Are you interested in a designing a customized parenting plan in your Louisville divorce? What do you need to know if you are a parent who is considering a divorce in Louisville?
A divorce which involves children is actually quite a complex matter. Ultimately the Court must either decide upon or approve a parenting plan which resolves two primary issues: parenting time and child custody.
The overall guiding principle of Kentucky Family Law regarding matters involving children is simply this: the best interests of the child. It is important to note that Louisville Family Courts recognize that it is almost always in the best interest of every child to share roughly equal quality time with each parent in the absence of addiction/drug abuse, domestic violence or criminal activity.
There are basically three options for designing a customized parenting plan in your Louisville divorce:
- Negotiation
- Mediation
- The Court will decide and impose orders upon you and your children
When approaching negotiations or mediation regarding a parenting plan, you should give substantial consideration to the following issues:
- The existing schedule of the child – this includes any patterns associated with school, extra-curricular activities, religious practices, friends and family. What is the best strategy to preserve the existing “status quo” of each child’s life while providing for their basic needs (shelter, food, clothing, health care, education).
- How to divide time in each household between the parents and when are the most natural opportunities for a child to move between households.
- How will the parents manage important times of the year including birthdays, holidays and vacations?
- What ground rules will be incorporated into the parenting plan to ensure easy communications between a child and each of their parents. This should include issues of cell phones, video chat (facetime), texting, e-mail and even social media.
- Does the proposed parenting plan provide roughly equal time with each parent while protecting and supporting the relationship of each parent with each child?
- Issues and challenges will arise. People and children get sick. How will the parenting plan address minor changes and flexibility within scheduling while preventing abuse by either a child or a parent?
- How will areas of concern or disagreement in the future be addressed and resolved?
There are many complex emotional, financial and legal issues associated with designing a customized parenting plan in your Louisville divorce. This is why you need the experienced, proven counsel of the divorce and family law attorneys at Dodd & Dodd.
We invite you to review the strong recommendations of our former clients and contact us or call 502-584-1108 to schedule an appointment with one of our experienced divorce and family law attorneys.
