If you and your spouse share children, their well-being will be one of your key considerations. Parenting after divorce requires a rethink, and there are several issues you need to consider when creating the divorce agreement.
1. How will you fund extra expenses?
Any parent knows that budgeting is hard where children are concerned. They can grow out of clothes a month after your bought them, destroy their sports kit with just a few games of the season left, or need costly medical or dental treatment at any point.
Some divorcing parents agree to each set a certain amount aside each month as an emergency fund. Others put a lump sum of money aside when dividing assets, while others agree to chip in as and when needed.
2. How will the children get from one house to the other?
Older children may just be able to travel between their parents’ houses themselves. Younger kids definitely need transport. There are many ways to do this but look for a way that minimizes problems. If one of you is constantly late, it can aggravate the other and perhaps make them late for what they have to do. The children will notice the tension this can cause and may come to dread handover days.
3. How will you enable contact with the other parent?
This becomes even more important if the child mostly lives with one parent. You need to find a way that the child and their other parent can speak to each other freely. It’s less of a problem these days as so many kids have their own phones. What you want to avoid is the parent without the child feeling cut off, the parent with the child feeling constantly interrupted, or the child feeling unable to communicate freely without upsetting someone.
There is so much to consider as divorcing parents. Consider legal help to learn how to put it into your custody agreement.
