How do Florida Parenting Plans Address Holiday Timesharing?

People whose parents divorced in the 1980s and 1990s probably remember that life settled into a rhythm, usually including living with Mom during the week and with Dad on the weekends, but that sparks always flew at Thanksgiving and Christmas, when extended family members visited, or when one parent wanted to take the children to visit out-of-town relatives during a holiday.  This is one of the major issues that Florida’s new parenting plans address. The parenting plan template has questions to address every school vacation, including winter break, Thanksgiving, and spring break. Parents can choose, as soon as they divorce, where the children will spend each holiday each year. For example, they can specify that, in odd-numbered years, the children will spend Thanksgiving break with Mom until Friday afternoon and then spend the rest of it with Dad, but in even-numbered years, they will be with Dad until Friday afternoon and then go to Mom’s house. Parenting plans even allow parents to allot certain times for children to stay with grandparents, and they can choose to grant certain holiday days to the grandparents.

In some ways, Thanksgiving is the simplest holiday to plan because it is always on a Thursday.  What about Christmas, which is always on the same date, but on different days of the week?  What about Hanukkah, which sometimes coincides with winter break and sometimes does not?  What about Islamic holidays, which, because the Islamic lunar calendar is 11 days shorter than the Gregorian calendar, vary not only by day of the week, but by month?  (For example, this year, both Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha were during summer vacation. In 2000, Eid al-Fitr was between Christmas and New Year’s.) Florida’s parenting plans were made to be customized.  You can specify that each parent gets the children for four nights of Hanukkah, and that if it falls during a school week, each parent gets one non-school night of the holiday.

Ambiguity Breeds Conflict: Avoid Holiday Confusion with Alan Burton

It might sound like micromanaging, but the best way to avoid holiday stress is to make your parenting plan as specific as possible. Once your parenting plan is set, you can build your holiday plans around when the children will be with you, and when they will be with your ex-spouse. Contact Alan R. Burton in Boca Raton, Florida to discuss the holiday timesharing aspects of your parenting plan.

Common Interference

Custody interference most often occurs when one parent refuses to follow the schedule for visitation set out by the court in the parenting plan. This can include not taking the child to see the other parent when they are supposed to or even refusing to allow the child to communicate with the other parent on the phone. If your custody or visitation rights are being denied by your child’s other parent, there are different steps you can take to enforce the parenting plan schedule. For example, you can file an emergency motion with the courts to enforce the custody order. The court can even place the other parent in contempt and impose sanctions if they continue to interfere with custody.

Criminal Interference

If a parent secretly or forcibly takes a child without authority to do so under the parenting plan or consent by the other parent, they could end up facing serious criminal charges as well as consequences in family court, including complete loss of custody rights. Florida criminal law sets out interference of custody as a third degree felony, which can mean up to five years in prison. Furthermore, some parents who physically take their children without authority face kidnapping charges, which is a first degree felony and could mean a very long prison sentence. A father recently made headlines for taking his children from New Jersey to Florida and keeping them for six weeks without authority, and he is now being held on $800,000 bail and facing kidnapping charges. As you can see, in some cases, custody interference can be extremely serious.

An Experienced Family Law Attorney in Boca Raton Can Help With Your Case

If your child’s parent has tried to disobey the custody or visitation order in your case, you should call an experienced family law attorney as soon as possible to find out how to proceed. The best way to ensure that as few issues will arise as possible is to make sure a fair and favorable custody determination is set forth in the first place. Boca Raton family lawyer Alan R. Burton can help with all aspects at any stage of your custody case, including enforcement of an existing order. If you have any type of family law issue, call our office today to discuss how we can help you.