Co-parenting is difficult enough, but when it comes to school vacations, even more difficulties can arise. With spring break well on it’s way, now is a perfect time to discuss a few tips for co-parenting during your kids’ breaks from school!
It’s Never Too Early
One of the most important parts of co-parenting is to communicate early and often! The best way to avoid arguments and confrontation between co-parents is to ensure that plans are communicated clearly and, just to be safe, multiple times. Planning in advance can also help with appropriate communication. If the plans are set in stone ahead of time, it leaves plenty of time for co-parents to discuss the plans and approve them!
Put it in the Parenting Plan
The best way to avoid conflict among co-parents is to leave everything up to the parenting plan! If your parenting plan defines which parent gets which vacations, it will be easy to decide where your kids’ go when they’re off school. Because the parenting plan is decided ahead of time, it also makes it easy to refer to when planning vacations. Ideally, parents can then plan their vacations to coincide with the school vacations they will be spending with their kids!
How to Split School Vacations
There are a few different ways that co-parents can split school vacation days amongst themselves. One way to do this is to give each parent an equal amount of holidays. For example, one parent would get Winter break and one would get Thanksgiving break! Another way to do it is to split each holiday exactly in half. If Winter break works out to be 14 days, then each parent would have 7 days of time with the kids. One more way to split holidays is to not split them at all! Co-parents and their children can spend time together over school breaks as opposed to splitting the breaks. Each family is different and what works best for one family will not work best for another. Do what works best for you, your co-parent, and your children!
Kids First
It is important to always remember that the kids come first. Everything should be done with the kids’ best interest at heart!