Drafting a parenting plan is hard work. Parents who are committed to staying together have.
Drafting a parenting plan is hard work. Parents who are committed to staying together have plenty of disagreements about children’s schedules and about decisions, financial and otherwise, related to the children’s care. How much harder is it, then, when the parents’ relationship is so adversarial that they are already in the process of divorce? Spending time hashing out every detail of your parenting plan in mediation is well worth the effort, though, because you can then avoid future stress and conflict by simply following your parenting plan. Even when you have a harmonious co-parenting relationship, thanks to an ironclad parenting plan, circumstances might change that would child custody modifications. A Tempe family law attorney can help you modify an existing parenting plan to suit your current needs.
Common Child Custody Modifications
Changes to Your Work Schedule
Changes to a parent’s employment situation are a leading reason that divorced parents seek to modify their parenting plans or child support orders. You might need to modify your parenting plan if your work situation changes such that you must be at work or travel for work at times that interfere with your parenting responsibilities pursuant to your current parenting plan.
Your employment status does not affect your right to parenting time with your child. Families where both parents are in the workforce are the rule rather than the exception, and it is up to you how to arrange for childcare when you are at work during your parenting time. The fact that you or your ex-spouse has relatives nearby who can assist with childcare can be a factor in establishing a timesharing schedule, and daycare arrangements may be a matter to discuss during divorce mediation. Changing your work hours does not necessarily require you to change your parenting plan. Changing to a different work location with a longer commute might, though.
When One Parent Relocates
When you are divorced, you are free to change residences without the court’s intervention. If you are co-parenting minor children, though, you must get your ex-spouse’s approval in writing before you move to a new residence that is more than an hour’s drive from your ex-spouse’s house. If your ex objects to the move, it is up to the court to decide whether you can relocate.
Relocating almost always means that you must modify your parenting plan. Even if the number of days of parenting time each parent has does not change much, you must account for how to transport the children from one parent’s care to the other’s. Will you hand off the children in a Walmart parking lot near the midpoint of the road trip between the parents’ houses, and if so, who will pay for gas? Will the children fly from one parent’s city to the other’s as unaccompanied minors, and if so, who pays for plane tickets?
Welcoming a New Sibling
One parent’s remarriage or the birth of younger half-siblings does not always necessitate changes to the parenting plan, but it sometimes does. If you remarry, you might want your parenting time with your children to overlap with your new spouse’s parenting time with your stepchildren in the interest of family unity. Likewise, you might want to reduce stepsibling conflict by ensuring that your children are with you during some times when they do not have to share your attention with their stepsiblings. In the event of the birth of a new half-sibling, your children might want to spend more time with the new baby, or they might want to spend less time at the house with the new baby so that they cannot be pressured into childcare duties that interfere with their studies.
Modifying Your Parenting Plan Simply Because the Children Are Getting Older
If you divorced when your child was a baby, your parenting plan probably centered around daycare, nap times, and other aspects of early childhood. Parenting plans for very young children often have very short intervals of parenting time, such as moving from one parent to the other every 24 hours, but these schedules are impractical for school-aged children. Therefore, most families where the parents divorced when the child was an infant modify their parenting plans when the child enters kindergarten.
Contact Singular Law Group About Parenting Plan Modifications
A family law attorney can help you with child custody modifications if your family’s circumstances have changed since the court issued your original parenting plan. Contact Singular Law Group PLLC in Tempe, Arizona, to set up a consultation.
Sources
https://www.azcourts.gov/portals/31/parentingTime/PPWguidelines.pdf
A Tempe family law attorney can help you modify your parenting plan if one parent has moved, changed jobs, or remarried.
