Coparenting is challenging at any time of year, but it becomes especially difficult around the holiday. There are the emotional challenges of not necessarily being able to spend as much time with your children around the holidays as you want, as well as the logistical challenges of dealing with passing off children over the holidays.
However, many parents get through the holidays with shared custody every year. It just takes some good communication and advance planning to make it go as smoothly as possible.
Here are some tips for dealing with child custody and visitation over the holidays.
Child custody over the holidays
There are a variety of considerations that could factor into how you will plan out your holidays with joint custody.
First, consider religious holidays. If you and your ex both celebrate the same religious holidays, you can make a plan that balances those holidays. If you celebrate different holidays, you can plan around that as well.
Consider long-standing traditions that you may have in your family that yyour children enjoy. You should try to maintain traditions as much as possible, while still leaving room to introduce new ones.
Consider travel plans. If you intend to go out of town for the holidays, you’ll need to work out a plan in advance with your ex for whether the children will accompany you and what sort of concessions you will make in custody at other times of the year.
Ultimately, for your shared custody arrangement to work over the holidays, you must be willing to compromise and communicate. For more tips on developing written custody arrangements, contact an experienced Minnesota divorce law firm at Appelhof, Pfeifer & Hart, P.A.
