Following his divorce from his ex-wife Elin, Tiger Woods has failed to win a golf tournament in the last sixteen months.

But Woods isn’t playing golf all that much.  He’s only competed in ten tournaments this year, which isn’t a lot for a professional golfer with the Masters coming up.

There was speculation that he would play in the Honda Classic.  But that was a conflict with his shared parenting time with his three year old daughter and one year old son.

When USAToday asked him why he wasn’t playing more, Woods responded, “Because I have a family. I’m divorced.  If you’ve been divorced with kids, then you would understand.”

House Bill 1132, if passed, would establish a presumption in favor of joint custody for children in Maryland.   The Judiciary Committee of the Maryland House of Delegates is considering the bill, which would add the following as Section 9-109 to the Maryland Family Law Article:

IN AN INITIAL CHILD CUSTODY PROCEEDING, WHETHER PENDENTE LITE OR PERMANENT, INVOLVING THE PARENTS OF A CHILD, THERE IS A REBUTTABLE PRESUMPTION THAT:

(1) JOINT LEGAL CUSTODY IS IN THE BEST INTEREST OF THE CHILD; AND

(2) PHYSICAL CUSTODY TO EACH PARENT FOR APPROXIMATELY EQUAL PERIODS OF TIME IS IN THE BEST INTEREST OF THE CHILD.

Similar bills have failed before, but they are always hotly debated with strong advocates on either side.  I’m not sure it really makes that much difference in the end in litigation.  With or without the presumption, the judge still decides whether custody should be joint or sole with one parent or the other, based on what the judge thinks is in the best interest of the child.  In settlement negotiations, however, it might replace “every other weekend” as a starting position.

Many times we see agreements or decrees that say the parents have joint legal custody and the mother (or the father) has physical custody of the children.

Legal custody is about long term parenting decisions, such as the education, health and religion of the children.  Joint legal custody means the parents are to make those decisions together.  Both have an equal vote and each has a veto power.

Physical custody means where the child resides most of the time.  The other parent has visitation or access or timesharing.  Each parent has care and custody of the child when they are with them, and can make day to day parenting decisions alone.

Here’s where legal world and real world part company.  In the legal world, long term decisions are required to be made by agreement.  But in the real world, if mom decides on her own to make Dr. A their pediatrician, dad usually doesn’t object.  If dad does object, his only recourse is to take mom back to court and that usually costs more money than it is worth.

So sometimes, joint legal custody and primary physical custody ends up being, as a practical matter, the same as sole legal custody.

There is no such thing as a standard visitation schedule. Visitation can be anything on which the parties agree. Here are several examples, together with the percentage of the year that visitation amounts to, courtesy of California Child Support Services.

• 1 weekend per month (7%)
• 1 3-day weekend per month (10%)
• 1 2½-day weekend per month (8%)
• 2 weekends per month (13%)
• 1 weekend per month and 1 evening per week (14%)
• Alternate weekends (14%)
• Alternate weekends + 2 summer weeks (18%)
• Alternate weekends, ½ holidays and 2 summer weeks (19%)
• Alternate weekends, ½ holidays and 2 summer weeks (Parent 2 also has 2 summer weeks ) (18%)
• Two 3-day weekends per month (20%)
• Two 2½-day weekends per month (16%)
• Alternate weekends and 1 evening per week (21%)
• Alternate weekends and 1 overnight per week (28%)
• Alternate 3-day weekends (21%)
• Alternate 2½-day weekends (18%)
• Alternate weekends, ½ holidays and 4 summer weeks (alternate summer weekends with makeups) (21%)
• Alternate weekends, ½ holidays and 4 summer weeks (no alternating summer weekends) (21%)
• Alternate weekends & ½ holidays and ½ summer (with or without alternate summer weekends) (22%)
• Alternate 3-day weekends plus 1 evening per week (28%)
• Alternate 2½-day weekends plus 1 evening per week (25%)
• Alternate 3-day weekends plus 1 overnight Weekend per week (36%)
• Alternate 2½-day weekends plus 1 overnight weekend per week (32%)
• Alternate Weekend, 1/2 Holidays, 1 Evening/Week, 4 Summer Weeks (alternate weekends in summer, with makeups) (28%)
• Alternate Weekends, 1 Evening/Week When School is in Session, and 1/2 School Vacation (28%)
• 3 days per week (43%)
• First, third, and fifth weekends (15%)
• First, third, fifth, 3-day weekends (23%)
• First, third, fifth, 2½-day weekends (19%)
• First, third, and alternate fifth weekends (14%)
• First, third, alternate fifth 3-day weekends (21%)
• First, third, alternate fifth 2½-day weekends (18%)

Laura Doerflinger, MS, a licensed mental health counselor, has a good idea for co-parenting by email.  She suggests each parent pick a day to publish a Kids Mail email.  For example if you drop the children off Sunday night, publish Kid News Monday morning.  What to include?

1. School:  Grades, homework, school incidents, forms that need to be filled out, conferences,  etc.
2. Health:  Colds, doctor appointments, dentist, counseling, moods, etc.
3. Financial:  Payments due or parenting plan division of costs for activities, medical expenses, etc.
4. Schedule:  Changes to the current schedule, changes in your child’s plans, holiday times, etc.
5. Vacations:  Clarification of times and plans – phone numbers, etc.
6. Upcoming Events:  Social, school, extracurricular or sport activities.

Doerflinger suggests avoiding control issues by not giving instructions and relating only the facts.  Limit the news to co-parenting issues.  This is not a place to discuss your relationship.  Respond to the items that need responses and be sure to thank the other parent for the effort.

Custody battles can get pretty ugly. People do and say things they normally wouldn’t because the stakes are the highest they can be, namely, the children.

But the highest correlation to a child’s stability and well-being after a divorce is the health of the parent’s relationship.

So let’s call a truce to hostilities until the New Year. Put aside your disputes and differences for the sake of the children and let them have a conflict free holiday season.

The best holiday gift you can give them is to let them know they are loved by their mothers and fathers.

“Now, mam’m, you say that Mr. Jones never spent time with the children?” the father’s attorney says to the mother who is on the witness stand.

“That’s right.”

“Well take a look at this doctor’s report that says Mr. Jones took the children to four out of the last five visits.  Did I read that right?”

“Yes.”

“And do you recall that Mr. Jones was at the school recital on November16?”

“Yes.”

“And he coaches their basketball team, doesn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“He took the children to the movies on Thanksgiving Day, didn’t he?”

“Yes.”

Trial Note to Dads:  Small details can add to your credibility and take away from Mom’s credibility at a custody trial when Mom claims you don’t spend any time with the kids.   Testimony is evidence, but so are doctor’s reports, school records, and your journal or diary of time spent with your kids.

Relocation can reek havoc with parenting plans.  While the court can’t interfere with a person’s constitutional rights to live anywhere they please, it can change the custodial parent of the child.  There are different options for addressing this issue ahead of time.

First, you can require notice prior to any move so that the objecting party has time to ask the court to review custody.   residence.  Here’s an example from a Parenting Agreement for my state:

Under Maryland law, a move out of state with the minor children by the parent with legal custody constitutes a change in circumstances that warrants a review of the residential arrangements.  Therefore, the parent with legal custody shall notify the other parent at least 45 days in advance of any contemplated move (and sooner if possible), and the parents shall cooperate to work out a new visitation schedule.  In the event that a new visitation schedule cannot be agreed upon by the parents, the parents shall promptly submit the issues raised by relocation to mediation.

Second you can set up an alternative timesharing schedule in your Parenting Plan, to become effective in the event one parent moves over a certain distance from their current residence.  Here’s the introduction to such an alternative schedule:

If the parents live more than one (1) hour apart driving door to door, the following schedule will be presumed to be in the best interests of the children.  It provides the minimum visitation and parents are encouraged to agree on additional visitation.

Finally, you could try to have a non-relocation provision in your Parenting Plan, such as the following example:

The parents agree that neither one will relocate more than 50 miles from their current residence without the consent of the other or an order of the court.

Note that the court has the power to override this non-relocation provision if it finds that relocation is in the best interests of the children.  You may want to add language stating that the parties agree that the best interest of the children lies in being raised in the present location.  Give us your thoughts and experience with relocation in the comment section.

Halloween is coming up at the end of this month.  It is a holiday that might be easily overlooked in a visitation schedule because it may not be as important as other holidays like say Thanksgiving or Fourth of July.

But Halloween is terribly important to children.  There are several ways to handle Halloween.

If you are still on good terms with your ex, you can agree to split Halloween parenting duties.  One will stay in the house and the other will go trick or treating with the kids.  You can trade off after a couple of hours.

Or, if you live close enough, the kids can go trick or treating in mom’s neighborhood with mom and dad’s neighborhood with dad.

If that doesn’t work, then you can alternate the holiday, having Halloween with dad one year and mom the next.

Sometimes child custody battles spill across international boundaries.  The Hague Convention of 25 October 1980 on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction is a treaty.  The US and several other countries have ratified it.

The purpose of the Hague Convention is to protect children from being abducted and kept across international boundaries.

The Convention sets out a procedure to bring about a prompt return of such children. The “Child Abduction Section” provides information about the operation of the Convention and the work of the Hague Conference in monitoring its implementation and promoting international co-operation in the area of child abduction.

It is important to note that the Convention ceases to apply when a child attains the age of 16 years.