Summer might seem a long way off, but as divorcing parents, it is something you need to keep in mind. If you don’t, the custody and parenting arrangements you draw up may prove problematic within months.
The thing about summer is that your children won’t be in school for most of it. The carefully laid plans you make may work fine for the rest of the year when the children spend their days in the care of teachers, but not when you and your co-parent have them 24/7.
Fitting childcare around work
Most parents need to work after a divorce, even if one of them did not when they were married. Running two households requires the kind of money that most people do not have sitting around, so going out to work is often the only solution.
Let’s say you make a parenting arrangement where one parent has the children during the week. They pick a job that allows them to start after the kids leave for school and be home when they finish. That won’t work when the children don’t go to school unless the kids are old enough to be left home alone.
There are many ways you can handle parenting over the summer vacations. Maybe you each take some of your holidays so you are free to be with the children all day during those days. Maybe you take them away on vacation for a week at a time. Perhaps you enroll them in summer camp or activities close to home, or maybe you send them to visit their respective grandparents for a while.
Whatever you decide, deciding it when you are in the process of divorce allows you to write it into your custody and parenting plan. This can help keep things clear and encourage each parent to respect the commitment they make.
