Your Parenting Plan is a Map.
The goal of the Parenting Plan is to outline, as comprehensively as necessary, how you and the other parent will "parent" your child or children.
Creating a Parenting Plan, and having something in writing helps. You will have something in writing memorializing what you have agreed to -- it may even have a calendar attached. Both the parenting plan and calendar will help you to make plans for your family and organize your own life -- you don't want to go to Court or Arbitration every time there is a disagreement. The Parenting Plan is a starting point that can be adjusted from time to time, and where necessary, mediated. Conflicts can even be resolved through modest amounts of telephone conciliation.
A Parenting Plan may include:
1) Where the children will live and on what days. It is helpful to know how the child(ren) will travel back and forth from one parent's home to the other parent. Will the parents exchange homes and the children stay in the same house?
2) Who will take child(ren) to attend extra curricular activities? Which ones?
3) How will finances be shared?
4) How will vacations and holidays be allocated?
5) Who has access to school and medical records and who will make education and medical decisions?
6) How will parents communicate with each other?
7) Will there be agreed to rules regarding how child(ren) are raised with respect to religious beliefs, allowance, chores, and discipline?
8) How will extended family participate in the children's lives?
9) How will new partners be introduced to child(ren)?
Since lives change, and children grow, this plan is a dynamic and fluid document that needs to be revisited from time to time. Issues will come up that can cause conflict, and if the parties have a starting point in how to deal with these matters, these issues may cause less stress.
Having a mediator help you to facilitate the negotiations on these sometimes very emotional issues can sometimes make the process easier and diffuse some of the conflict that may arise.
