Divorce And Co-Parenting: Four Crucial Issues To Address In Your Parenting Plan
A parenting plan is a crucial document that outlines the care arrangements for the children after a divorce. When drafting this agreement, most people are keen to address important issues such as visitation schedules, school holidays, and child care. However, there are other seemingly minor issues you should discuss to avoid conflict and ill feelings between you and your ex.
With this in mind, here are four crucial topics you should tackle in your parenting plan to ensure smooth co-parenting.
Mobile Phones and Internet Access
Parents must be the best judges of whether their kids are ready to own mobile phones and access the web with supervision. Unfortunately, your ex-partner may not share your views on this matter. Therefore, it's crucial to address these questions in the parenting agreement.
- At what age can your children get mobile phones?
- What measures will each party take to censor and monitor internet access?
- Are both parties comfortable exposing the kids to social media?
- How will you address the risk of mobile phone addiction in your teenage kids?
Smartphones can be both beneficial and harmful to children. Therefore, failure to address the above issues can hurt your kids and cause strife between you and your ex.
Procedures for Gift Giving
Financial inequalities are common after a divorce due to various factors, such as prenuptial agreements, pre-marital wealth, inheritances, and much more. Competitive gift-giving can cause a child to develop more affection towards one parent, causing the other to feel alienated and inadequate. If you are worried about your ex-partner lavishing the kids with expensive gifts, come up with gift-giving procedures. You can decide to consult each other before buying expensive items. Joint gift-giving is also a great way to prevent parental alienation and conflict.
Rules for Meeting New Partners
Divorced parties are bound to see other people in the future. One party may not be comfortable with the ex introducing the kids to new partners. Meeting new partners can also be detrimental to kids who haven't yet gotten over the divorce. Therefore, you should lay down rules for meeting new people. For example, you can decide to only introduce the children to people you have dated for a specified amount of time.
Post-Agreement Modifications
The terms of a parental plan aren't permanent. Parties can modify the agreement to suit the changing dynamics. For example, if one party moves to another state, you must revise the rules on visitation, holidays, and birthdays. Similarly, if one party re-marries, the co-parenting arrangements may change. Therefore, create provisions for post-agreement modifications to ensure amicable co-parenting amid changing family and living dynamics.
Drafting an effective parenting plan isn't always easy, especially if the parties aren't on good terms. A divorce lawyer can help you draft a parenting agreement that will address your concerns and minimize conflict after the divorce.
For more information, contact a law firm like Brabazon Law Office, LLC.
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