Co-parenting with your ex is not always easy, and at times, it can prove downright difficult. Increasingly, divorced parents across Florida are working to eliminate the potential for fights with their former partners by establishing parenting plans that establish guidelines for the co-parenting relationship.
Per Psychology Today, a parenting plan is a written document that dictates how you and your one-time partner plan to parent your child or children now that you know longer live together or have a romantic relationship. While the contents of a parenting plan can vary broadly based on the needs of each family or child, there are certain elements that today’s most effective parenting plans typically have in common. Most parenting plans, for example, include an overview of expectations as far as parenting time and general responsibilities with regard to the shared child.
The contents of a parenting plan can also range from general guidelines to highly specific instructions. For example, many parenting plans begin with a general statement that dictates how the parents plan to work with one another for the betterment of the child, and this statement may, too, address who is to have decision-making authority over the child in question, and when.
Other areas of the parenting plan may prove far more specific. You may, for example, set guidelines that determine how you and your ex plan to have your children split holidays, summer vacations and the like. You may even want to address how you and your ex can communicate with one another when the child is with the other parent, or how you plan to handle transporting your child from one home to the other.
Many people who co-parent with their exes also address who is to be responsible for what as far as medical care, education, athletics and other extracurricular activities and the like. Also, because the matters you must address for, say, a baby will probably differ broadly from those you would cover for a teenager, you may also want to include language that dictates when you plan to revisit the parenting plan and update it accordingly.
This information is educational in nature and does not constitute legal advice.