A co-parenting schedule during most parts of the year could be very simple. One week isn’t all that different from the next. Both parents may simply have to go to work while their children go to school, so they have an alternating schedule where the children move back and forth between the houses.
But things can get a bit more complicated when addressing holidays or key events in the child’s life, such as graduation from high school or the celebration of their birthday. At these times, alternative parenting schedules may be necessary.
What schedule should you use?
You have a lot of different options for how you want to address these things. In some cases, you may need to talk about jointly attending certain events. Regardless of who has custody, are you both going to go to graduation? Would you be interested in holding a joint birthday party so that both parents can attend, or would it be easier to do it on different days?
But in some cases, both parents know that they will not be involved together. They have to find a schedule that gives them both a chance to see the child at certain times.
For instance, some parents will split up holidays by dividing the day. A child may spend Christmas morning with their mother and Christmas afternoon with their father. But other parents will alternate years. The child may spend Christmas with their mother one year, while spending Thanksgiving with their father. Then they will flip the schedule the following year so that they spend Christmas with their father and Thanksgiving with their mother.
There’s a lot of flexibility in exactly how you set up the schedule, but it’s very important to understand all of your parental rights and legal options at this time.
