When the romantic relationship between you and your child’s other parent ends, but you both wish to share parenting duties, you may be able to come up with custody terms that work for you both without going to trial. If you do so, New York requires that you create and submit a parenting plan that outlines the guidelines you both agree to adhere to as you raise your shared child.
In addition to including basic information about your child or children such as their names, ages and genders, there are other elements to address in a New York parenting plan. Some of these elements are as follows.
Your agreed-upon parenting time schedule
Your parenting plan should outline who has the child living in his or her home and when. While you want to address when you transfer the child back to the other home, you may also want to address who has the child or children on holidays, school vacations, summer breaks and so on.
Decision-making responsibilities
Your parenting plan should also address who has what decision-making authority when it comes to your child or children. Address who gets to make general day-to-day decisions, when you and your child’s other parent have to confer with one another and so on.
Parent-child communication agreements
You may also use the parenting plan to outline how your child should communicate with the other parent when he is staying in one parent’s home.
While these are some key areas to address in your New York parenting plan, there are other relevant areas that you may also have to consider when creating it.