The summer vacation can bring all sorts of changes to your regularly scheduled programming – and that can be good, bad, incredibly stressful, and wildly expensive, especially for working parents with little flexibility. Even though the school year has its own challenging moments – sick days, snow or other inclement weather days (even ones, like...
Child support in the summertime
If you have a parenting plan or a court order that specifies custody and visitation, you’re supposed to follow it. And, probably, most of the time, you will. The ideal scenario is to come up with something that you both – you and your child’s father – can rely on, predict, and understand intuitively. I...
Question: My child’s father and I share custody. Our child is involved in a number of activities and there are practices, games, recitals, meets, and more, all on a regular basis. I’ve always taken the child to everything, and I’ve never missed a game or performance, but now that we’re divorced, my child’s father is...
There are all sorts of different words that attorneys, judges, Guardians ad litem, divorce coaches, and others in the family law space use to describe the tools that we utilize in divorce and custody cases. A ‘parenting plan’ is a good example, because it’s one you hear over and over, but it’s also one that...
Even though Virginia does not assume 50/50 custody – the statute actually just says that the court must consider all forms of custody equally – it is still often the starting point in many custody cases, especially contested ones. I’m not a fan of automatic 50/50 custody; I think it creates a situation focused on...
All parents worry about what will happen to their kids when they pass away, but that fear is definitely greater for parents of minor children. I’d argue that, probably, for parents of children who are not together anymore, the fear even greater still. Especially if you’re the primary parent, you worry about what will happen...
I love easy questions but, in family law, I get so few of them that when I do see a truly easy question with a truly easy answer, I almost can’t believe my luck. The short answer is no, you do not have to be flexible with your child’s father when he asks for changes...
When there are disputes over custody and visitation, they are often physical, rather than legal, custody issues. Physical custody refers to where the child(ren) spend their time and it can be awarded as either primary physical, shared physical, or split physical custody. Legal custody, though, refers to the right of parents to make three types...