Parenting Plans
Parenting Plans
Family mediation offers a way for parents to create a detailed and comprehensive co-parenting or parallel parenting plan/agreement in the best interest of the children, through the use of a mediator who acts as an unbiased third party. A comprehensive co-parenting or parallel parenting plan reduces the stress associated with day-to-day communication between ex-spouses.
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Questions Which Would Be Discussed In Mediation:
- Who will the child(ren) primarily live with? Or Is it a shared arrangement where the child(ren) reside at least 40% with both parents?
- Who will have decision making for the children (ie. medical, religion, education)?
- How will information about the child be shared amongst parents?
- How will the parents communicate?
- When will each parent have personal time with the child(ren)?
- How will the child(ren) be able to communicate with each parent, while with the other parent (call, text, video call)?
- What are the school arrangements? What are the drop-off and pick-up arrangements?
- Who will the child(ren) spend holidays and special events with? What is the holiday parenting schedule?
What Is Parallel Parenting?
A joint parenting arrangement which gives both parents equal say in major decisions affecting their child(ren). A parallel parenting arrangement is a little different from joint parenting because it allows each parent to make separate decisions about specific areas of their child(ren)’s lives.
For example, Mom may have decision making responsibility over education & health, while Dad may have responsibility over religion & holidays.
What Is Decision Making?
When it comes to raising children, parents or guardians must make important decisions regarding the care of the child(ren). This includes decisions such as:
- Health Care
- Education
- Religion
It is important to differentiate between decision-making responsibility (previously referred to as custody) and parenting time (previously referred to as access). In some cases, you may have sole decision-making authority but your child lives part of the time with you and part of the time with their other parent.
On the other hand, parenting time is when you have certain rights to interact and spend time with your child.
For more information on this topic, please see our page dedicated to parenting plans.
Types Of Decision-Making Responsibility:
One parent takes on full responsibility for the child(ren), and makes all the decisions on their own.
Joint decisions are made by both parents and are not related to the amount of time the child(ren) spend with either parent. All parental choices concerning the child(ren) should be agreed upon jointly.
This kind of arrangement is not about parental decision-making authority, but rather deals with which parent the child(ren) will reside with and the turnover period.
In cases where there are multiple children in a family, one parent may have decision-making authority for some of the children and the other parent will be responsible for making decisions regarding the remaining children.