As children head back to school, families may want to consider looking at the holiday calendar that they have in their Parenting Agreement. Understanding how your holiday schedule fits in with your children’s school schedule can be helpful in planning for the year. The sooner you realize that you may need to make adjustments, the more you and your children will enjoy those holidays.
Parties should take note of the day of the week on which each holiday falls and who is scheduled for regular parenting time. If you have a particular holiday that falls on a day when you already scheduled for parenting time, you will most likely have no issues. However, if you share the holiday, or if the holiday does not fall on your scheduled time, you may want to open a discussion with the other parent about the necessary logistics to facilitate your holiday parenting time. Perhaps the times when the holiday starts or ends will need to be adjusted, or weekends may need to be switched. If travel will be involved with the holiday, you may want to make other modifications.
If you start taking these considerations into account at the start of a school year, instead of waiting until each holiday is coming up, you may avoid unnecessary unpleasantries. Parents who begin these discussions at the beginning of an academic year have sufficient time to negotiate any necessary modifications to the schedule to eliminate unnecessary complications or disagreements and to ensure that the holidays are enjoyable for you and your children. Even if you did not look ahead at the holiday schedule when school started, it is not too late to look now, for everyone’s benefit.
Every family’s holiday traditions and schedules can be different. The lawyers at Cohn Lifland respect the importance of spending special occasions with your children. There may be some simple adjustments to you schedule, that will better facilitate the implementation of your holiday schedule. Contact us for help if you want to review and negotiate appropriate modifications so that you and your children may fully enjoy the holidays.