Plan Ahead to Avoid a Spring Break Full of Bickering With Your Ex over the Kids

One of the most difficult parts of divorce is creating and managing an amicable child custody arrangement. Even if parents receive joint custody, ensuring relatively equal parenting time with kids, there can be some disagreement about who should have time with kids over holidays and school breaks.

Ideally, you’ll come to some sort of agreement when the custody arrangement is drafted, but if you don’t have every holiday or break down on paper, it could lead to bickering. What if your custody agreement includes parameters for holidays, but fails to account for time out of school like spring break? Here are a few tips to create a plan and avoid a fight with your ex.

Follow the Tone of Existing Arrangements
You almost certainly came to some kind of agreement regarding holidays already. For example, you may have decided that each parent gets the kids for a big holiday like Christmas or Hanukkah every other year. Or perhaps, you trade off midway through a holiday each year.

You can use this precedent as the basis for you spring break arrangements. If you already trade off holidays annually, arrange for one parent to have kids for spring break one year and the other parent to have them the next. If you trade off mid-holiday, simply decide who will get kids for the first half of spring break and who will get them for the second half.

Stick to the Schedule
If you have no arrangement in place for spring break and neither parent has a trip or other special activities planned, you could just treat it like any other week by sticking to whatever schedule is in place as per your custody arrangement. This might end up working out better than trying to make different arrangements unnecessarily and ending up in a fight as a result.

Talk about Plans Ahead of Time
Before you start booking airline tickets and hotel rooms, talk to your ex well in advance. If he/she has nothing planned, perhaps you can agree that you should take the kids on a trip for the upcoming spring break.

On the other hand, you may be willing to let your ex plan a trip this year if your work or other circumstances prevent you from taking time off. This could provide the opportunity to negotiate to have the kids for a break later in the year, or to plan for a trip the following year when it better suits your schedule.

Consider Your Kids
Don’t forget that your children are in the middle of this mess. Before you solidify plans, make sure to ask what they have going on. Perhaps they have a preference about where they want to be, or maybe they have school projects going on that would make it difficult for them to take a vacation over spring break. You don’t have to let your kids dictate custody arrangements, but you should always take their position under consideration.

If you’re having trouble negotiating custody terms with your ex, you don’t have to go it alone. Contact the qualified attorneys at The Gucciardo Law Firm at 248-723-5190 to get the expert legal advice and assistance you need.