Module Notes
Incorporating provisions for travel and vacation time into a parenting plan ensures that both parents and children can enjoy meaningful, uninterrupted time together while minimizing potential conflicts.
Travel During Parenting Time
Commonly, each parent can take the children out of town as often as desired during their scheduled parenting time because it doesn’t impact the other parent’s time.
Travel Outside of Parenting Time
The challenge with vacation and travel occurs when the time away interferes with the regular parenting time schedule. Consider the following:
- Flexibility and some agreements to override parenting time for vacations and travel often feels better for families.
- Mapping out the details in the parenting plan can avoid conflict and make sure you both have similar opportunities to spend this special time with the children.
- You could certainly agree to changes in the parenting plan as they come up.
- It is common to have an agreement that each parent is allowed to take the children out of town or on vacation for a specified number of days or weeks per year, superseding the regular parenting time schedule.
Even with an agreement on the amount of vacation time allowed, the scheduling of travel and vacation times should be by mutual agreement or with communication between parents.
Be conscientious of the children’s schedules and activities to avoid too much disruption in their regular routines.
You may agree on timing for notification before scheduled travel or agree to set vacation schedules by a specific date each year to facilitate advanced planning.
Additionally, some parents like to have agreement on the ability to take vacation time without the children during their scheduled parenting time.
It is important that neither parent tells the children about a proposed vacation without first discussing the dates and destination with the other parent.
Overall Guidelines on Travel
- Clear Communication
- Advance Planning
- Flexibility
- Documentation
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