Extra-Curricular Activities and Joint Custody

Once we’ve helped someone with a divorce along with a joint custody agreement, they tend to move on with their lives and never come back into our office. When they do come back with a complaint that they want our legal help with, a startling number of them have the same complaint. It’s “my ex just enrolled my child in activity, and expects me to pay for it, but I can’t afford to pay for it and I shouldn’t have to because my ex didn’t consult me before enrolling my child, and besides it infringes on my parenting time.”

Now, let’s be realistic here: there are very rare cases in which complaints like this are perfectly legitimate. But before we talk about those, let’s talk about why the vast majority of them aren’t.

When You’re Married…
…and your kid says “I want to go to Tae Kwon Do!” three things happen. First, you check to make sure that the kid knows what they’re talking about. You say things like “OK, honey, but Tae Kwon Do means you have to stand in line and follow the teacher’s instructions and do the same punches and kicks over and over again for weeks or months. It won’t make you a ninja overnight, you understand that, right?”

Second, you turn to your spouse and you say “Our child knows what they’re talking about. Is there a Tae Kwon Do class somewhere that we can get our child to and from given our scheduling complexities? If not, can we find something close enough, like Karate or kickboxing?”

Finally, you reach the last roadblock: “Can we find a class that fits in the budget?” And the two of you try to work something out, or you give the kid the option of paying for it themselves if they’re old enough.

And if those three hurdles are overcome, the kid goes to Tae Kwon Do. Easy-peasy. No one complains that Tae Kwon Do is stealing their parenting time — heck, for many engaged parents, taking kids to TKD and watching them (or even joining the class themselves!) is the very definition of parenting time!

When You Have Joint Custody…
…and the other spouse is the one who signed up your kid for a thing, you inevitably see it in the sense of the impact on you. You’re not thinking about your child — the question of whether or not they want to go to Tae Kwon Do doesn’t even come up. You’re worried because TKD is going to take up every Thursday afternoon for at least the next six months or so, and because you had mentally bookmarked some of your money for taking your kid camping, but now it’s going to pay for TKD instead.

Don’t get us wrong — it’s definitely frustrating when the other parent with joint custody makes a command decision about an extracurricular activity and doesn’t consult you first. But your first question as a parent should always be the same as the first question the court is obligated to ask: what is in the best interest of my child?.