Children need both of their parents to be involved with their lives and unless there is a threat of harm to a child both parents should strive to maintain a relationship that will be beneficial to their children. One of the most difficult issues that parents have to address in a California divorce is child custody and visitation. Visitation is the percentage of time you will have to spend with your children. The amount of time you spend with your child is known as “custodial timeshare” and effects the amount of child support you either pay or receive.
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Visitation
Visitation, also known as parenting time or timeshare, is the amount of time the non-custodial parent spends with their child. When one parent has sole physical custody of a child, the other parent will typically have visitation rights. The parent with physical custody is called the “custodial parent” and the other parent is the “noncustodial parent.”
Visitation and Child Support
Once you have established a particular visitation schedule it is important that you calculate the timeshare that you will be spending with your children. Your percentage timeshare is the figure used to determine child support.
Parents that separate will need to have a visitation plan for deciding how their children will be cared for and where they will live or spend time. This plan can be called a parenting plan, a time-share plan, or an agreement about child custody and visitation.
Visitation or Parenting Plans
Visitation or parenting plans are written agreements plans entered-into by the parents. Parenting plan must be designed to take into consideration the best interest of your children. The plan must be specific enough so that each parent can easily understand what is required by them and for the plan to be enforced by the court. The parenting plan becomes a court order once it is signed by both parents, signed by the judge, and filed with the court.
In general, parenting plans should take into consideration:
- The need for both parents to have information about the children.
- Times for both parents to call the children.
- Allow both parents access to children’s medical and school records.
- Exchange of each parent’s contact information – addresses, phone numbers, and email.
- Physical custody – where the children will live and visit. Where they will stay during the week, on weekends, for holidays, summer vacations, and special days. Transportation of the children. Who will be obligated to take the children for visits.
- Legal custody – which parent will be making the decisions about the children on their own and when both parents are required to make decisions. Decisions regarding schools, daycare, religion, medical and dental care, and emergency care.
Things to Consider with Parenting Plans
Parents have an obligation to care for a child while the child is ill. It is unreasonable to expect the primary custodial parent to take over all care of a sick child, just as it is unreasonable to deny parenting time due to minor illnesses.
The child’s feelings count. It is typical for a sick child to be cranky and unhappy; moving him or her to the other home may only intensify these feelings. On the other hand, children are prone to “cabin fever” just like adults. A change of environment may very well make a child feel better and help take his or her mind off the illness.
If the child is on any kind of medication, knowing when the child took his or her last dose or when the next dose should be given is important information that parents should convey when exchanging the child.
If parenting time is missed due to sickness, the noncustodial parent probably may want to make the time up. Reasonable “illness contingencies” may be written into every parenting plan to provide guidance for these situations.
Holidays and Special Events
In addition to a regular visitation schedule, parents need to consider visitation for holidays, school breaks, and special events. Parents generally arrange to allow visitation to alternate every other holiday for each parent. However, there are also be other days that need to be alternated, such as birthdays, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and school breaks.
The children can benefit if their parents work out a mutual agreement for sharing both holidays and vacations. Remember to always try keep the child’s best interests in mind and incorporate flexibility into custody and visitation schedules.
Commonly Used Visitation Arrangements
- Standard weekend visitation. Begins Friday evening at 5:00 PM and continues to Sunday evening at 5:00 PM.
- Extended weekend visitation. Begins Friday afternoon after school and continues until the start of school on Monday morning.
- Alternating weekends and one evening visit a week. This schedule is often used in situations where one parent has sole physical custody and the other parent has visitation. In this schedule, the child lives with the custodial parent during the week and visits the non-custodial parent on alternating weekends and for one evening visit during the week. For this arrangement, the custodial parent has 84% of the time with the child and the non-custodial parent has 16% of the time, not including holidays or special days.
- Alternating weekends and one overnight a week. Like the above schedule above except for the evening visit which is overnight. The non-custodial parent has visitation every other weekend and one overnight visit a week. The custodial parent has 71% of the time and the non-custodial parent has 29%, not including holidays or special days.
- Alternating extended weekends. In this arrangement, the child spends every other weekend with the non-custodial parent. The weekend is from Friday evening until Monday evening. The time-share percentage for the custodial parent is 79% and the time-share for the non-custodial parent is 21%, not including holidays or special days.
- Alternating weekends and one evening visit a week. In this schedule, the child lives with custodial parent during the week and visits the non-custodial parent on alternating weekends and for one evening visit during the week. For this arrangement, the custodial parent has 84% of the time with the child and the non-custodial parent has 16% of the time, not including holidays or special days.
- Alternating weekends and one overnight a week. Like the above schedule except for the evening visit which is overnight. The non-custodial parent has visitation every other weekend and one overnight visit a week. The custodial parent has 71% of the time and the non-custodial parent has 29%, not including holidays or special days.
- Alternating extended weekends. In this arrangement, the child spends every other weekend with the non-custodial parent with the weekend extended until Monday evening. The time-share percentage for the custodial parent is 78.63% and the time-share for the non-custodial parent is 21.37%, not including holidays or special days.
*If your visitation schedule does not conform to one of the above examples, you can always add up the number of hours of visitation per year and divide that number by 8760 (the total number of hours in a year). That will give you the visitation percentage based on your yearly visitation schedule.
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