, is the combination understood with tense marking or not? I mean does

         Çocuklarım değilse...

mean a condition or a wish or does the meaning depend on what comes after?

I often have trouble in deciding when to throw değil out of the sentence and when to bring olmak in. If someone has a simple rule about this I would like to hear it.

değilse or değil ise

"ise" shows a condition (if)

"değil ise" is the negative form of it (if not)

About that simple rule, değil is put if it is negative; olmak is different, it is an auxiliary verb for positives.

Very simple:

With "ise" subjunctive mode (wish) is not possible.

V+se may be used for "wish" (along with condition of course)

ise = if ... is/are

Çocuklarım değil ise = if they are not my children

To state a wish

Çocuklarım olma-sa = I wish I had no children

You see, one just needs to ask. Thank you, Faruk, si++. I wanted to tell you, Faruk, that I like your translations. You are so accurate there is always something to learn.