Child custody, as it pertains to be spending time with your kids, is more specifically called Possession and Access. As a part of your divorce, you and your spouse will be ordered to follow a possession/visitation schedule regarding your children. Each of you will be provided with specific information about when you are entitled to possession of your children.
To begin, you need to choose when visitation periods begin and end for holidays like Thanksgiving, Spring Break, Christmas Break (for odd and even numbered years) and Summer. Whichever parent does not reside with the children on a primary basis may choose a different thirty-day summer schedule. The requirements for this summer schedule are that the schedule must be after school is dismissed for summer break, only 1 or 2 blocks at a time and not during the last week of summer break. Other “special” days like the children’s birthdays, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day would also be laid out within the order for consideration by you and your spouse.
Note that separate considerations are made for a co-parent who lives within one hundred miles of the children and one that does not live within one hundred miles of the children. Weekend visitation as well as holiday visitation looks similar for either type of scenario. However, a parent who lives more than 100 miles from their children during the school year will have an opportunity to select a 42 day period in the summer months to be in possession of the children. For example, a Standard Summer possession period for a non-primary parent is from June 15th to July 27th.
Any changes to your residence address, mailing address, home telephone number, name of employer, address of employment driver’s license number or work telephone number must notify the court and their co-parent of those changes in writing. Additionally, if you or your co-parent is for any reason unable to take the children as scheduled, then that parent must notify the other parent.
