Individuals who are going through a divorce and have children together will have to work out child custody terms so the children can thrive. This isn’t always an easy undertaking because both parents might have different ideas on what’s best for the children.
Therefore, it’s imperative that both adults carefully negotiate the terms of the parenting plan. Let’s look at some important points to remember.
Keep your emotions out of it
When you don’t focus on your own emotions, you can work to decide what’s best for the children. In almost every case, it doesn’t matter what happened to end the marriage. Those matters should never be brought to the child custody situation. The exception is if there was some sort of abuse, which will likely have an impact on the custody arrangement.
Think about all provisions
It’s sometimes possible that provisions you propose could have more than one result. You need to think carefully about all the ways the provisions you want to include in the parenting plan to ensure that they will only have the desired effect and not backfire on you.
Become a parenting team
One of the best things that you can do is to become a parenting team. This can help the children feel more secure. They may not worry as much about having both parents in their life if they see them working together. It also reduces the likelihood that the kids will try to play one parent against the other. By becoming a team early, you can also help make the negotiations easier.
Ultimately, the children are likely to fare better if you can set up the parenting plan early in the divorce process. Your attorney can discuss the options with you so that you can consider those as you’re working through everything.