You might think that you are easygoing about money until you get a divorce. If.
You might think that you are easygoing about money until you get a divorce. If your spouse splurged on Christmas presents for your child and charged them all on the credit card, you may have just laughed it off and paid it down over time. If you roasted a chicken on Thanksgiving with your immediate family because you could not afford to fly to your parents’ house for a turkey dinner with your extended family, or if you drove your old car for another year because the payments would be too expensive on a new one, your response was gratitude. People who never fought about money during their marriage sometimes fight about it during divorce; divorce brings out feelings you never knew you had.
Of course, it’s easy to not care about money when something bigger is at stake, namely your relationship with your children. Maintaining a relationship with your children after divorce is the most important thing for you and for them, and the court recognizes this. It is difficult, but essential, to keep reminding yourself that drafting a parenting plan is not a fight, especially when your ex undermines your parenting decisions and introduces the children to things that you disapprove of. For help agreeing on the terms of a parenting plan during divorce mediation or persuading a judge to grant your parenting time requests at trial, contact a Tempe child custody lawyer.
What Does and Does Not Count Against You in a Child Custody Decision?
The good news is that one parent does not gain child custody while the other loses; instead, each parent gets a certain number of parenting time days per year. The better news is that most couples can agree about parenting time during divorce mediation. If you cannot, then the judge decides on the details of the parenting plan during your trial. Judges make parenting time decisions based on the best interests of the children. These are some behaviors that the family law courts of Arizona consider to contribute to the best interests of children:
- Each parent encourages the children to have a loving and stable relationship with the other parent. To do this, do not prevent your ex from exercising his or her parenting time, and do not say negative things about your ex in front of your children. You should, however, listen with an open mind if your children talk to you about their conflicts with your ex or with other family members on your ex’s side of the family.
- You provide a stable environment for the children, as measured by the children’s regular school attendance and medical and dental checkups. It does not count against you if babysitters or extended family members supervise the children while you are at work during parts of your parenting time.
- Your home is free from hazards, such as illegal drugs and domestic violence. It does not count against you if you own a large dog as long as you do not leave the child unsupervised with the dog. It also does not count against you if you drink alcohol or smoke cannabis when the children are not with you. It does count against you if the children get injured because you were too drunk or high to notice that they were doing something dangerous.
In other words, judges do not sweat the small stuff. The judge will not take a position about the children’s diet if Mom is a vegan with a kitchen full of plant-based foods, and Dad is a carnivore in whose kitchen Mom would be unlikely to find anything suitable to eat. Co-parenting after divorce means choosing your battles wisely.
Do Kids Get to Decide About Their Own Parenting Plans?
If the parents cannot agree on a parenting plan, the judge may consider the children’s preferences, but this only happens if the children are above the age of 12. In these cases, the judge will meet privately with the teens; they do not have to testify in court in front of their parents. The judge will consider the reasons for the teen’s preferences, as well as the preferences themselves.
Sources
https://www.azcourts.gov/portals/31/parentingTime/PPWguidelines.pdf
A Tempe family law attorney can help you resolve disagreements with your ex-spouse about parenting plans and parenting time.
