As anyone in Pennsylvania who’s had their marriage dissolved knows, divorce can be an arduous process for the parents and even more for the children. It involves breaking up a family and permanently changing a living situation that the children had grown accustomed to.
Given how unsettling the whole divorce process may be for the young ones, parents should do everything in their power to make the transition as smooth as possible. For starters, parents would do well to put themselves in their kids’ shoes and ask themselves how each decision they make during the divorce affects their children. Additionally, when setting a parenting schedule, parents ought to take into account the children’s school schedule as well as any other activities the children may be involved in; at the end of the day, what matters most is to minimize the disruption felt by the kids. In the same vein of minimizing disruption, it behooves parents to think about the logistics of their children’s lives, especially if both parents will live far apart from each other.
Just as there are certain things parents can do to facilitate this transition for their kids, there are certain things parents should avoid doing at all costs. First of all, parents should never use a parenting schedule as an opportunity to get back at their exes. It is important to remember that the main objective here is looking after the well-being of the children, not settling a score. Similarly, figuring out how much time each parent gets to spend with the children is not a competition, so parents need to remember that there are no winners or losers.
It is always better for parents to arrange parenting schedules together and to involve their children if possible. However, there are occasions when it is almost impossible to reach a compromise, at which point the parents may decide to let the courts decide. In such a scenario, a parent may benefit from reaching out to a family law attorney to help them with this entire process and represent them in court.
