Family planning is one of the most difficult things for those who are recently divorced with kids. This often leads to high stress situations that can eventually cause problems with custody terms that are developed in court. The best thing to do is to develop a family plan with your ex-spouse and consider these three ways to make the plan easier to follow:
Go to Mediation: If you can work it out with your ex-spouse to come up with a family plan together, this is going to be much better than going to court. This is because you will both work on it together and come up with a plan that works for you without the judge making the decision for you. Just be sure that you have your attorney present so that you are not caving into certain terms that you are ultimately not going to be happy with in the end. An attorney doesn't have emotional involvement, so they will be able to help you with the more logical decisions.
Follow the Plan: Most importantly, you must always follow the family plan. This means following through with picking your children up and dropping them off at the designated times. If you aren't doing this, your ex-spouse can use this against you in order to gain custody of the children in the future. You must follow the child custody arrangement set up at court to ensure the judge comes up with a better arrangement for you in the future if that is something you are looking for.
Do Your Part to Reduce Conflict: There are many situations where conflict can arise. This is especially true when it comes to breaking the family plan. At some point, you might want to have a certain weekend that your ex is supposed to have with the kids because it's your birthday or there is going to be a family vacation you want to take the kids along for. It's important that you ask if it's okay. If your ex is being difficult about it, the best thing to do is suck it up and not change the plan. Reducing conflict on your part is more likely to result in your ex becoming more cooperative in these situations in the future.
When you follow these tips, family planning is going to be easier and you are less likely to have problems with your child custody arrangement in the future. Work with your child custody attorney for more help.