
In a perfect world, marriages would never dissolve. But divorce is a reality and one that impacts everyone involved, including and sometimes especially the children. To help children feel safe and secure during the weeks and months that follow a divorce, it is important that the both of you work together to come up with a co-parenting plan. A family mediator is knowledgeable in how to do support you to do that.
Keeping Your Children’s Best Interests in Mind
Simply put, a co-parenting plan is a comprehensive document that outlines how the two of you as parents will continue to raise your children after a separation or divorce. This document will lay out things like how much time children will spend with each parent, how decisions – both major and minor – will be made moving forward, how the information will be shared and exchanged, and more.
While there are no hard and fast rules as to how a co-parenting plan should be formatted or what information should be included, it is vitally important to approach the plan’s development with your children’s best interests in mind. To create a helpful document, issues, emotions, and pettiness should be put aside, and the focus should remain on what is best for your children.
Things to be Included in Your Parenting Plan
Co-parenting plans may differ from state to state. Having said that, most will include the following five clauses:
1. A Brief General Statement
The plan will typically open with a general statement that the parents will be sharing responsibilities of parenting the child or children. This includes shared decision-making and shared daily routines.
2. Outline Parental Responsibilities
Here parents agree to communicate on all important aspects of the children’s welfare. Such as making decisions regarding health, education, and religious upbringing.
3. Specifics
This section can cover how you will actually arrange to time-share or share time with your children. This includes routine time, activity time, overnight stays, etc.
4. Holidays
Outline how you and your parenting partner will handle holidays and other special observances.
5. Time Period and Amendments
All co-parenting plans should mention the length of the agreement and that the plan will need to be re-examined and possibly adjusted from time to time moving forward.
These are very general guidelines and each plan should be created to your family needs in mind. It can be recommended to have a backup plan for when the two of you cannot agree on this or that item–how will it be decided? Your plan can be more explicit and specific to your situation.
Getting Help with Your Co-Parenting Plan
To create the right plan for your family, it’s recommended that you get some guidance. While a lawyer can help you get legal advice and provide some wording, a family mediator can help you with communication and having the discussions and in some cases even help you in writing an agreement. After all, you will need to navigate your emotions and be able to hear and be heard for the best interests of your children. A family mediator can facilitate healthy and clear communication.
If you’d like to work with a family mediator to create (or update) a co-parenting plan that will help you both raise happy and successful children, please reach out to Great River Mediations. We specialize in supporting families even after divorce and separation. You can find us at www.greatrivermediations.com. We’d love to hear from you!
RESOURCES:
(651) 399-2222 | info@greatrivermediations.com