Happy holidays everyone! But it may not be, for everyone. After a divorce you will follow your parenting plan, which should designate how the kids will spend important holidays, such as Thanksgiving and Christmas. So this may be your holiday without the kids, for the first time. Or you have to alter past family traditions because you are splitting the holiday. But you should know this well ahead of time and be able to make alternate plans. Start a new tradition. See some friends or join in your extended family celebration that you always had to skip in the past.
At Westfield Mediation, LLC, we encourage couples to map out important holidays. Many couples would prefer to figure it out each year as it occurs and have a since-we-are-getting-along-so-well-now-it-should-not-be-a-problem-in-the-future type attitude. It is exactly now, when you have good communication, that you should figure out your future plans, so that just in case things take a turn for the worse down the road, you don’t have to return to court to battle out who gets Christmas with the kids. Best case scenario is that you do designate your plans for Christmas and then never follow the written plan, because you can work it out each year and do whatever you both agree to do with the kids. But it is best practice to have a written fallback plan to follow if ever there is a disagreement. This prevents the need to return to court. If you both want to alter from the written plan but ultimately cannot agree on how to do that, then you abide by the written plan for that year. No hassle and expense of court is necessary.
Sometimes couples prefer to return to mediation to address their post-divorce parenting arrangement rather than battle it out in court. We can help couples who did not initially designate the important holidays in their original parenting plan but now see how that would be helpful moving forward from this point. You can make these important decisions so that you can have a happy holiday season.
For more information about Divorce Mediation contact Randi M. Albert, JD, or Michelle Weinberg, LMFT, at Westfield Mediation, LLC, at 908.913.0373. View our website at www.westfieldnjmediation.com or email us at info@westfieldnjmediation.com
At Westfield Mediation, LLC, we encourage couples to map out important holidays. Many couples would prefer to figure it out each year as it occurs and have a since-we-are-getting-along-so-well-now-it-should-not-be-a-problem-in-the-future type attitude. It is exactly now, when you have good communication, that you should figure out your future plans, so that just in case things take a turn for the worse down the road, you don’t have to return to court to battle out who gets Christmas with the kids. Best case scenario is that you do designate your plans for Christmas and then never follow the written plan, because you can work it out each year and do whatever you both agree to do with the kids. But it is best practice to have a written fallback plan to follow if ever there is a disagreement. This prevents the need to return to court. If you both want to alter from the written plan but ultimately cannot agree on how to do that, then you abide by the written plan for that year. No hassle and expense of court is necessary.
Sometimes couples prefer to return to mediation to address their post-divorce parenting arrangement rather than battle it out in court. We can help couples who did not initially designate the important holidays in their original parenting plan but now see how that would be helpful moving forward from this point. You can make these important decisions so that you can have a happy holiday season.
For more information about Divorce Mediation contact Randi M. Albert, JD, or Michelle Weinberg, LMFT, at Westfield Mediation, LLC, at 908.913.0373. View our website at www.westfieldnjmediation.com or email us at info@westfieldnjmediation.com
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