Parenting Plans - Using a Template and a Child Custody Calendar

Once you have made the decision to divorce, a parenting plan can be a valuable tool in a number of ways. Not only will it help you design a plan for how you are going to raise your children, but it may also help you gain more control during a battle for custody. A good parenting plan will help you make long term plans for your children that are realistic and help you keep track of your child custody calendar.

You can find parenting plan templates online, and you can use them to create a plan that is uniquely yours. Not all families or circumstances are identical so it is important for you to modify the template to suit your circumstances. The end result should be a plan that addresses the individual needs of your family.

One of the most important features of an effective parenting plan is that any adult who reads it can easily understand it and gain perspective about your family situation. While it is mainly a tool to be used to encourage a settlement between you and your ex-spouse, there may also be a time when a judge will read it. Keep the important functions that your plan may perform in mind when preparing it.

Parenting Plans - Using a Template and a Child Custody Calendar

Your plan should also include a child custody calendar. This calendar shows the custody and visitation time of each parent. The calendar should be clearly marked and easy to read. It is helpful if the time-share percentage that each parent has with the child is included with the custody calendar.

You should always stick to the facts of your family's situation whether you are writing about the past or about current events. Your parenting plan is not a good place to express your opinions about your ex-spouse. It is appropriate to list your expectations and goals for the future. If a judge reads the parenting plan, he will understand that you don't agree on all the details with your ex-spouse without your having to spell it out for him.

Unless there are extenuating circumstances, joint custody is usually granted to both parents. If your ex-spouse doesn't pose a danger to your child, then you should accept that you will both continue to share a relationship with your child. Don't try to degrade the other parent in your parenting plan as an attempt to eliminate him as an equal custodian.

Show that you understand and respect the importance of your parenting plan by making sure it follows a template that is presented in a way that can be easily read and understood. Don't leave any spelling or grammatical errors, and have someone else proofread it to make sure they have no difficulty understanding it.

Make sure that the template you follow has a section where you can describe your parenting philosophy. This is the most important part of your parenting plan since it will tell the judge that you have made plans that include all of the important aspects of your child's life.

To create a parenting plan that has all of the features to make it effective, look at several templates and take the important features from each to create the one that is best for you. Include a child custody calendar to the other information and you should end up with a complete plan.

Parenting Plans - Using a Template and a Child Custody Calendar
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Discover how Custody X Change provides the best parenting plan template and find out how to make a child custody calendar.

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Shared Parenting

When two people decide their marriage is over, the hardest part is the effect on the children. Many couples stay together for the sake of the children; while others realize, for the child's sake, separation is the only way; and then other couples never consider the children. They think only of their needs, expecting the children to survive. It is not the act of divorce itself but the process involved that determines its effects on children. The emotional impact of divorce on a child's development in the early years of life can create problems in childhood, adolescence, and adult life. As the child matures, their personal and interpersonal behaviors are involved, such as:

The ability to create deep and enduring love relations The strength to tolerate the imperfect satisfaction of personal needs The attitudes and desire to cooperate with others The motivation to learn and work

The paths these behaviors take start in the early years of life by the quality of the attachment bond with both mother and father that established during this time. The ideal situation for any child is to live in a two-parent home where the parents love each other and the child. However, statistics show that a child in a happy single parent situation fares better that a child living in a home with constant fighting and bickering. Separation Anxiety Considerable evidence now documents that most infants form meaningful attachments to both of their parents at roughly the same age (birth to 7 months). This is true even though many fathers spend less time with their infants than mothers do. The infant may come to prefer the parent who takes primary responsibility, usually the mother, for their care; but this does not mean the relationship with the other parent is unimportant. A child may begin to develop separation anxiety which is a normal phase of development beginning with mobility at around 8 months and intensifying from 12 to 18 months. But with added turmoil or stress, the child may experience intense emotions when separated from either parent. They don't understand the concept of time and don't know when the parent will return, which could result in a lot of crying and resistance. To be separated feels like torture or a profound loss. To get over their separation anxiety the child needs to:

Shared Parenting

Feel safe in their home environment Trust people other than their parents Trust that their parents will return Infants and toddlers need to maintain contact with both parents on a regular basis.

Extended separation from either parent is undesirable because it causes undue stress on developing attachment relationships. Both parents need to interact frequently with the daily routine care of the child (feeding, playing, diapering, soothing, putting to bed, bathing) to ensure that a strong relationship develops and strengthens. Disrupting these relationships at this age, makes it hard to develop parent-child relationship later in life. Instead, it is considerably better for all concerned to avoid such disruptions in the first place.

Overnights with the Nonresidential Parent

In the past child development research focused on preserving the mother-infant attachment within one home, while over nights with the father were forbidden or discouraged. Research today shows such recommendations did not take into account the child's need to maintain and strengthen relationships with both parents after separation. A child thrives socially, emotionally, and cognitively if the care taking arrangements are predictable and if both parents are sensitive to the child's physical and developmental needs and emotionally available. Staying over night with the nonresidential parent provides crucial social interactions and nurturing activities, including bathing, soothing hurts, and anxieties, bedtime rituals, comforting in the middle of the night, and the reassurance and security of snuggling in the morning after awakening, that 1-2 hour visits can't provide. If the child has his own bed and space in each home; he will feel more secure with a schedule that is predictable and managed without stress in each place. To be responsive to the toddler's psychological needs, the parenting schedules adopted need to provide opportunities to interact with both parents every day or every other day in a congenial manner for the sake of the child. These everyday activities promote confidence in the parent while deepening the parent- child attachments. In addition, regardless of who's the primary caregiver, a meaningful father-child relationship at this age may encourage fathers to remain involved in their children's lives forever. The child will benefit from the extensive contact with both parents in their lives with shared parenting. Shared parenting is about co-parenting. This means treating the other parent as an important part of your child's life. These experiences provide children with social, emotional, and cognitively stimulating experiences to succeed in their education, work, and personal relationships in life.

Shared Parenting
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Changing Child Visitation (Parenting Time Modification) in Michigan Just Became Easier

Increasing, decreasing or otherwise altering child visitation time (technically parenting time modification) just became easier in Michigan. Until December 3, 2010, most judges and friend of the court referees believed that in order for a person to obtain more parenting time with their child or to limit the parenting time of the other party, one had to provide proof equal to that which would be required to change custody. I have long argued that this did not make sense because parenting time and custody are two very different things. The Michigan Court of Appeals appears to agree and the law is now changed, or at least more clear, in that regard.

A brief explanation of the proof needed to change custody is required. In order to change custody in Michigan, one must prove by clear and convincing evidence, which is a very high level of proof, that there has been a change of circumstances or proper cause that has occurred since the most recent order regarding custody before the court will even consider a change of custody.

Further, the types of change in circumstances or proper cause cannot be such things that would be considered a normal life change. Normal life changes are such things as the child growing older and wanting to participate in more activities due to a changing social, sport or activity schedule, remarriage of one spouse, move to a better home with better amenities, changes in the employment status of a parent, very young children starting to attend school or other types of changes that occur when a child develops and grows.

Changing Child Visitation (Parenting Time Modification) in Michigan Just Became Easier

These types of changes are generally not allowed as proof that a change of custody should even be considered. The courts and friend of the court referees also (in many counties) would not even consider a modification of the parenting time schedule, either to allow more child visitation or less, without this same type of evidence. Therefore, unless a parent could show as a threshold issue that there existed some serious issue with the children or the custodial parent, then their arguments for a parenting time modification would not even be considered.

There was really no published Michigan Court of Appeals case or Michigan Supreme Court case that dealt directly with this. There have been unpublished opinions from the Court of Appeals, however, unless a case is published it is not precedent. What this means is that the trial courts and friend of the court referees do not have to follow what the Court of Appeals has said in a case regarding any given issue unless it is a published case. To make things more confusing, the unpublished cases decided by the Court of Appeals regarding this issue conflict with one another. Some indicate that one did have to prove the same type of threshold issues in order to obtain more child visitation or limit the child's time with the other parent as one would with custody and other opinions stated that one did not have to prove this threshold issue or that the burden of proof was lower.

The Michigan Court of Appeals issued a new published decision on December 3, 2010, Shade v Wright, Mich. App Docket No. 296318 (2010) which held that it should be, and now is due to this case, easier to change the parenting time schedule than it is to alter custody. This case stated that in order to decrease or increase child visitation with a parent there is a more relaxed burden of proof regarding a change of circumstances or proper cause as a threshold issue than there is with custody. The court went further and stated that normal life changes such as those described above are properly considered when deciding this issue.

In the Wright v Shade case cited above, the change that allowed the mother to change the child's visitation with the father was that their daughter had started high school and her schedule of activities changed. This is exactly the type of change that trial courts specifically can not consider in order to change custody. Many trial courts and friend of the court referees also believed, before this opinion, that this was exactly the type of change of circumstances that they could not consider in order to allow a change to either increase or limit child visitation. Those courts and referees that believed this were wrong and hopefully they will now follow this case when considering these issues because Wright v Shade is binding precedent.

This makes sense mainly for the following reasons. The primary concern with child custody determinations is the stability of the child's environment and avoidance of unwarranted and disruptive custody changes, while in contrast the purpose of parenting time is to foster a strong relationship between the child and the child's parents. The parenting time statute states that it is presumed to be in the best interests of a child for the child to have a strong relationship with both parents and that parenting time shall be granted in a frequency, duration and type reasonably calculated to promote a strong relationship between the child and the parent granted parenting time.

One must also consider that as children grow, they are involved in different activities. As their developmental needs change, both parents must be flexible with their parenting time schedule as much as it may pain the parent. Early in a child's development, a child requires more frequent contact with each parent, but the duration may be shorter. As child becomes older the contact may be less frequent but of greater duration. When a child reaches school age, school and associated activities must be considered. The practical implication of a child growing older is that the child's schedule and their need for parenting time will change and therefore, the parenting time schedule must be modified to meet the child's development.

Parenting time is for the child, not the parent as much as the parent may enjoy the time with the child. Children do grow older and as they grow older their relationship with each parent will most likely change as they hopefully grow more independent. As much as it may pain a parent, their own child visitation may have to change to allow the child to find his or her own path which may have the child spend more or less time with either parent despite what the court has previously decided or the parent's previously agreed.

DISCLAIMER: This information is provided for general educational purposes only including answers posted to questions at Ask Cameron. It is not intended to be relied on as legal advice. This information may not have been updated to reflect subsequent changes in the law, if any. Your particular facts and circumstances, and any changes in the law, must be considered to determine appropriate legal advice. Always consult with a competent attorney, licensed in your state, to discuss your particular situation. This information is not intended to create, and receipt of it does not constitute, an attorney-client relationship between you and Byers & Goulding, PLC and/or Cameron C. Goulding. Please do not send information to us that you consider confidential without first obtaining:

A written statement from us that we represent you (a "retention letter") and Permission from Byers & Goulding, PLC or Cameron C. Goulding to provide

Confidential information to us relating to a particular matter.

This information is not guaranteed to be correct, complete or up-to-date. It should not be relied upon or construed as legal advice. You should not act or elect not to act based upon this information without seeking professional counsel. Byers & Goulding, PLC has its office located in Auburn Hills, Michigan. We do not wish to represent anyone in any state in which this information may not comply with all applicable laws and ethical rules, or to represent anyone with respect to legal matters related to the laws of any state or country in which our lawyers are not admitted to practice law.

Changing Child Visitation (Parenting Time Modification) in Michigan Just Became Easier
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Cameron C. Goulding, North Oakland County Michigan divorce lawyer and family law attorney has been providing the highest level of service to divorcing couples in Bloomfield, Rochester, Rochester Hills, Troy, Auburn Hills, Lake Orion, Oxford, Waterford as well as Macomb, Genesee, Wayne, Livingston and Lapeer Counties for over fourteen years. Mr. Goulding graduated from Michigan State University in 1993 and Wayne State University Law School in 1996. He is a member of the Michigan State Bar Association, Oakland County Bar Association, Rochester Bar Association, the Family Law Section of the Michigan State Bar Association and the Oakland County American Inns of Court. He was one of the first divorce lawyers awarded the Family Law Certificate by the State of Michigan Institute of Continuing Legal Education. Visit http://www.CameronGoulding.com

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Special Education - What Does IDEA Say About Functional Skills, and How Will It Help My Child?

Are you the parent of a child, receiving special education services,
that thinks your child may benefit from functional skill training?
Would you like to know what the Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act (IDEA) requires in relation to functional skills? Would
you like parenting tips on using IDEA requirements to help your child
receive functional skill training? This article is for you; it will
discuss IDEA requirements, and how you can use them to advocate for
functional skills training for your child.

The purpose of IDEA is to ensure that all children with disabilities
have available to them a free appropriate public education that
emphasizes special education and related services designed to meet
their unique needs and prepare them for further education, employment,
and independent living. Education is more than reading, writing, and
math; it also includes functional skills to help children with
disabilities live a full and rewarding life.

IDEA requires each child's IEP to contain a statement of present
levels of academic achievement and functional performance. School
personnel should give you objective information (testing) each year,
about your child's academic and functional performance. Do not accept
teacher subjective observations and grades (also subjective), to
determine if your child is making academic and functional progress.
Around Christmas time ask that testing be performed in the areas of
academics and functional skills, in January, so that these results can
be used at the annual IEP meeting. Also ask for copies of the testing
at least 14 days before the meeting, so that you will be able to be an
equal participant in the meeting.

Special Education - What Does IDEA Say About Functional Skills, and How Will It Help My Child?

IDEA also requires that the IEP contains a statement of measurable
annual goals, including academic and functional goals. Since you asked
for testing at Christmas time, and hopefully have received the results
before the IEP meeting, you will have some knowledge of your child's
academic and functional needs. Write a few academic and functional
goals, and make sure they are measurable. In other words, how will you
know when your child has made the goal? Bring the list with you to
your child's IEP meeting. Share your input on annual academic and
functional goals with the IEP team.

By understanding what the federal law IDEA states about functional
skills, you can use the information to ensure that your child is
tested in this area, and has annual goals developed for their IEP, if
needed. Functional skills will help your child become as independent
as possible as an adult, and live a more fulfilled life!

Special Education - What Does IDEA Say About Functional Skills, and How Will It Help My Child?
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JoAnn Collins is the parent of two adults with disabilities, has been an educational advocate for over 15 years, an author, as well as a speaker. JoAnn's recently released book: Disability Deception; Lies Disability Educators Tell and How Parents Can Beat Them at Their Own Game helps parents develop skills to be an assertive and persistent advocate for their child. For a free E newsletter entitled "Spotlight on Special Education" send an E mail to JoAnn@disabilitydeception.com

Check out JoAnn's Web site at http://www.disabilitydeception.com

Can be reached at Phone Number 815-932-9263

JoAnn Collins Copyright 2008

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Parenting - The Role Of Grandparents In The Parenting Equation

Grandparents have a very special role to play in the parenting equation and can be extraordinarily helpful, but they can also place parents in the position of feeling a little bit like middle management with all the problems that this can bring. So how do you ensure that you and your children receive all of the good things which grandparents can bring to your lives while at the same time minimizing the difficulties that they can also bring to the parenting mix?

Grandparents have the advantage of wisdom which they have acquired over long years of experience and many of the seemingly major problems which you face as new parents will have a simple solution to a grandparent who has seen the problem before. Being able to turn to grandparents as a first port of call when faced with a problem can be both extremely helpful and comforting.

Many parents also lead extremely busy lives these days and frequently both parents will be working and have careers of their own. Being able to call on grandparents to help with many of the practical day to day problems that this poses can also be extremely valuable.

Parenting - The Role Of Grandparents In The Parenting Equation

Most of the problems that arise will do so because grandparents can find it difficult to accept that their job as your parents is essentially done and that, having brought you up and set you on the right path, it is now time to step back and let you get on with leading your own life. They are still your parents of course and will love you just as they have always done and will always be there for you if you need them, but their role now is to take a back seat and to step in when and only when you ask for their help. For many grandparents this presents more than a little difficulty.

In some cases dealing with 'interfering' grandparents is not too difficult and all that is needed is to sit down quietly with them and to have a 'diplomatic' word in their ear. At other times however the temptation for them to interfere is simply too strong and no matter how many diplomatic words you have with them you simply can't stop them from throwing in their two cents worth and lending a hand.

In this latter case it's often a good idea to take a moment to examine the situation carefully before getting too worked up.

In the vast majority of cases grandparents simply want what is best for their grandchildren and, while it is often quite a natural reaction to see their advice as interference, more often than not if you stop to think about it you'll find that their advice does have some, if not considerable, merit.

It is also quite natural for your annoyance at their interference to overwhelm your normal sense of objectivity. As a result, minor and inconsequential issues can quickly assume an importance which they simply don't warrant.

Grandparents are individuals in their own right with their own thoughts, views, opinions and wishes and while these won't always coincide with your own they need to be respected. When grandparents want to do something that you would prefer them not to do, take a moment to consider whether or not this is really going to do any harm or is something that you honestly feel strongly about. If it's something that you yourself wouldn't have done but which nonetheless won't do any harm or cause a problem then is it really worth getting worked up about it?

Even in cases where you believe the actions of grandparents might cause a problem it is usually possible to find a compromise that everybody is happy with. Suppose, for example, that they want to give your son a bicycle for his birthday but that you feel that he is still too young. Rather than simply reject this idea, the secret is to steer them in another direction. In this case you might suggest that what your son really needs is an activity center you've seen which would not only give him endless hours of fun but would also help him to develop his reading skills. Simply planting this idea in their minds and leaving them with the option to buy your son a bicycle at a later date will probably do the trick.

From time to time you may run into problems which initial probing indicates are not going to be quite so easy to resolve. When this happens the solution lies, as it does with most problems in life, in finding common ground and this is simple when it comes to disagreements between parents and grandparents. Whatever individual issues you may have or differences of opinion there may be both of you will have the best interests of the grandchildren uppermost in your minds. As long as both parties are reminded of this fact it is usually quite easy to resolve most issues.

Parenting - The Role Of Grandparents In The Parenting Equation
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Parenting4Dummies.com covers a wide range of topics and provides advice on child parenting, only child parenting, parenting teenagers, step parenting, adoptive parenting divorced parenting and understanding the science of parenting.

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Teenage Parenting - Heard of Imaginary Audience & Personal Fable?

Your child is now a teenager and you wonder why the child you have is so different from what he or she used to be. Teenager is in a transition stage and may display cognitive, emotional and attitudinal changes. These changes sometimes become the source of conflicts for parent and teenagers. So, it is important for parents to understand these developmental changes in teenager and how it affects them.

Here, I would like to discuss two factors that may influence teenager's development, i.e. Imaginary Audience and Personal Fable.

Teenagers' greater self-reflective capacity causes them to become overly conscious. They imagine themselves as always on stage, as the center of everyone else's attention and concern. This is known as imaginary audience. This concept has helped me to understand why my teenager had, at times, alienated herself from her siblings in the train as she felt that her brothers and sisters were too noisy and may attract unwanted stares. She felt embarrassed by their behavior and so preferred to stand far away from them. To help her to deal with the situation, I suggested that she observed the situation and in the train and asked her to take note of how many people were staring at her siblings when they were in the train. She soon realized that it was her being sensitive as her siblings were neither too noisy nor were they attracting unnecessary attention. Over time, she has managed to get over this and has become less sensitive. With the understanding of this concept, it is important to realize that parents should never say negative things or criticize the teenager in public; it must be done in private and definitely not in the ear shot of their younger siblings.

Teenage Parenting - Heard of Imaginary Audience & Personal Fable?

The other factor is Personal Fable. This means that the teenagers' self-focusing leads them to develop an exaggerated view of their own importance. They regard their own thoughts and feelings as special and unique. They also believe that they are invulnerable to dangers all others faces. This could explain why teenagers engage in casual sex, dangerous driving or other risk taking behavior as they would think that the bad consequences may happen to others but would not happen to them. As parents, we would need to help them to deal with this false sense of security by showing them examples or evidence of teenagers getting into trouble, perhaps using newspaper articles or incidents that happened to people that the teenagers know.

These two factors could at times be the source of conflict between parents and teens. With this understanding in mind, parents would be able to help their teen copes with these developmental changes better and in the process, develop a better relationship with their teens.

Teenage Parenting - Heard of Imaginary Audience & Personal Fable?
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For more information on teenage parenting, visit www.parenting4workingmother.com [http://www.parenting4workingmother.com]

Sandra Chong is a Career & Life Coach. Her passion lies in empowering individuals to ENJOY WORK & LIFE NOW! As a full time working mother with four children, she believes in creating opportunities for her children to learn to take responsibility for their lives and at the same time helping them to identify their unique talents so that they can live life to the fullest!

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