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Parenting time/custody evaluations are often difficult and invasive toward both parents of a child in a custody dispute. However, if you have a concern about the competence or fitness of your co-parent, a parenting time evaluation is one of the primary methods of getting the threat to your child evaluated. The process may include multiple interviews with each parent, psychological testing, interviews with the children if they are of age, home visits, and collateral reports from teachers, pediatricians, friends, family, and so forth. While these studies can feel invasive and difficult, there are strategies to optimize your presentation. Here are 4 ways to put your best foot forward:
1. Present your concerns in factual statements. Do not make up allegations or conjectures, but stick as much as possible to facts. To be sure, your emotions are running high over this incredibly important issue, but try to stay as rational as possible.
2. Avoid being excessively emotional. Again, this is a difficult time and a hard process. It is okay to show some emotion, just don’t cry through the whole of every session, or the evaluator could start questioning your stability.
3. Present your facts – dates, times, and events – in the context of how your spouse’s behavior affects, or could potentially affect, your children. For example, if your partner does drugs and leaves the paraphernalia lying around, you can express your concern that your children could find it. If your partner has affairs, you can explain that the atmosphere of the home is made more chaotic and emotionally unstable because of this behavior. Be sure that if you have any questionable behavior in your recent past, that you report it, as you can be sure your spouse will fill in the blanks. Just present it as it pertains to the children, and let the evaluator know you recognize it could have caused harm and that you will not continue the behavior.
4. Provide relevant updates as they occur. Evaluations can go on for many months, and there may be plenty of further incidents if your partner isn’t cleaning up his or her act. Note dates, times, and events, and provide the information promptly and concisely via email or phone as it occurs.
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There are many benefits to scheduling extended parenting times. Spending time together without the interruptions of work, school, or time with the other parent allows everyone to take a break from the normal routine. During these times, both parents and children get to see each other in a different light and learn more about each other. For the parent who usually has shorter visits, it’s an opportunity to deepen your relationship with your children and to have more quality time in between the awkward transitions at the beginning and end of each visit.
Extended parenting time does not have to be limited to summer. The children’s school calendar offers several opportunities to schedule extended parenting time for each parent, but many parenting plans don’t take advantage of them.
During Winter break, for example, instead of one parent having the children on Christmas Eve, the other on Christmas Day, and the same for New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, consider splitting the school break between you. One parent has the children for the first half of Winter break, including Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and the other has the children for the second half of Winter break, including New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. Although not having the children with you for the special winter holidays might be difficult at first, you will probably come to appreciate having this extended time mid-year.
And, don’t forget Spring break. Instead of splitting Spring break between you each year, try one of you having the children for the entire Spring break in odd numbered years, and the other having the children in even numbered years?
If you rethink holidays and school breaks to provide these opportunities for additional extended parenting time, you can even schedule regular visits with family or friends well in advance without having to work around the other parent’s parenting time.
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9. How specific a schedule do you need for parenting time/visitation? The better your communication and the older your children, the less specificity that you need.
8. The typical, traditional schedule has been alternate weekends from Friday until Sunday, along with alternate holidays consisting of Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Easter, sometimes New Years, Mother’s Day with mom and Father’s Day with dad, sometimes alternating or sharing the children’s birthdays and the children having the parent’s birthday with each parent, along with any other visitation/parenting time that is agreed to between the parties.
7. How do you deal with vacations and school breaks? A typical schedule can be alternating or sharing the Christmas vacation. One example would be from the day after school lets out until noon on Christmas Day one year, for example, with mom, and dad having from noon on Christmas Day until the day before school begins in January that year, and then rotating it, along with alternating the Winter/February break if there is one, and the Easter/Spring break.
6. How do you handle Summer vacations? This can be arranged from the same schedule used during the school year to the non-custodial parent having one or two weeks during the Summer. In other cases, people will divide the Summer in half, or one parent will have the majority of the Summer, with the other having the majority of the school year. There are many possibilities.
5. What is “Right of First Refusal”? This is where the other parent has the right of first refusal if the first parent has a conflict or is going out of town. It is an area that often creates more problems than it resolves. Unless the parties communicate and it is spelled out, it can be a breeding ground for future litigation. Does Right of First Refusal mean that there should be a Right of First Refusal over day care? Does this mean grandparents cannot visit or pick up the children? Should it be limited to someone going out of town on vacation or for business purposes? The grounds must be specifically spelled out. Communication between the parties is critical.
4. What types of parenting time are utilized in a shared custodial arrangement? Examples are the 50/50 schedule, which includes one week on and one week off, with the other parent perhaps having dinner on one of the weekdays. Another schedule is called a 2/2/5. This means, for example, that mom has the children every Monday and Tuesday, dad every Wednesday and Thursday, and then the parties alternate Friday, Saturday and Sunday, so that the children spend no more than five days maximum away from either parent. This is a good schedule, especially with younger children.
3. Should there be different schedules for different aged children? Absolutely. What makes sense for an infant to two year old, is different than what makes sense for a four or five year old. What makes sense for a child in elementary school is different than a schedule that makes sense for someone who is eleven or twelve. Teenage schedules are very different, and quite frankly, with teenagers, often the schedule is not how much time the teenagers are spending with either parent, but how little time, and the fact that friends and school activities take priority over parenting time.
2. Communication regarding parenting time. It is important to communicate. You can communicate by phone, by e-mail, especially if you need to have a record of communication where communication is poor.
1. A good clause to put in your divorce judgment is one that says that parenting time/visitation can be modified as the children age, so that schedules that make sense for a young child, can be changed to one that makes sense for a child as he or she gets older. Again, the key is what is in the best interests of your children.
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