How should you handle holidays in a Colorado parenting plan?
Colorado parents who intend to start living separately or end their marriages need to negotiate parenting plans with one another. The Colorado family courts typically expect separated and divorced parents to share parental rights and responsibilities. It can be difficult to determine the right breakdown of parenting time, especially because you would likely prefer to be with your children all the time.
Some days will be harder to be apart from your children than others. Holidays and birthdays are some of the most difficult times for families adjusting to shared custody arrangements. How should you approach these special days when you have to divide parenting time?
There are numerous systems that can work
As with any other major custody consideration, there’s no one solution that is guaranteed to work for your family when it comes to dividing the holidays and other special events. Many families choose an alternating schedule.
Parents will spend every other holiday or birthday with the children, allowing both of them to have special memories with their kids. However, your children would likely prefer to have the whole family together on those special days.
If parents have an amicable relationship as co-parents, they may be able to agree to share holidays and birthdays. Getting the whole family together for special events will help the children feel like the changes are not entirely negative and will also help you and your co-parents improve your relationship.
If you don’t think that you can spend the whole day together, you might plan parties in the middle of the day so that one parent can be with the child in the morning beforehand and then the other can have the children in the evening. In rare cases where parents both come from different religions or cultures, you may be able to split the holidays so that one parent has the same holidays consistently every year.
Bespoke custody solutions will work best for your family
Rather than simply trying to make use of the most common custody solutions, it is often a better approach to put in the effort to create a truly unique and customized parenting plan based on your unique family circumstances. The more effort you put into creating your parenting plan now, the less likely you and your ex aren’t have complications later or your children are to resent the decisions that you make regarding how you share that authority and parenting time.
Exploring unique solutions for custody matters in Colorado will help you make the best choices for your family.