Parenting Coordinator Requirements

The parenting coordinator is not a judge, and he or she is not simply any unbiased third party.  The educational requirements for parenting coordinators in Florida are quite strict. To be a parenting coordinator, you must have a medical degree and be certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, or else you must hold a master’s degree either in family mediation or in a mental health field. You must have three years of professional experience working as a psychiatrist or mental health professional. You must complete a family mediation training program, in addition to a parenting coordinator training program; the latter program includes 24 hours of classroom instruction. Having previously been found guilty of child abuse or domestic violence disqualifies you as a parenting coordinator. Additionally, parenting coordinators must keep what is said at parenting coordination meetings confidential, and they must avoid conflicts of interest with any parties involved.

Do You Still Need an Attorney?

Parenting coordination is much less expensive than litigation, but it is not free. At the same time, while parenting coordinators know a lot about the emotional well-being of children and parents after a divorce, they are not lawyers. Divorce without lawyers is not possible for most couples.  Even the simplest divorces, in which the couple does not have children together and has very little in terms of marital assets, sometimes require the services of one or more lawyers.

While a parenting coordinator certainly has an informed opinion about what is in the children’s best interest and how to set and achieve goals based on that, a parenting coordinator’s advice is not really a substitute for professional legal advice. For one thing, parenting coordinators only help with agreements regarding the parenting plan.  hey do not deal with division of property, which is often the second most controversial issue in a divorce after issues related to parenting.

Contact Alan Burton About Child Custody Cases

Before you meet with a parenting coordinator, it is a good idea to discuss your case with a family law attorney. Contact Alan R. Burton in Boca Raton, Florida for a legal consultation.

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.

Unfortunately, though, things can get ugly in a divorce, especially when parents disagree about child custody arrangements. One parent sometimes argues that the other parent is unfit to spend a majority of the time with the children because of a pre-existing diagnosis of a mental health condition. If your former spouse does bring up your mental health history during divorce proceedings, will it affect the outcome of the case? Usually, it does not.

When Your Mental Health History Does Not Affect Parenting Plan Decisions

Under Florida’s current system of parenting plans, no two custody agreements are alike. The parenting-plan form is a multi-page questionnaire as long and complex as the longest tax forms.  Each decision regarding the children is a separate question; it is not simply a matter of one parent getting all or most of the custody of the children. The parents’ private health information usually does not factor into which decisions the judge approves in the parenting plan. The main goal is to cause as little disruption in the children’s lives as possible. Consider that, if a parent were undergoing treatment for a physical illness while the parents were married, most of the time it would not be a factor in the parenting agreement. The same usually applies to mental illnesses.  Furthermore, the parent’s psychiatrist cannot be asked to reveal the parent’s private health situation in court, except in the case of a true emergency, such as a suicide attempt or involuntary hospitalization.

When Your Mental Health History can Affect Parenting Plan Decisions

As stated above, a mental health emergency that happens during the divorce proceedings can become a factor in the case. Simply being treated for a mental illness currently or in the past is none of the court’s business. There is a considerable gray area where addiction is concerned, but if you are compliant with your addiction treatment and have a long record of sobriety since being diagnosed with an addiction, it should not preclude you from being able to spend a substantial amount of time with your children and having a strong voice in parenting decisions.

Contact Alan R. Burton About Child Custody Cases and Parenting Plans

If you think that a judge has unfairly used your mental health history against you, you can still seek to modify your parenting plan in a way that is more favorable to you. Contact Alan R. Burton in Boca Raton, Florida about amending your parenting plan.

The Children’s Best Interest

Every question related to a parenting plan is, at its core, about the best interest of the children.  Education is one aspect of child-rearing about which parents are likely to have strong opinions.  Some parents feel that sending children to a private school, even if it requires great financial sacrifice on the parents’ part, is the only way to ensure that the children study in a safe environment where teachers are genuinely invested in the children’s success. Others feel that private school tuition is an unnecessary expense and that parents could help their children more simply by saving money to help them with college tuition and other expenses related to early adulthood. The education issue is a perfect example of why parenting plans are individualized and not one size fits all.

In determining whether it is in a child’s best interest to continue attending private school after the parents divorce, judges tend not to take a position on whether the education the children will receive at a private school is better than what they would get at a public school. Rather, their aim is to cause as little disruption to the children’s lives as possible. If the children are already attending a private school, they have probably already formed friendships with their classmates and gotten used to having the teachers and school staff as a presence in their lives. Making them move to a different school would add another difficult adjustment to an already disruptive period in their lives.

Maintaining the Standard of Living

In determining amounts of spousal support and child support, judges take into account the family’s standard of living before the divorce. The idea is that it is not fair for one spouse to have to live much more modestly after the divorce than during the marriage, while the other spouse goes on with life as normal. Likewise, spending less time with the children after a divorce does not mean that you have less of a responsibility to support them financially. Forrest v. Ron was a Florida case involving child support obligations related to private school tuition. The court ruled that the parents had agreed to keep the children in private schools until they completed third grade; therefore, the children’s expenses, on the basis of which child support obligations were determined, reflected this.

Alan R. Burton can Help with Parenting Plan Questions

Every family is unique, and therefore, so is every parenting plan. Contact Alan R. Burton in Boca Raton, Florida if you think your parenting plan should be modified to better reflect your family’s needs and goals.

What has any of this to do with divorce in Florida? It turns out that many Florida divorce cases require parenting classes. In fact, mandatory parenting classes in Florida divorce cases are almost as routine as the one-day class for new drivers in Florida.

Mandatory Parenting Classes in Florida

It is common for Florida family courts to require Florida couples going through a divorce to complete the Parent Education and Family Stabilization Course before the judge will sign the final divorce decree. In fact, Florida courts require it of every divorcing couple that has minor children. Additionally, when a man who is not married to his child’s mother establishes paternity, the court requires both parents to complete the course.

If a court requires you to take a parenting course, it does not mean that the judge thinks you are a bad parent. It is simply to make sure that both parents understand the legal requirements and basic principles for co-parenting a child when the parents are not married to each other. In fact, the courts do not require the class for just one parent; they always require it for both parents.  The parents do not have to attend the class together, though, and in fact, they usually do not. The course is designed not to be a major burden on parents. The minimum length for the course is four hours; most of the time, the courses last just one afternoon or evening. While the law does not specify a price for the course, the course must not be prohibitively expensive. In practice, the usual price for a Florida parenting course is between $18 and $39.

Alan R. Burton Works With Family Law Cases in Florida

Completing a required parenting course is just about the only thing that is easy about divorce when you have minor children. For everything else, you need the help of an experienced family lawyer. Contact Alan R. Burton in Boca Raton, Florida about divorce and child custody.