Child Custody Case

One of the struggles divorcing parents face in their divorce is their custody case. Your custody case is the most important part of your divorce proceeding as:

• It will impact the rest of your life and your child's life
• It will determine where you child will live
• It will determine how often you see your child
• It will affect the rights and responsibilities you have toward your child
• It will establish guidelines and the rules you must follow as you raise your child separately

The child custody portion of your divorce is more important that the division of property or any financial matters. You will want to make sure you are making the right choices and aren't leaving anything out of your custody agreement. Custody X Change is a great tool to help you do that.

Custody X Change is custody software that allows you to easily and simply create a parenting plan or custody agreement. Try the free download of Custody X Change to see how it works.

Instead of sitting around staring at a piece of paper while you wonder where to start, you can create a comprehensive custody agreement in just a few hours on your computer.

You simply answer questions and enter information and the software does all the work. When you are finished you will have:

• A custody and visitation schedule all mapped out for several years
• Adjusted the calendar and added any extra events or adjustments
• A complete holiday and vacation schedule
• A list of provisions and stipulations that you want the other parent to agree to
• A time-share and overnight percentage calculation that shows the exact amount of time the child will be with each parent.

All of this prints out into a professional looking document with legal text or you can export it to PDF or Word to make it print out exactly like you want.

You may then present your parenting agreement to your spouse so he or she can review it and note any changes he or she would like to make. It is easy to make changes to the plan and the calendar.

Custody X Change makes negotiating with the other parent much easier since you don't have to deal with them. You let the document speak for itself.

The main concern of the court is the best interest and well-being of the child.

Unless there are circumstances that would be detrimental to the child, most courts prefer that a child has frequent and ongoing contact with both of his or her parents. The court considers all relevant information, including:

• The history of the care of the child
• The quality of the relationships the child has with each parent
• The willingness and ability of each parent to care and provide for the child
• The sincerity of each parent's request for custody
• Each parent's willingness to help the child have a good relationship with the other parent
• Any special needs of the child and which parent is better equipped to meet those needs

You should also consider these factors when creating your parenting plan so you can be sure to make it in a manner the court will accept. As you prepare for your custody case, you should ask yourself these questions:

• Are you putting your child's needs ahead of your own wishes?
• Does your schedule allow your child to spend an appropriate amount of time with each parent?
• Does your parenting plan contain provisions that allocate parental rights and responsibilities in an appropriate manner?
• Did you create your custody plan with your child's best interests in mind?

If you answered "yes" to the above questions, you are on the right path to have a successful outcome in your custody case.

Yes. If you and your former spouse have agreed to share custody and are trying to come up with an agreement to present to the court, you can use Custody X Change to help you.

If you use Custody X Change, you will be able to create many different custody and visitation schedules and see the exact time-share percentage each parent has with the child.

You can even block out the time when the child will be in school or in daycare for a more accurate picture of just how much time each parent will have the child. This will give you are more accurate time-share percentage.

You can show the schedules and the parenting plan to the other parent, decide on which one to use, and easily make any necessary adjustments.

Once you have the basic schedule agreed on you can then add in the holidays, any special occasions, and vacation time. It is easy to add those to the schedule. It's also easy to go in later and make any adjustments as things change.

Once you are done negotiating your agreement, you will have a complete custody plan to present to the court. You will have also saved thousands of dollars in legal fees by doing it yourself.

The court generally approves custody plans that both parents have agreed on.

Absolutely. In fact, many attorneys use Custody X Change in their family law cases to prepare their client's cases for court.

Perhaps you and your former spouse are in a terrible custody battle and both of your attorneys are fighting it out. Custody X Change can be a powerful tool in this situation.

You can use Custody X Change to create several calendar options and different agreements and give them to your attorney to use to discuss with the other attorney. This will give them something to negotiate over and save them time which saves you money.

Perhaps you and your former spouse are trying to work things out but there are still disagreements. Maybe you're trying mediation. Custody X Change can help.

You can prepare your agreement and bring it to mediation (maybe prepare several different agreements so you can find one that the other parent agrees to) or to any meetings with the child's other parent.

Many people find that using computer software helps take out some of the emotion in the custody case, because you are using something completely objective to create a schedule.

You and the other parent can make changes to your plan and quickly put them in Custody X Change to see how it looks. Once you have agreed to a plan, you can both look it over before presenting it to the court.

When you use Custody X Change to create your visitation schedule, you will be able to use the time-share percentage feature to see the exact percentage of time each parent will have the child.

Not only can you use it to predict the percentage, you can also use it to keep track of the time each parent actually has the child.

One reason for keeping track of the time each parent has the child is money. Depending on how much time is actually spent with the child, one parent may be underpaying or overpaying child support.

Another reason to keep track of the time each parent has with the child is to get a better picture of how much time the child is actually spending with each parent to make sure it is fair.

For example, let's say Parent A has the child Monday through Friday and Parent B has the child from Friday night until Sunday night. Parent B is complaining that s/he wants more time with the child since Parent A has the child for five days.

Realistically, if a child is in school and then daycare for 9 hours a day, Parent A would have the child for 75 hours a week. Parent B would have the child for 48 hours a week.

In that situation, the percentage of time that the parents would actually have the child would be 60/40.

If you didn't take the time the child was in daycare into account, the ratio would be 71.5/28.5.

The way you look at it can make a big difference in your custody case.

The time-share percentage feature on Custody X Change can be used over any period of time. You can calculate it for a week or the entire year.

You can use it to show your former spouse, a judge, or even yourself how much time each parent has with the child.