How to Create a Successful Parenting Plan in Divorce
When parents divorce, they need to develop what mediators call a "parenting plan," referred to in litigation as custody, visitation and child support.
The legal standard judges use in deciding these issues is the "best interests of the child" test. But how can a judge who knows virtually nothing about you decide what's in your child's best interest for a parenting and custody plan? How can a judge know how and with whom your child should live?
Even in a full custody trial, a judge sees only a small slice of the life your family has lived. Family law attorneys and good family court judges realize what an almost impossible task family courts are asked to perform: to devise a parenting plan in divorce that best protects the interests of the children involved.
The truth is no one is in a better position to do this than the parents themselves. And parenting mediation offers most people the best hope of getting it right. In fact, these issues so strongly cry out for mediation that court rules in many New Jersey and Pennsylvania counties require couples to attempt parenting mediation before a custody case can go to trial.
Parenting Plans in Divorce
A good parenting plan sets down who will make what decisions for your children, how much time they will spend with each parent, and how their financial needs will be met. As a mediator, I help my clients create a parenting plan that works. Lawyers, mediators and judges know that too many people have parenting plans that don't. We know it because so many people end up back in court after divorce to enforce or change the terms of a parenting plan.
This kind of post-divorce litigation is likely to involve one or more of the following issues:
Conflicts involving parental authority
Interference with visitation
Children's refusal to comply with parenting plans (won't go for visitation)
The parent who doesn't take children for scheduled visitation
Failure to pay child support
Let's look at what you and your spouse will be discussing when devising a parenting plan in mediation. In this article we'll look at legal and physical custody plans as well as visitation. For a guide to child support, read “Divorce Mediation and Child Support.”
Parenting Mediation: Questions to Ask
The more I can help my clients focus on their children's lives, personalities, needs, and relationships with each parent, the more workable their parenting plans are likely to be.
In parenting mediation, before my clients start negotiating a parenting plan, I always raise the following questions:
What kind of parent do you want to be?
What kind of parent do you want your spouse to be?
What kind of relationship do you want to have with your children?
What kind of relationship do you want your children to have with your spouse?
What arrangements can you put in your parenting plan that will best enable you to meet your parenting goals?
These questions help my clients focus on values and relationships. The exact details of a parenting plan during divorce are not as important as the relationships family members maintain. After they've talked about these issues, most people view the job of developing a parenting plan differently. They see their children as people with needs and lives rather than as property or entitlements.
The next step is to resolve the specifics of the parenting plan. I break this step into two areas: decision-making authority and living arrangements.
Legal Child Custody: Who's The Boss?
The first question is who will have legal custody? Legal custody gives a parent the authority to make important life decisions for a child such as where the child lives and goes to school, the child's religion, and medical decisions.
Most parents agree to or are awarded joint legal custody. They share decision-making. A judge can award legal custody to one parent, but that is not likely to happen unless a parent has a significant problem like mental illness or drug or alcohol abuse.
A court may also grant legal custody to one parent where the parents are unable to communicate.
Parenting Plan: Physical Custody & Visitation
After parents decide legal custody, they still need to decide how much time the child will spend with each parent. This is the basis for the physical custody and visitation plan.
Decision making authority goes to the issue of legal custody, but I try to avoid the terms “custody” and “visitation” when discussing parents’ custody plan. Instead, during parenting mediation, I talk to my clients about the decisions parents have to make for their children. We talk about how decisions were made in the past and how they should be made in the future. We also talk about things like cooperation and the parents' ability to share decision-making. We discuss philosophical differences as they relate to their children.
The goal is to sort out how compatible their parenting styles and beliefs are. The more incompatible they are, the more detailed the parenting plan should be.
When the parenting plan goes into effect, each parent should have a certain comfort level with the other's parenting, and each should respect the parenting and decision-making of the other. If the parenting plan doesn't provide this comfort level, it probably isn't going to work.
In divorce and parenting mediation, I encourage parents to list all the things that are important to their children (school, activities, sports, friends, clubs, hobbies, etc.) and the time demands these things create.
Then I ask them to list the demands on their own time (jobs, social activities, education, sports, hobbies, etc.). Comparing these lists helps most couples shape a parenting plan that accommodates as many of these demands as possible.
The goal in working out the children’s schedules is to encourage a strong relationship between the children and each parent. It is important that both parents be involved in the day-to-day activities of their children's lives. A good way to ensure this is to make a detailed list of the children's activities and a detailed list of the parents' activities. Comparing these lists usually helps them devise parenting schedules that meet everyone's needs.
A good parenting plan should include provisions for vacations, holidays, family events, and birthdays. It should also include provisions for how changes in scheduling will be handled, the method of pick-up or drop off, access to information; and how and when the parenting plan will be renegotiated. As children get older, their lives and needs change substantially.
Since there are no absolute rules, I encourage people to be creative in shaping a parenting plan during mediation. The best parenting plans in divorce provide the consistency that children need to feel secure, but are flexible enough to accommodate changing needs.
How to Support Your Children in Divorce
There are tens of millions of children and young adults in our society who lived through their parents' divorce. Some have fared very well. Some have not.
The good news is there are things you can do to improve your children's chances:
Reduce the level of conflict between you and your spouse. Divorce and parenting mediation is an excellent way to do this. It helps people work through their anger rather than acting on it. No matter how angry you are or how valid your anger, you cannot hurt your spouse without hurting your children in the process.
Never discuss your divorce in front of your children.
Never criticize your spouse to or in front of the children. Children need a strong relationship with both parents. Anything that weakens that relationship will only hurt your children.
Never use children as messengers. You may be furious at your spouse, but your children are not pawns or weapons. Using them this way will only hurt them.
Assure them they are loved and wanted by both of you and that their needs will be met.
Assure them that the divorce was not their fault in any way. Let them know that things in their life may change and when you can, what those things will be.
Respect their emotions and fears. Encourage them to talk about how they feel even if you don't like what they have to say. Help your children find appropriate ways to express themselves rather than telling them they shouldn’t be angry or afraid or sad.
Finally, respect your own abilities and limitations. Navigating divorce and child custody is a very difficult time for you, too. If you feel you cannot rise above your own anger or depression, get help. Competent mental health professionals can make a world of difference for you and your children.
Contact Transitions Mediation Center to learn how it really can be your divorce and mediation can help you develop a mutually beneficial parenting plan and move forward with your life.