On behalf of Mohajer Law Firm, APC on Thursday, August 1, 2019.
When you are going through a divorce with children, one of the most important subjects to discuss with your spouse is your parenting plan. Parenting plans are not limited to visitation and custody. They also address how you want to handle school holidays, religious upbringing, and other important aspects of raising a child, all of which are central issues in a child custody matter.
Designing a parenting plan can be complicated if you and your spouse didn’t agree well on how to bring up your children. Regardless, you need to decide both on time-share and decision-making agreements.
What are some things to consider when building a parenting plan?
There are a few things you should consider when you’re building a parenting plan including:
- Your child’s basic needs
- Your child’s need for medical care
- Your child’s age, abilities, personality, and experiences, which may impact time-sharing options or decisions about how to raise them
- How you’d like to provide your child with a balanced, consistent schedule on holidays, during school and in day-to-day life
You want to build a plan that has good details and is easy to follow. However, you also need to be flexible. Remember, children aren’t always predictable, and your lives may all be more different than you expected. A little flexibility can go a long way toward making the parenting plan work well.
In most parenting plans, it is wise to include language ensuring that both parents can communicate with the child, review school and medical records, maintain current contact information for the other parent, and obtain important information about their child when needed. Clear provisions like these often reduce conflict and make the parenting arrangement easier to follow over time. A knowledgeable family law attorney can help draft these terms with clarity and precision.
With any parenting plan, consistency is the key to helping your child adjust and bond well to you and your ex-spouse. Younger children will need to see each of you more often to be able to bond well with you. Remember that the idea of time is understood differently by young children. Just a short time away from one parent or the other can have a significant impact, so keep a regular schedule to make the transition easier on them.
If you and your former spouse cannot agree on how to raise your child, you may want to consider mediation to help create a workable parenting plan. Disagreements may still arise in the future, but both parents should find ways to resolve them without placing the child in the middle of the conflict. To discuss your parenting plan options in more detail, please contact Mohajer Law Firm through the firm’s contact page.