What to ask for with 50/50 custody

twister22 · August 2013

So I'm on page 35 now and can't find anything on what to ask for in a CO for shared parenting. I've also tried the search board thing and that's no help.

So... what should be put in a CO for 50/50 parenting with a rotating weeks schedule?

grumbledore · August 2013

Frankly, not to be a Debbie Downer, but if I could go back in time and not agree to 50/50, I would do it in a heartbeat. It's been tough on my daughter. Tougher than we ever anticipated when she was 4 years old. The courts seem to love it, but it is very difficult.

That said, make sure you are clear about transitions (when they happen, how they happen, especially if there is distance to be traveled), how medical decisions are made (both emergencies and non-emergencies), how school decisions will be made, whether you want right of first refusal, how extra activities will be chosen and who will pay.

And for the love of god, if you are considering waiving CS, reconsider that decision. We did, and I am kicking myself now because my income went down a year or so after we did our agreement, and his continues to climb (when we did the agreement, we had close to matching incomes). Our household incomes are still comparable, so it works out fine, but were that not the case, it would be difficult.

Ilumine · August 2013

1) Do alteranting WEEKS, not some convoluted 2/3/3 thing. That does not give the child time enough to adapt to the new household. Just sleeping in a new room (even if its your other room) can throw off sleep patterns. It sucks to be a parent without your kid, but this is what is best for the child.

2) Be exact about the transition times and location. Ensure that there is equal share in the driving. I would make it about that the receiving parent is the one at home, that way the child can transition right into the house, not have to have the crying jag (from leaving the parent) be in the car.

3) Be very clear about holidays. Holidays and school vacations do not match up with alternating visitation. Please just alternate the whole holiday. It is not fair to the child to have to uproot themselves in the middle of their vacation/holiday.

4) Make summer weeks (if you plan on having longer stretches) written into the CO in a way that has exact dates

5) Do not do a sleep over in the middle of the week, just do a dinner - making the recieving parent have to do all of the driving if he/she wants to execute.

6) Talk about extra cirrculars. Make sure that both parties have to agree for co-payment and that once there is an agreement, then both parents must enforce the extra circular schedule OR allow the other parent to at least do the driving.

twister22 · August 2013

Thanks, those are good suggestions. This is for a friend, BTW. BD and I have no plans to change out current CO.

Any other suggestions are greatly appreciated.

fellesferie · August 2013

Maybe something about school?

DS is responsible for all his homework, but there is still a lot of parental responsibility. Week 1 of school, we had to fill out a form and send a family picture. Weeks 2 & 3 we had to sign off on homework and reading logs.

A frequent complaint on the board is that a parent is too frequently making the kid late or allowing absences.

Obviously every kid is different, but last year mine was barely hanging on. If he'd often been late or absent or had flakier parents, he would have been toast.

So if XH moved here tomorrow and we started thinking about 50/50, I would ask for some sort of clause about school. If one parent shows they cannot handle school obligations, I don't think 50/50 (during the school year at least) is in the best interest of the child. I have no clue how something like this would be worded, but school is too important to mess up.

Nineoceans · August 2013

The big things I can think of are: holidays, vacation times, birthdays of siblings (we left this out,) medical responsibilities I.e. a child hurts themselves because they are not being supervised vs a typical medical need, activities (does the parent HAVE to bring the child, how are the costs divided if one agrees and one doesn't) and also orthodontia is a big one, we wrote that we both need to agree in writing on cost

SimpleJane · August 2013

Ilumine said:
1) Do alteranting WEEKS, not some convoluted 2/3/3 thing. That does not give the child time enough to adapt to the new household. Just sleeping in a new room (even if its your other room) can throw off sleep patterns. It sucks to be a parent without your kid, but this is what is best for the child.

2) Be exact about the transition times and location. Ensure that there is equal share in the driving. I would make it about that the receiving parent is the one at home, that way the child can transition right into the house, not have to have the crying jag (from leaving the parent) be in the car.

3) Be very clear about holidays. Holidays and school vacations do not match up with alternating visitation. Please just alternate the whole holiday. It is not fair to the child to have to uproot themselves in the middle of their vacation/holiday.

4) Make summer weeks (if you plan on having longer stretches) written into the CO in a way that has exact dates

5) Do not do a sleep over in the middle of the week, just do a dinner - making the recieving parent have to do all of the driving if he/she wants to execute.

6) Talk about extra cirrculars. Make sure that both parties have to agree for co-payment and that once there is an agreement, then both parents must enforce the extra circular schedule OR allow the other parent to at least do the driving.

I disagree with 1 and 3. My kids don't do well spending more than a few days without seeing me or XH. Vacation weeks we each get a full week with them and they had a really hard time going that long without seeing either parent. I think it really depends on the kids and how old they are we tried a few different combos before we found what worked best for our kids.

Also, we split Thanksgiving every year and haven't had issues. We live close to eachother so there isn't much 'uprooting' and the kids get to see both families.

sweetwalks · August 2013

SimpleJane said:

1) Do alteranting WEEKS, not some convoluted 2/3/3 thing. That does not give the child time enough to adapt to the new household. Just sleeping in a new room (even if its your other room) can throw off sleep patterns. It sucks to be a parent without your kid, but this is what is best for the child.

2) Be exact about the transition times and location. Ensure that there is equal share in the driving. I would make it about that the receiving parent is the one at home, that way the child can transition right into the house, not have to have the crying jag (from leaving the parent) be in the car.

3) Be very clear about holidays. Holidays and school vacations do not match up with alternating visitation. Please just alternate the whole holiday. It is not fair to the child to have to uproot themselves in the middle of their vacation/holiday.

4) Make summer weeks (if you plan on having longer stretches) written into the CO in a way that has exact dates

5) Do not do a sleep over in the middle of the week, just do a dinner - making the recieving parent have to do all of the driving if he/she wants to execute.

6) Talk about extra cirrculars. Make sure that both parties have to agree for co-payment and that once there is an agreement, then both parents must enforce the extra circular schedule OR allow the other parent to at least do the driving.

I disagree with 1 and 3. My kids don't do well spending more than a few days without seeing me or XH. Vacation weeks we each get a full week with them and they had a really hard time going that long without seeing either parent. I think it really depends on the kids and how old they are we tried a few different combos before we found what worked best for our kids. Also, we split Thanksgiving every year and haven't had issues. We live close to eachother so there isn't much 'uprooting' and the kids get to see both families.

I think I like the dinner on the other parents week for that reason...it can be hard for kids to go that long without seeing either parent. But, I agree that having a week on/week off schedule makes it easier for the kids to remember, especially if for instance mom picks up from school and kid rides bus to after school care. If they are younger, it may be easier for them to remember where they are going what day.

We sort of split Thanksgiving...2 p.m. Thanksgiving Day until 7 p.m. the following day. It makes it a little difficult since we cook dinner and have everyone over to our house but normally I'll just stay home so our families can come whenever and DH goes to pick up SS. (We aren't local to BM). Christmas is done the same way. It's not ideal, but I would HATE to miss every other holiday with SS. (Even though we would obviously celebrate Christmas when he was with us).

I generally like all of the suggestions. We don't have 50/50 so these are good to know for the future.

Ilumine · August 2013

SimpleJane said:

1) Do alteranting WEEKS, not some convoluted 2/3/3 thing. That does not give the child time enough to adapt to the new household. Just sleeping in a new room (even if its your other room) can throw off sleep patterns. It sucks to be a parent without your kid, but this is what is best for the child.

2) Be exact about the transition times and location. Ensure that there is equal share in the driving. I would make it about that the receiving parent is the one at home, that way the child can transition right into the house, not have to have the crying jag (from leaving the parent) be in the car.

3) Be very clear about holidays. Holidays and school vacations do not match up with alternating visitation. Please just alternate the whole holiday. It is not fair to the child to have to uproot themselves in the middle of their vacation/holiday.

4) Make summer weeks (if you plan on having longer stretches) written into the CO in a way that has exact dates

5) Do not do a sleep over in the middle of the week, just do a dinner - making the recieving parent have to do all of the driving if he/she wants to execute.

6) Talk about extra cirrculars. Make sure that both parties have to agree for co-payment and that once there is an agreement, then both parents must enforce the extra circular schedule OR allow the other parent to at least do the driving.

I disagree with 1 and 3. My kids don't do well spending more than a few days without seeing me or XH. Vacation weeks we each get a full week with them and they had a really hard time going that long without seeing either parent. I think it really depends on the kids and how old they are we tried a few different combos before we found what worked best for our kids. Also, we split Thanksgiving every year and haven't had issues. We live close to eachother so there isn't much 'uprooting' and the kids get to see both families.

And I am going to disagree with you.

Study after Study after Study have shown that children NEED consistency and set schedules.

Here is a good article on why children NEED consistency. (https://www.pal.ua.edu/discipline/consistency.php)

Please tell me how being at Mom's house for two nights, then going to Dad's house for 2 nights, then going to moms house for 3 nights, then going to Dad's house for 2 nights, then going to Mom's house for 2 nights, then going to Dad's house for three nights - only to start the whole thing over again creates REAL consistency?

Sure the schedule in the particular home is the same - but Having to change the rules every 2 to 3 days is not being true to the definition, that "rules and expectations are the same from one time to another. Consistency makes the child’s world predictable and less confusing. It frees their minds of worry about what might happen and teaches them accountability for their actions."

So changing their consistent schedule every couple days sort of defeats the purpose of the positive results of consistency, no?

And given that the numerous studies have shown that having a full time / active father who participates in the minutia of parenting is also extremely important, then week on, week off is probably the best solution. Because then your children at least have the weekend to adapt to the new household, so the week, where they are in school and NEED the calming presence of consistency to help them navigate the more pressing issues of a child's life - you know learning and social interaction with peers.

And I actually DO understand the heartache this can be. Just a year ago, SS attacked DH, causing the police to come to our house and DSS coming and interviewing me and DD. At that point, I looked at divorce. And even though I knew I could get full custody (and I would have if SS was still in the house - DD will never be alone with SS again), I would not have done that to HER because she needs her father (who is a great father to DD and SD). I resigned myself to living in FL and doing the week on / week off because I did the research.

FemShep · August 2013

@llumine, your article doesn't prove anything about custody arrangements, it only talks about the value of consistency (which I think we all agree with). My DD *consistently* spends Mon and Tue with her Dad, Wed and Thur with our family, and alternates every other weekend. How is that not consistent? In fact, we did the week on/week off schedule for the first year of our shared custody and switched. The shared week works much better for everyone.

OP, the bigger point here is that, no matter whether you opt to do in terms of schedule, try to have consistent rules and expectations. If you're able to work together for the good of the child, everyone is much happier. I also try to treat xH as I would like to be treated, and he does the same. We accommodate changes when needed and if possible, we send detailed notes on doctors checkups, etc. There have absolutely been times I've been frustrated with xH (and I'm sure he'd say the same about me), but I've never once regretted biting my tongue and playing nice.

To get back to your original question: Another topic that we addressed was what would happen if one of us had business travel and had to make alternative arrangements. We agreed that the other parent would have the first option to take DD, but was under no obligation to, and the parent who was responsible for custody had to find alternative care with an approved caregiver. We also put in clauses that each parent had to maintain at least $500,000 in life insurance with DD as the beneficiary (and the other parent as the trustee) until DD was 21, and that if something happened to one of us, the surviving parent had to continue to allow and support DD's relationship with the family of the deceased.

Littlejen22 · August 2013

Remember any of the complaints people have can be what you want to add.

If lost time is made up. Summer vacations which i would want to have a minimum of 10 days but preferably more because we are doing a 16 day vacation this year with our kids this year and if SD was a minor it would suck if she could not come because we only had her for a week.

If a parent can take kid out off school for anything besides sickness and if you allow it for vacations then it should alternate yearly so both parents do not do it the same year.

I would talk now about extra curricular activities and try to get an understanding so later on you are not fighting to prove points.

That both parents will not alienate the other and will include them in things like if homework is to draw your family you will not make the kid only draw the people in your house.

Which items will or will not go between houses including school items and who will pay for what.

How far one parent can move before reassessing custody.

Phone calls to other parent. I would write that calls happen on certain days but that the child is allowed to call whenever they want.

Holidays

Birthday parties. Either joint odds and even years of who hosts friend party if parents choose to have one and if not the other parent gets to do one if they want.

What to ask for with 50/50 custody

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