Start of School: Best Time to Re-Examine your Co-Parenting Agreement

This August and September, parents all over the country are facing the continued uncertainty of school options and restrictions.

As a parent, you might have found that COVID and the changes it has brought forced and your co-parent to re-look at your parenting agreement, making many agreements inapplicable or difficult to follow under the new circumstances. For instance, without school, the parenting time schedule no longer functioned with your work schedule, or pick-up times and places became uncertain, or your inability to work has forced you to re-examine child support amounts. All these issues can be resolved amicably and in an affordable manner through virtual mediation.

More and more couples are now including COVID sections in their agreements, to provide clear guidelines to each other on how to deal with positive tests, exposure, masks, visitation of friends, and vaccination choices. If you and your co-parent have been having trouble managing these issues, mediation is the best way for your come together to decide on these issues. This will not only help your communication but provide the child certainty and understanding during this difficult time. 

As the school year begins now is a good time to re-examine your parenting agreement to ensure it is applicable to your current situation and what is best for your child(ren). As our children get older, their schedules and needs alter. Therefore, even beyond COVID, what is best for the child may need to change over time. Parents should be aware that their agreement may be outdated. You may need to speak about extracurricular costs, pick up/ drop off arrangements, determine how you may want to pay for college or college preparation fees, or changes to summer schedules to fit the child’s work schedule or summer camp.

Mediation brings you and your co-parent together to re-focus your attention to your agreement and ensure it is still applicable to your family’s needs. There are numerous reasons a parent may want to re examine their parenting time agreement. Mediation is the most effective and affordable method to make these changes.