A child custody dispute can be challenging and exhausting. During the divorce, you will have enough issues to work through that unless it is absolutely necessary, the more you can do to reduce the conflict and stress of your child custody arrangements, the better. One way to do this is to avoid mistakes or other errors during the process that will not benefit your arguments or strengthen your case.
Perhaps the most important is to keep in mind the ultimate goal; the raising of happy and well-adjusted children. This means you need to focus on creating a parenting plan that will truly serve their needs. While you may be divorcing their other parent, that person will, nonetheless, remain their other parent, and you need to recognize that that will not change.
Unless you receive sole legal and physical custody, which is highly unlikely absent serious violence or abuse, you will have to work with their other parent. Ironically, while many people argue that most child custody agreements should result in equal or shared custody, they may not realize who much of a commitment that will require for both parents to work together and cooperate.
If you adopt a joint custody agreement that fully allocates as nearly as possible a 50/50 sharing of time and responsibilities between each parent, as a parent, you have to understand how much time you will spend coordinating with and working with their other parent to ensure that the system of handoffs and exchanges functions.
You cannot forget to pick up your children from school or an extracurricular event, and you have to have sufficient communication with the other parent to ensure that when problems develop there is also flexibility built into the system.
Staying focused on your children can help prevent frustrations and mistakes during this emotionally challenging process.
Source: divorcemag.com, “7 Common Mistakes Made When Fighting a Custody Battle,” Karie Boyd, April 3, 2016
