TYPES OF PARENTING PLANS

Children are the most important thing in a parent’s life, so of course one of the primary questions parties to a divorce have is what will the parenting plan be? Often times clients will meet with an attorney and talk about a friend that has “joint custody” or “shared custody” and they do not know what that means.

 There are different types of parenting time schedules and they are dependent upon what is best for the child. The key thing to remember is that parenting plans are not written in stone – they can and often are modified over time as children age, parent’s lives change or a myriad of other reasons which might necessitate a change.

 For younger children, we will often utilize frequent transition parenting plans, which might be an equal schedule (“50/50”) or a schedule in which one parent has more parenting time, but the other parent still has frequent parenting time.

 There are a couple of different equal parenting time schedules: week on/week off schedules, a 5-2-2-5 schedule, or a 4-3-3-4 schedule. A week on/week off schedule is as it says: each parent has the children for a week, and then they alternate. A 5-2-2-5 schedule is when each parent has two set days (Monday/Tuesday or Wednesday/Thursday) and then they alternate the weekends. A 4-3-3-4 schedule is similar, where each parent has 3 set days, and the 7th day is alternated for the 4-day period.

 There are other schedules that are not equal parenting time schedules. A common schedule involves one parent having primarily weekend parenting time and or an alternating weekend schedule with an off-week visit.

 In some situations, a parent may live out of state requiring the use of a long-distance parenting plan, typically built around school breaks and holidays.

 Every case and family is different and the parenting time schedule is based upon what is best for the family and for the children involved. Palmer Family Law is here to help you navigate through these confusing issues.