When you undergo a divorce in California, you’ll need to come up with a parenting plan for your children. A parenting plan is a general name given to the overall custody agreement between the parents. While most people think that custody agreements solely have to do with the amount of time a child spends with each parent, there are many other aspects to this parenting plan that you’ll need to ensure you include in yours.
Clothing and toys
Your parenting plan should address the topic of clothing and toys for your children. One of the biggest complaints that divorced couples have is that the clothes or toys they specifically buy for their children always end up at their ex’s house. For this reason, it’s important to establish an agreement of if and when clothes will be returned to the parent who bought them.
Childcare
One very hot-button issue for divorced couples is dealing with childcare for their children. There are various scenarios in which a parent will not be specifically looking after the child. This may be times where the parent needs to leave town or attend a meeting, and he or she will have another person looking after the child. It’s important for both spouses to agree on who may look after the child when a parent is not around. Also included with childcare is who will look after the child while the parent is at work. Most parenting plans will include a clause that both parents have to agree to the nanny or the facility that watches the child.
A parenting plan agreement is a necessity for spouses that are undergoing the divorce process. While this agreement does state when and who has custody of their children at different times, that’s not all that is being included in the document. The above are just some of the many small issues that you’ll need to include in your parenting plan to help avoid bigger arguments later on down the road. If you have questions or need help creating this plan, an attorney may be able to help you.