Founder
When you are divorcing or separating from a co-parent, there are many decisions to make and plans to put in place. These plans are intended to help set you all up for the most positive co-parenting relationship possible and provide a supportive schedule for your children that will reap the many benefits of such a plan as a result. The parenting plan is a legally binding agreement that must be established between the co-parents. The parenting plan must address who will be responsible for the daily tasks of child-rearing that come up. It must also include who will make decisions about the child’s health care, school, and other areas critical to raising a child. The parenting plan should also address how the co-parents will communicate. While all of this is very important, time-sharing plays a critical and central role in every parenting plan. Here is how you should address time-sharing in your parenting plan.
How to Address Time-Sharing in Your Parenting Plan
A parenting plan should be as detailed as possible regarding the time-sharing schedule. This includes addressing who will have the kids on holidays as well as on school breaks and birthdays. The details should include addressing the dates and times in which each parent will have the kids as well as details about pick-up and drop-off times and locations.
In an ideal situation, a parenting plan time-sharing schedule should be detailed and specific, but also flexible and fair. It should be the hope of all involved that the time-sharing provisions in the parenting plan will help best serve the family’s goals well into the future. The more detailed a parenting plan can be, the more likely that disputes about time-sharing will be more easily resolved, or not even come up, in the future.
In addition to a detailed time-sharing schedule and plan for when changes may need to be made, you might want to consider a right of first refusal in childcare provision within the agreement. This provision addresses the fairly common situation of a parent having to rely on a third party for childcare during his or her parenting time. This can be a source of great contention between co-parents and can prevent many problems down the road if addressed in the parenting plan. Under the right of first refusal provision, the other co-parent has the right to be offered the opportunity to spend time with the kids if the other parent is in need of childcare assistance. The time with the children would first be offered to the co-parent prior to contacting the third party to help bridge the childcare gap. Of course, such a provision may not work for everyone. Sometimes a person may feel that this gives the other parent too much insight into the life of the other parent, but it can have significant benefits as well.
Florida Family Law Attorneys
Do you have questions about establishing the best parenting plan? The team at Orlando Family Team has your answers. Contact us today.
