Summer vacation is almost here. That means taking your children on fun outings and vacation. If you and your child’s other parent are divorced or separated, you need to start planning for your summer right away. Your first step is to review the child custody order to determine what it says about the summer months. This order likely has a lot of information about how you and your ex should plan the summer, such as what notifications must be made for vacations and similar points.
When you are planning a vacation, think about the custody exchange days. If your vacation dates are flexible, you can make sure that they work with the exchanges. If they aren’t flexible, such as if you and your children are attending an out-of-state wedding, you might need to work with your ex to come to an agreement about altering the custody exchange just for this one time.
If you do need your ex to work with you on the child custody exchange terms or any other terms for the summer months, be sure that you are willing to reciprocate the favor. As you work with your ex, remember that the focus can’t be on the adults in the situation. Instead, the focus has to be on the children. Summer should be full of fun memories.
You and your ex might not be able to work out all the deals of the summer custody schedule alone. You may need to turn to mediation to get everything settled. Planning now can help you to have time to get this done before it comes down to the final days before summer vacation.
Source: FindLaw, “Child Custody Tips During Your Summer Vacation,” Andrew Chow, Esq., accessed March 31, 2017