Custody Conflicts When a New School Year Starts
The beginning of a new school year can sometimes create child custody conflicts, especially if the child is moving from elementary to junior high or from junior high to high school. Moving up to the next school often means a schedule change, and it definitely means a new pick-up/drop-off address. All of these seemingly minor tweaks can actually create friction in a custody routine that was working fine in the previous year.
A Few Tips for Managing Back-to-School Custody Hurdles
In our experience as Southlake child custody lawyers here are a few things we’ve seen that tend to make school year transitions smoother.
- Develop a Routine That’s Comfortable – By the end of each school year, all the kinks are worked out of the system. Just remember that you’ll get there again – it just takes time. As the next school year approaches, start working with your co-parent on how to make the next year’s adjustments as easy as possible for everyone involved.
- Communicate – With the yearbook committee example above, if you had communicated with your co-parent that there are some date uncertainties and how badly your child wanted to participate in the yearbook committee, the situation may have played out differently than if nothing was mentioned to the other parent until after the child was accepted to the yearbook staff.
- Work It Out Privately – If you are having a heated conversation or a point of tension with the other parent, get off speaker phone in the car, hang up the call, stop the face-to-face confrontation, and resume at a later point when everyone is calm. Text messaging and emailing are also a great way to keep children away from any disrespectful comebacks, yelling, insults, and so on that might be overheard if your co-parent is a loose cannon. There is also no need to rehash arguments so the child knows what’s going on. Find a way to update your child without the drama.
- Provide Adequate School Supplies and Clothes at Each Parent’s House – This is a really sticky point in a lot of custody situations. Make sure the child has everything they need at the appropriate parent’s home, so this does not add more stress.
Modifying Your Custody Schedule
If your custody schedule no longer works as-is, you can modify the schedule. This requires getting authority from the court and a new custody order issued. Many parents can negotiate and decide on a new schedule with the help of their attorneys, avoiding litigation. However, if one parent wants a modification and the other opposes any changes, you will need to go to court or participate in mediation. Always have an experienced child custody lawyer ready if you face a high conflict modification battle.
Southlake Child Custody Attorneys Near You Ready to Help!
Modifying your child custody order is an option that our best Southlake child custody attorney from Mims Ballew Hollingsworth | Family Law can assist you with. Reach out to our office today to see what the process entails.
