If you are going through a divorce or have recently been divorced you may find that the upcoming back to school season presents a host of new issues that must be delicately addressed in order to minimize the impact on the children. If you and your former spouse share joint legal custody each of you are entitled to be involved in your child’s education. Each parent should be authorized to receive all school notices, calendars, report cards directly , sports schedules and the like directly from the school. Implementing this may take teh cooperation of each parent.
As the school year progresses, plan ahead to schedule when each of you will attend parent-teacher conferences. Many schools hold conferences over the course of several nights so you do not need to attend with your former spouse if you choose not to. I often see parents who share parenting time create unnecessary conflict over homework. This particlulary arises when one parent has weekend parenting time and spends the entire time “having fun” and not attending to homework or expecting that the other parent will see that it gets done. Being a parent requires attention to issues such as homework and ignoring it only serves to hurt the child in the long run.
You will want to define and implement a schedule for all school holidays and vacations. This is especially important when both parents work. As with most parenting time issues, planning in advance and the ability to be flexible are teh keys to succesfully resolving vacation parenting time.
