You and your spouse or partner have children and have decided to divorce or end the relationship. Whether you are married or unmarried with children, it’s important to enter into a detailed Allocation Judgment (also known as a Parenting Plan) allocating parental responsibilities between the two of you.
Many times parents decide to enter into a bare bones parenting plan which doesn’t include important details, and where the parents haven’t thought about the “what ifs” involved in co-parenting. Without realizing it at the time, many situations arise where the parents disagree and there are no provisions on how to handle the situation in the parenting plan.
For example, what if one parent wants to let the child enroll in a sport the other parent finds too dangerous? Or what if one parent wants to allow the child(ren) to have a cell phone or social media accounts and the other does not? Or perhaps one parent wants to allow the child to sleepover at a friend’s house and the other parent thinks that the child is too young? These are just a few examples of the multitude of issues that commonly arise between co-parents.
Even in the most amicable co-parenting relationships, there are dozens of different issues which may arise that both parents don’t agree on. While you may think that you and your co-parent will be able to resolve issues that come up along the way, many times that is unfortunately not the case and you may find yourself strongly disagreeing over important issues and possibly even going back to court over them.
The attorneys at Collins Family Law, LLC can help you draft an Allocation Judgment/Parenting Plan which contemplates common parenting issues and has thorough guidelines on how each of those issues will be addressed. Covering these details ahead of time can relieve a huge amount of stress and help maintain a healthy co-parenting relationship, while also focusing on the best interests of the child(ren).