Child Custody & Visitation Blog

Okay, here’s the next part in a series of posts that explore some of the standard custody and visitation schedules that people set up. Hopefully you can look through these and see if any of them, or a combination of any of them, will fit for your parenting plan. I’m putting all of the plans in Custody X Change so we can get a calendar view of how the plan will look and so we can also see the time-share percentage that each parent has with that type of schedule. The time-share percentages that I give are only for the repeating cycle–holidays, vacation time, and special events aren’t taken into consideration. Using holidays, vacation time, and special events can alter your schedule to equal time if you want–so you can think about that for your own schedule if you like one of the schedules but don’t feel the time is equal. We’ll look at three more custody and visitation schedules.

1. Alternating weekends and one evening visit a week. In this schedule, the child lives with custodial parent during the week and visits the non-custodial parent on alternating weekends and for one evening visit during the week. Here’s how the schedule looks when you apply it to a month:

For this arrangement, the custodial parent has 83.94% of the time with the child and the non-custodial parent has 16.06% of the time. This schedule is a common one for a situation where one parent has sole physical custody and the other parent gets visitation.

2. Alternating weekends and one overnight a week. This is similar to the schedule above, but the evening visit is an overnight visit. The non-custodial parent has visitation every other weekend and one overnight visit a week. It looks like this:

This gives the non-custodial parent a little more time than the previous schedule. The custodial parent has 71.34% of the time and the non-custodial parent has 28.66%.

3. Alternating extended weekends. In this arrangement the child spends every other weekend with the non-custodial parent but the weekends goes until Monday evening. On the calendar this is what it looks like:

The time-share percentage for the custodial parent is 78.63% and the time-share for the non-custodial parent is 21.37%.

All of these schedules could start on different days or be adapted to fit your needs. The evening or overnight visit could be on any day of the week. Or, you could add additional visits if you thought that would be best for your child. These basic templates can be helpful to get some ideas for your child custody schedule, but you shouldn’t feel like you have to fit your plan into one of these. One nice thing about Custody X Change is that it makes it really easy to play around with some options to see the various time-share percentage and calendar. Then you can come up with a really great schedule for everyone involved. We’ll look at a few more of the schedules in the next post.

There are some standard custody schedules that people use when they set up their parenting plans. Many times parents set up these plans and don’t realize the exact amount of time that they will have with their child. To help people get some ideas about how to set up a custody and visitation schedule and also how that schedule will divide the time between the parents, I’ve put some common plans into Custody X Change. This will show us how the plan looks in a calendar and also give us the time-share percentage for each parent. We’ll look at three plans today–this is the first part of a series of post and we’ll contine to look at samples of plans.

1. Custodial Parent has the children during the week, and a Non-Custodial Parent has the children on the weekends. This schedule is usually set up in a custody situation where one parent has custody and the other parent gets visitation. The calendar for this looks like this:

In this arrangement, the Custodial Parent has 71.51% of time with the child and the Non-Custodial Parent has 28.49% (this is the time-share percentage of the repeating cycle–there are no holidays or special events added). Parents who opt for this schedule, but want more equal time can use holidays, vacations, school breaks, and other special events to even out the time.

2. Alternating weeks of custody. This is a common joint custody agreement. The parents switch weeks of custody with the children. The calendar looks like this:

As you can see, the time with each parent is pretty even. The Custodial Parent has 50.14% and the Non-Custodial Parent has 49.86%. The differences in time are due to the starting date and the day of the week the schedule starts. Again, this doesn’t account for holidays, vacation or special events.

3. Non-Custodial Parent getting visitation on alternating weekends. This type of visitation schedule is a sole custody arrangement with visitation for the other parent. The parent who doesn’t have custody gets the children every other weekend. Here’s the calendar:

As you can see, there is a big difference in the amount of time that each parent has with the child. The Custodial Parent has 85.75% and the Non-Custodial Parent has 14.25%. A schedule like this might be set up in the school months when the child needs to spend the majority of time at one home. The summer schedule could be changed so the Non-Custodial Parent ends up with more time.

In the next post, we’ll continue to look at various custody and visitation schedules and the time-share percentages that accompany them. Hopefully this will give you an idea of what kind of arrangement you want to set up.

Parents who want to make a joint custody arrangement work have to come up with a good schedule for their children. If you want the children to have equal time with both parents there are a number of options you can choose. The mother and father can alternate weeks of custody or they can alternate every two weeks. If that seems too long without seeing the child, you may want to look into a 2/2/5/5 or a 3/3/4/4 custody schedule.

A 2/2/5/5 arrangement means that the mother gets two days with the children, the father gets the next two days with the children, then the mother gets five days with the children, and the father gets the next five days with the children. (of course you can switch the order of the parents so the father starts–it should be the same in the end) This is a two week repeating cycle. An example of this schedule applied to a month looks like this:

You can see in the calendar that the parents get equal time with the kids and it is pretty regular so you can establish a nice routine. I put this schedule into Custody X Change in the repeating cycle tab and applied it (this isn’t one of the options to choose on the list, but it took me only a minute to put it in–you just have to click on the days and times you want). The exact time share that the mom has with this arrangement is 50.14% and the dad has 49.86%. Of course, no holidays or other events have been added which would make the time even more equal. It sure is nice to be able to see the exact percentage at the bottom of the screen though.

Another joint custody schedule sample that is similar to this is the 3/3/4/4 arrangement. In this calendar, the mother spends 3 days with the child (again, you can start with the father–it shouldn’t make any difference) and then the father spends 3 days with the child. Then the mother spends four days with the child and the father gets the next four days with the child. This is also a two week repeating cycle. When applied to the calendar it looks like this:

This is what it looks like when I put the repeating cycle into Custody X Change. This is also an arrangement that you have to custom–but it is really quick. After I applied the schedule, the time-share percentage with the mom is 50.05% and the time-share with the dad is 49.95%. That also doesn’t include holidays, vacation time, or special events.

It’s worthwhile for parents to investigate different options like these. These schedules may not be the first ones that you think of for a joint custody agreement, but they divide the time up equally and the schedule isn’t crazy. These are very easy to create in Custody X Change so you don’t have to go through a whole calendar counting days.

Have you heard of the Ackerman parenting plan?

This is a joint custody arrangement where the parents set up the custody and visitation as a 9/5 split alternating with a 10/4 split. This means that for a period of time (like during the school year) one parent has the kids for 9 days in a row and the other parent has them for 5. Then they switch for another time period (like during the summer or school vacations) where the parent who had them for 5 days now has the children for 10 days in a row and the other parent has them for 4 days. For more information about the Ackerman parenting plan check out this site.

Now, the great thing about Custody X Change is that it makes it easy for a parent to enter any kind of repeating custody schedule they want. There is a list of common cycles to choose from, but if you don’t find the option you want, you can create your own. It’s very easy to do–in fact, it will only take a few minutes to set it up and then have the computer apply it to the whole program. To set up an Ackerman schedule in Custody X Change, you simple go to the Repeating Cycle tab. The Ackerman schedule is based on a two week repeating cycle, so you enter that in at the side. Then you put in the 9 days with one parent and the 5 for the other (I put the 9 days with the father and the 5 with the mother) This schedule applied to one month looks like this:

To put in the months with the 10/4 arrangement, you click over to the Vacation tab. In this tab you choose the two week repeating cycle and then put the dates you want it to apply. I put it for the months of June, July and August. Then I put in the 10 days for mom and the 4 days for dad (opposite of what was put in before). This schedule applied to a month looks like this:

Since Custody X Change gives the time-share percentage at the bottom, I saw that with this schedule the father gets 56.87% and the mother has 43.13%. This is pretty equal considering that no holidays, vacation time or special events were added. It’d be real easy to even out the time with those.

The Ackerman schedule is just one example of a joint parenting plan and custody agreement. It may not be the first arrangement that you think of, but you may want to consider it if you think it would work in your situation. Custody X Change gives you a lot of flexibility in setting up your repeating cycle so that you can explore alternatives like this. The idea behind that is so you can figure out what’s best for you and your children.

Once the parents agree on their parenting plan it is difficult to have it officially changed. If you want to change your child visitation schedule you have to go back to the court and show that the changes are in the best interest of the child. Many times parents want to see their kids more, but don’t necessarily want to change their entire custody agreement. Here are some ideas for increasing communication and time with your children without changing your custody schedule.

1. Take advantage of technology. You can get some extra time talking with your child over the internet, texting, webcams, etc. Set up some times with your child to chat online or visit over webcam (this is also a good idea if you live far away from your child). You can also send your child text messages through the day–this is a good way to check in with a teenager or tween to see how they’re doing.
2. Send an email. Depending on the age of your child, email can be a great way to communicate with them. You can send emails back and forth to keep current on the happenings in your child’s life. This lets you be more up to date when you have your visits.
3. Volunteer at your child’s school. If you have a few hours a week to spare, go volunteer in your child’s classroom. This is a great way to be more involved in your child’s life and to find out what is going on at school. If you have a skill you can teach, you can offer to teach a mini-class once a week (for example, you could teach a foreign language for an hour, music, art, etc). Most teachers will love having you come in, and your child will love it too.
4. Attend extra-curricular activities. Sometimes parents have their custody agreements set up so that the parents switch attendance to extra-curricular activities. If yours is open, you should attend as many as you can. You don’t have to sit or even talk to the child’s other parent, but you can be there to support your child.
5. Become the default baby-sitter. You can put a provision in your parenting plan that if the parent who has the child is going to be gone for a certain amount of time (say, four hours) that the other parent gets the chance to take the child before anyone else. Even if you don’t have this in your agreement you can make a deal with the child’s other parent. If you get along, the other parent will probably agree to the idea (provided that you offer the same courtesy to them) and you can get some more time with your child when the other parent has weekend plans. If you don’t get along with the other parent, you may want to see about getting this added to your agreement.

Keeping in touch and having communication with your child is the best way to keep your relationship going. Even if you only get a few visits a month, you can still be involved in your child’s life.

If you are in the process of figuring out a parenting plan for you, your former spouse and children then you may want to think about joint custody. Joint custody is a way for both parents to be involved in the children’s lives and to help raise them. Parents who opt for joint custody acknowledge and understand that children do best when both parents are involved in their lives and that both mother and father play an important role. When developing your parenting plan for this type of agreement you should consider and discuss

• how you and the other parent will show consistency in regulating rules and behavior
• the age and temperament of each child–how they will adjust to changes in the schedule, their routine, etc.
• any special needs of the children
• how each parent was involved before the separation and how to allow each parent to be involved now
• the flexibility and availability of the parent’s schedules
• how far apart the parents live from each other, the school, and daycare
• how the parents will keep communication open and how they will cooperate

Thinking all of these issues through as you make your parenting plan will give you a good start on your custody agreement. It’s nice to start with a solid foundation because it means there won’t have to be drastic changes in the near future. It also puts you in a good place to make minor adjustments with less hassle.

Remember that Custody X Change lets you put in provisions with your parenting plan. There are many that you can choose from, but you can also add your own. So, as you and your former spouse talk about these issues, you can add them right into the agreement. Then you both have the peace of mind that what you talked about will be followed.

Do you want to plan a vacation with your kids during your custody time?

Vacation time is important for you and for your children. It allows all of you the time to relax and get away from the routine. It gives you a great opportunity to build memories together and also to develop strong relationships.

Vacations don’t have to be a stressful production or cost a lot of money. You may not have the resources right now to fly the kids to DisneyWorld, but that doesn’t mean you can’t plan a fun, exciting vacation. Here are some tips for a trip that will fit in your budget.

• Schedule the time for the vacation. If your parenting plan has the vacation dates already picked out then you should follow those. If you have an unspecified vacation, look at your calendar and pick the time to go. (Custody X Change lets you put both in your custody agreement). Make sure to schedule it so you can give the other parent adequate notice.
• Look for nearby vacation spots to take your children. There are usually a lot of places close to home that we never check out because we always want to go far away for vacation.
• Camping can be an inexpensive and fun vacation. There are usually places close by to camp, and you can plan out all of the food so you save money that way.
• Consider driving to a destination instead of flying. Or make a road trip your vacation. Plan a scenic route with a lot of stops along the way. Stop for a few days at different places and then keep driving. Make sure your kids are interested in where you’re going though.
• Do an at home vacation. Take time off and plan out activities to do right in your own city. Go on day trips and then come home for dinner. Make dinner together and play games at night.

The main purpose of the vacation is to have focused time with your children. It’s the time when you put work aside and just have fun with them. If you do that, pretty much anything you do will be fun.

So, have fun and enjoy it!!

As with practically everything associated with Jackson’s life, the answer to this question is uncertain. On one hand there is a will designating two possible guardians. On the other hand, there is a woman claiming to be the biological mother of the two older kids.

In a will dated July 7, 2002, Jackson designated his mother Katherine Jackson the guardian of his children in case of his death. He also expressed that in case his mother predeceased him or if she became unable or unwilling, the singer Diana Ross would be the guardian.  News reports say that Debbie Rowe, the woman to which Jackson was married for three years when his two older kids were born, is going to seek custody of her children. One Los Angeles news station claims Rowe even offered to submit to a DNA test to prove that she is the biological mother. Other news reports deny this.  However, the guardianship hearing set for July 6 has been delayed to July 13, allegedly at the request of Rowe’s attorneys.

Custody courts tend to favor a biological parent over a grandparent when deciding child custody disputes. However, Rowe voluntarily surrendered her maternal rights in an out-of-court settlement signed in 2006. It has been reported that Rowe obtained certain visitation rights and that she has been relating to the two older children for the last three years. Nothing is known publicly about how Rowe has related to the children. And, if that is true, why would she be offering to submit herself to a DNA test if her maternity has already been recognized?

It will not be surprising if she decides to pursue custody of these children. In that case Rowe will have to contest Jackson’s will designating the grandmother Katherine as guardian, and secondly, she will have to revoke the relinquishment of her maternal rights. Contesting the will and revoking her relinquishment are both extremely difficult things to do. To move a court to declare Jackson’s will invalid, Rowe will have to prove that Jackson wasn’t in his sound mind when he executed the document.

To revoke her relinquishment of her maternal rights she will have to prove that she wasn’t in her sound mind when she signed the document. The revocation of a paternal rights relinquishment is something that the law allows, but only in very extraordinary circumstances. The few cases in which the courts have allowed this, after the 30 day time period the law permits after the resignation, is when the use of violence, duress or mind altering substances has proven to be the reason why the parent “consented” to surrender his or her rights. In any case, the court considering this case, like in any other child custody battle will have to determine what would be in the children’s best interests when making the final decision.

Jackson’s two older children, Michael Joseph, 12, and Paris Michael Katherine, 11 were born at the time of his marriage to Debbie Rowe. A third boy, Prince Michael Joseph, 7, was born of a surrogate mother who has never been identified and later adopted by Jackson.  There is no dispute regarding the custody of the younger boy.

The judge leading the guardianship hearing regarding Michael Jackson’s children, scheduled to take place on Monday, July 13 will definitely have a rough time unraveling the child custody legal mess left behind after the singer’s sudden death on June 25, 2009.

According to a 7 year old will, Jackson designated his mother Katherine Jackson 79, the children’s legal guardian after his death. He also provided for a second alternative, singer Diana Ross in case his mother failed to survive him or became unable or unwilling to act as a guardian. KNBC in Los Angeles reported last week that the children’s biological mother, Debbie Rowe, would seek custody of her two children and a restraining order to keep Jackson’s father, Joe away from them. But, what rights if any does Rowe have on these kids?

Debbie Rowe and Michael Jackson got married in 1996. Three years later they were divorced. During that marriage Jackson’s two older kids were born: Michael Joseph Jr. 12, and daughter Paris Michael Katherine, 11. A third boy named Prince Michael Joseph, 7, was adopted by Jackson from a surrogate mother who has never been identified.

Custody of Jackson’s two older kids can turn into a bitter war if Rowe decides to pursue custody of them. While Jackson’s will is clear, it is still uncertain if his testament is valid or not. It has been only a week since the will was presented to the court for probate. If the will is determined to be invalid, or if there is a more recent will, a Pandora’s Box will be opened, and the road will be free for Rowe to pursue her plans.

Grandmother Katherine’s guardianship rights are subject also to the court’s approval.  Normally, courts do not assign custody to grandparents if a biological parent is available and willing to take custody of the children.  Now, the problem here is that supposedly Rowe voluntary surrendered her maternal rights in an out-of-court settlement subscribed with Jackson in 2006. Can Rowe change her mind and have her kids back now?

It is extremely difficult to overturn a voluntary relinquishment of paternal rights. That is the legal term for a parent to surrender his or her rights over a child.  Although California law recognizes a small window of opportunity to revoke a voluntary relinquishment, the window is very small (30 days) and it is way past due now. The law recognizes only a few extraordinary instances in which a biological parent can revoke the voluntary relinquishment of his or her parental rights after this time frame. These are the cases in which the consent wasn’t given voluntarily like in the case of use of force, or any other illegal means to obtain the parent’s consent, such as duress or using mind altering substances.

Like everything associated with Jackson, it is very difficult to predict an outcome in this situation because anything can happen. Hopefully this custody battle will have a happy ending.

It’s the middle of summer…so if you haven’t already thought about your vacation, now is the time to do it.

There are a couple of ways to include vacation time with your child in your visitation schedule.  At the beginning of the year you can block out some actual dates where you get the children for vacation.  This is called a specified vacation–because you know the exact dates of when you will have the time.  However, if you don’t know the exact dates you want to go on vacation, you can also schedule an unspecified vacation.  Unspecified vacation is included in your parenting plan as a set number of days each parent can have the children for vacation.  For example, the unspecified vacation clause could read, “Each parent is allowed to take the children for up to 7 days, twice a year for vacation time.  The other parent must be given 30 days notice before the vacation is taken.”   So, you can guarantee that you get one or two weeks of vacation with your child. (note–Custody X Change lets you set up both kinds of vacation in the software)

Don’t forget about vacations when you’re setting up your child custody agreement.  Having this chunk of relaxation time with your child is important for both of you.  It allows you to have some fun with each other and take a break from the routine.  Vacations are also a way to even out the time-share percentage between the parents.

Photo via korycheer, courtesy of morguefile.com