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.