Your Parenting Plan and the Holidays
The holiday season is a great time for most of us. Time with the children, family events,
outdoor fun. For some, this time of the
year is complicated by conflicts over when the children will be with which
parent. The holiday season can be
stressful, and, if there is no agreement on visitation, can be nearly beyond
your ability to cope.
The best advance planning involves taking a good hard look
at your Parenting Plan. Plot out the
regular visitation, holiday visitation, and winter vacation visitation on your
calendar. If you are able to talk to the
other parent, try to get an agreement that your work accurately reflects his or
her understanding of the Parenting Plan.
If you both agree, visits and exchanges during this season can be much
less stressful.
If you and the other parent do not agree, there is still
time to get the conflict resolved by attorney and/or court intervention. It generally takes two weeks to get in front
of a court on this kind of conflict, but, in emergency situations, the time
line can be accelerated. What rarely
works is to wait to the last minute and then discover that your plans are not
in accord with the other parent’s interpretation of the court order.
Putting your thoughts in writing, and documenting your
delivery of these notes to the other parent can go a long ways toward creating
a paper trail that can be most useful if the issue needs to go to court. If you expect a conflict, or have had prior
problems enforcing the Parenting Plan, you need to take early action to ensure
you have a happy and appropriate holiday visitation schedule.
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