How to Prepare for Child Custody Court

When you and the other parent are not able to agree on a parenting plan, each parent must present a plan in court to a judge. The judge will then decide the parenting plan.

Preparing your parenting plan

To prepare for court, you must make a parenting plan and be able to explain why it's best for your child and situation.

As you make a plan, you can:

• Look at custody schedule options to find the best one for your situation
• See how your schedule looks in the calendar
• Use the visitation timeshare calculator to see the time each parent has with the child
• Add provisions and guidelines to your plan

Working with your attorney

When you have an attorney, you can be proactive so your lawyer makes a parenting plan you want to show in court.

As you work with your attorney, you can:

• Show your ideas for parenting time schedules
• Think about provisions and guidelines to include in your plan
• Create plan examples so your attorney sees what you want
• Save money in legal fees by doing some of the work on your plan yourself
• Track actual parenting time so you know how if the schedule is being followed
• Keep a custody journal so you know how well your plan is working
• Print reports about problems with the plan so your attorney can modify your plan

Since you understand your custody situation the best, you need to be actively involved in creating your parenting plan, even if you have an attorney working for you.

Presenting your plan in court

You can print your complete parenting plan and use your documents to organize your thoughts and explain your parenting plan clearly and succinctly in court.

The following documents will help you as you present your plan to the judge:

• A visual calendar with each parent's time clearly marked
• A timeshare percentage report that shows the breakdown of the timeshare percentage of each parent
• A plan with your schedule written out in legal terms
• A plan with your provisions and guidelines written out

You should print multiple copies of your plan and schedule so everyone in court can follow along. As you present your plan, you should also explain why your plan is best for your child.

Staying organized for court

Throughout your custody case, you'll need to organize a lot of information. You may need to create multiple drafts of parenting plans and schedules, track your expenses, message the other parent securely, and more.

The Custody X Change app enables you to do all of this in one place. With a parenting plan template, custody calendars, an expense tracker, parent-to-parent messaging and beyond, Custody X Change makes sure you're prepared for whatever arises in your journey to custody and visitation.

Take advantage of our technology to stay on top of all the moving parts of your case.