Child Custody Questions
Do you have concerns or questions about your custody case? Are you wondering how much time you'll get with your child? What is the best custody arrangement for your children? Is it possible that you can win your custody case?
If you have questions like these, Custody X Change is the answer.
Custody X Change is software that was written to give custody help as parents navigate through their custody case and create the best agreement for their child.
Custody X Change guides you through the process of making a custody and vacation schedule. You click on a tab to enter your repeating cycle, holiday schedule, vacation time, and any special events and Custody X Change puts it in a calendar for you and you can see as many years of your schedule as you want.
The software calculates the time-share percentage and overnight percentage that each parent has with the children so you know exactly how much time you get with your child.
The program also allows you to add in parenting provisions for your agreement.
All of this prints out into professional documents that you can use in court, to discuss with your attorney, to work things out with the child's other parent, to prepare for mediation, etc.
When you use Custody X Change, you don't have to worry about whether or not you are leaving anything out of your plan. You just enter your information and answer the questions and Custody X Change does all the work.
The best way to prepare for custody court is to have a well thought out parenting plan that demonstrates to the court that it is in the child's best interest. This is where Custody X Change shines.
You can create a top notch parenting plan with professional documents to show the judge.
The documents include the custody and visitation schedule, a time-share percentage, and your entire custody agreement in written out.
Having an organized, well-prepared parenting plan can help you as you explain why your proposed arrangement is best for your child.
Here are some other tips to prepare you for the courtroom:
- Be prepared. Have all of your documents in order and be able to provide evidence or witnesses to back up any issues that may require proof.
- Get enough rest the night before. You will want to be refreshed and alert when you speak to the judge.
- Do not address your former spouse directly. Speak directly to the judge.
- Be polite. Do not interrupt the judge or your ex.
- Speak clearly. You will want to be audible to the court reporter who will be transcribing the proceeding.
- Stay calm. Your demeanor in court is important. It is OK to be passionate or adamant but do not raise your voice.
- Dress professionally. Make sure you wear appropriate attire to court. You don't want to appear too "fancy" but you don't want to look like a bum, either.
- Turn off your mobile devices. The last thing you need is for your phone to ring when you are talking to the judge. You should also stay off of them while waiting in the courtroom.
The judge will appreciate the fact that you came prepared and handled yourself appropriately. Being respectful of the court could make a difference in the outcome of your case.
Your custody and visitation schedule should consist of three parts:
- A regular residential schedule that defines when your child will spend time with each parent on a routine basis
- A holiday schedule that allows your child to spend an appropriate amount of time with each parent for holidays and special occasions
- A vacation schedule that allows your child to spend extended time with each parent for vacations
Creating a custody and visitation schedule can be an overwhelming task for any parent, but Custody X Change makes it simple and easy.
A custody and visitation schedule is usually based on a repeating cycle of custody and visitation. Once you decide what that is, you can apply it for the whole year.
If you have Custody X Change the computer does all of that for you. You just decide what schedule you want. There's no flipping through months of the calendar and counting days. The calendar is simply created for you.
After you have entered in your repeating cycle, you can start working on the holidays. Custody X Change gives you a list of all the holidays you want to include. You can also add any other special days that may be missing such as various religious holidays or even extended weekends off from school.
You can even decide what time a "holiday" will start and how long it will last. For example, rather than just saying "Thanksgiving", you may define Thanksgiving as beginning on Wednesday (the day before) at 6 p.m. and ending whenever you would like.
Next, you will enter in your vacation times. Sometimes it is hard to predict the times when parents will be allowed to take their personal vacations. You can always just add in provisions for vacation time and edit the schedule later in the year.
Custody X Change will prove to be a very useful parenting tool long after your custody case has been concluded.
Whether you're fighting for fair time in court, at mediation or just with your former spouse, it's important to be prepared.
Create a custody and visitation schedule to show the time you would like to have with your child.
Custody X Change shows you the time-share percentage that each parent has, and that helps because then both parents know exactly how much time they get with the kids.
One great feature that Custody X Change has is that you can block out the time your child is in school or daycare. After all, neither parent is spending time with the child at that time.
Using the Custody X Change time-share percentage reports can give you a better perspective on how much time you are actually spending with the child.
Think about this scenario as an example:
A child spends the weekdays with parent A and sees Parent B for 48 hours on the weekend and four hours during the week.
If you count the time the child is actually in the "custody" of each parent:
- Parent A has the child for 116 hours per week
- Parent B has the child for 52 hours per week.
This means that Parent A has the child 70% of the time and Parent B has the child 30% of the time.
Now, let's try the same scenario again, except we will block out the time the child is in school and daycare. The child goes to school for six hours a day and is in a before and after school care program for three and a half hours. All of this happens during Parent A's custody time.
When you subtract the 47.5 hours the child is in school and daycare from Parent A's time:
- Parent A with 68.5 hours a week with the child
- Parent B still has 52 hours per week with the child
It is still the exact same amount of time that occurred in the above scenario, except Parent A's 68.5 hours versus Parent B's 52 hours is a much closer percentage that each parent actually has the child (about 57% for Parent A and 43% for Parent B).
If you really want to get technical, if the child sleeps just 8 hours a night, Parent B actually ends up having more time to spend with the child (Parent A's: 18.5 hours versus Parent B's 36).
You can use Custody X Change to play with the calendar and make a pretty good case about what time is fair and how much time each of you will actually have to spend with the child.
It can be difficult to work with your former spouse about your custody situation.
Custody X Change can help because it makes the whole process a lot more objective and it makes it easier to be flexible.
With Custody X Change you can quickly make a custody schedule and then get input from the other parent. It's not a problem at all to make changes in the agreement (because you don't have to redo an entire calendar and erase and rewrite).
You can both add in suggestions until you're satisfied with the agreement.
Your custody agreement or parenting plan has all of the information about your custody situation.
Your custody agreement should have:
- A custody and visitation schedule.
- A holiday and vacation schedule.
- The time-share percentage and overnight percentage reports (this is important because it determines child support).
- A method for dispute resolution and making modifications to the plan.
- Any provisions the parents want included (for example, you could put in a provision that says the other parent has to notify you if they get the child a passport).
Custody X Change lets you put all of these into a document with legal wording or you can export the documents to Word or PDF and make any changes.
Divorced parents can be totally overwhelmed by the high cost of legal fees.
Luckily, Custody X Change allows you to save thousands of dollars by doing a lot of your custody case at home.
Many people use the software to represent themselves in court or to work with the other parent to avoid attorney's fees.
Other people use the software to create some agreement ideas that they then present to their lawyer (and they save themselves some consulting costs by doing the work themselves).
Get answers to your questions. Download the free edition of Custody X Change today and see how it can help you.