Every child in America looks forward to the three months off school they receive during summer vacation. For more than 90 days, families struggle to manage their child’s new schedule and the many summer activities that this break brings. For divorced families, this change can create even more challenges. Fortunately, by working together or with an attorney, divorced parents may be able to request a short-term modification to their custody order to help address any scheduling issues summer vacation creates.
For newly divorced parents, managing work, school and their custody schedule may be somewhat overwhelming. Throw in three months of no daytime childcare and you have chaos. What was once a barely manageable schedule now has become completely impossible. This, however, does not always have to be the case. When parents are willing to work together or have an attorney to help them, they may be able to better address summer break scheduling issues by making a modification to their custody arrangement.
Depending on your child custody and placement order, there may be room for improvement over summer vacation. Perhaps one parent’s work schedule allows them to be home certain days of the week, while the other parent is available at other times. Making short-term changes to address each parent’s availability can alleviate the stress of summer vacation while not imposing too many changes on children.
Not all family court orders are permanent or long-term. However, if you are just beginning the divorce process, working with an experienced attorney may help you develop a parenting plan that adequately addresses a child’s ever-evolving schedule to include changes for summer vacation. If you are currently divorced and have a custody arrangement that does not take into account summer break, your attorney may be able to help request a short-term modification to child custody.