There are a number of different ways that a custody schedule for 50/50 joint physical custody can be written. When selecting a custody schedule for your family, it’s important to customize the schedule to meet the family’s needs, particularly the needs of your children.
Creating a Joint Custody Schedule
Custody can be physical, legal, or both. When parents share joint legal custody, they both have a say in major decisions regarding the child’s life, such as education, religious upbringing, and medical care. When parents have joint physical custody, their children spend time living in each of their homes, although it doesn’t necessarily have to be an exact 50/50 split. These six joint custody schedules provide for almost equal time for the kids with both parents. You can tweak and adjust the schedules to meet your family’s unique needs. As with most joint physical custody schedules, this one requires that your children have fully functional bedrooms and living space in each of your homes. Typically, this schedule works better for older children or children who can be away from one parent for an entire week. If you’re considering this schedule for your family, be sure to get your kids’ perspectives on this type of arrangement. You want to be sure that you select a schedule that works for your kids above anything else. Although a midweek visit can be nice for both the parents and the kids in this schedule, it may be more difficult to maintain as the kids get into extracurricular activities like sports, music, dance, and so on. If you do decide to use this type of schedule, be sure that you don’t require your kids to miss their activities or skip study groups just to ensure a midweek visit. Perhaps, if your kids have extracurricular activities, you could be the person shuttling them to their activities and then have dinner with them during your midweek visit. The key is that you think outside the box when formulating a schedule and create as little disruption in your kids’ lives as possible. For instance, allow them to decide if they want to do an overnight visit or just have dinner with the parent. Or, you can allow them to decide which day of the week is best for the midweek overnight. It could be that they always have a math quiz on Wednesdays and they don’t want to move houses on Tuesday night, making Thursday a better option. The key is that you listen to their opinions and try to work with them. When you do, the transitions will go much more smoothly. However, overnight visits may be particularly challenging when infants are involved. In fact, there is some research that suggests that frequent overnights are linked to attachment insecurity in infants, which could lead to adjustment problems at ages 3 and 5. Meanwhile, frequent overnights were not linked to adjustment problems at older ages. So, as you decide on your custody schedule, be sure to consider the ages and needs of all your children. It could be that babies would adjust better if they were with a primary caregiver for all overnights, but had daytime visits with the secondary caregiver on a regular basis. The next week, the routine flips and the children reside with Parent B for two days, then Parent A for two days, before spending a long three-day weekend with Parent B. This allows the parents to have alternate weekends with the children and may be useful for parents with young children who cannot go long blocks of time without seeing one or both of their parents. This schedule also may work best for parents who live close together, for easy handoffs, and for younger children who adapt well to change while needing to see each parent frequently. The only day that changes from week to week is Saturdays, giving a weekend day to each parent. The longer duration at each parent’s home might be a little less disruptive for kids. Like the 3-3-4-4 day rotation, this schedule allows the children to spend Sundays and Mondays in one residence, and Tuesdays and Wednesdays at the other. The only days that fluctuate from week to week are Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. Consider revisiting the plan every year to make sure it continues to meet all of your needs. Above all, allow your children a voice in the planning and discussion if they’re old enough.
