You know how kids like to add a half year to their age, like saying “I’m five and a half years  old”?  If your access schedule has every other birthday or no birthdays with your child, Orr General Store for Parents suggests throwing a half-birthday party.

The website says, “Half birthday parties can be even more fun that the regular party.  You bake half a cake.  If you’re not a baker, buy the cake and cut it in half.  Sing half of the birthday song or every other word.  Fill the cups half full.  You’ll think of lots of things to make it a special half birthday party.  As your child grows older it will become a funnier party because the child can add their own half touches.”

And there is even a website where you can find all the party supplies you need to throw a half birthday.

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.”

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.

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.

In Maryland, where I practice, this percentage is important because it determines whether child support is calculated on the shared custody worksheet or the sole custody worksheet.

Child support on the sole custody worksheet is higher.  Multiply a few hundred dollars a month times twelve months in a year times the number of years until the children reach 18 or 19 and you will see that it is a lot of money we are talking about here.

Maryland counts only overnights in determining the percentage.  So a weekend from Friday to Monday is three overnights.  A weekend from Saturday to Sunday is one overnight.  Three overnights every other week times 26 alternating weekends in a year is 78 overnights a year.  Then you have to add and subtract for holidays, school breaks and summer vacations.  The dividing line in Maryland that puts dads on the lower shared custody guidelines is 128 overnights a year or 35%.

If you can’t obtain contact with your kids, I have suggested setting up a Facebook page and posting to it in hopes they will someday find it.

A father who goes by the name of Daddy Nmn sent me an email calling my attention to a website called “3 Sides to Every Story” where anyone, dads, moms, grandparents and others, can post letters to their missed loved ones.

The site is nicely done and categorized by state and type of letter writer.  The letters are heart-felt, honest and poignant.

In a recent New York case, a judge decided that the father should have unsupervised visitation with his child after a transition period to be supervised by a transition therapist.  Then, when the therapist decided the time was right, visitation would be unsupervised.

However, the appeals court found that “The court improperly delegated to a mental health professional its authority to determine issues involving the best interests of the child, i.e., when unsupervised visitation should commence.”

The court told the parties that they would have to make another application to the court regarding unsupervised visitation, at which time the court may render a decision on that issue, with the assistance, if necessary, of further reports from the intervention therapist.  Linda R. v Ari Z., 71 AD3d 465 (2010)

by Jill H. Breslau

Typical timesharing schedules, like 50/50, or 5-2-2-5, or 4-3, or weekdays and weekends do not take into account the needs of children are different at various ages and stages of development.  Frequently, the approach to visitation is to consider the schedules and convenience of the parents first, figure out a logical access schedule, and then see if the children can adjust to it.

But a baby doesn’t need the same kind of access schedule that a 12 year old does.  Their basic needs and developmental tasks are different.  The baby’s “task” is to learn to bond, because all future emotional relationships depend on early bonding.  The baby needs continuity and frequency of contact, because for a baby, when someone goes away for weeks at a time, it is as if they died.

A 12 year old on the other hand, needs time with parents that takes into account his or her need to develop peer relationships and extracurricular activities.  And any children with issues like ADHD or special needs may have unique requirements that parents should consider when setting up schedules.

It is not easy to look at life through your child’s eyes. But a good parenting plan and child access schedule does just that.  You are a parent for the long haul; your children grow and change, and so should your schedule.  The way to begin to establish a schedule is by understanding the needs of each child.