In today’s episode, I wanted to talk about a custody-related topic that’s a little bit different than the ones that we have talked about previously. Specifically, I wanted to focus on the kinds of terms in a custody agreement, in a parenting agreement, that you don’t have to negotiate. What are the kinds of terms or agreements related to parenting that, in a sense, you could almost take for granted? I want to go through some of the most common ones with you, just so that you have a sense of what are some of the things that you can rely on and you don’t have to worry about negotiating or worry about not being granted in a divorce negotiation because they are really consistently, across all agreements, a part of the commitments that co-parents make to one another.
Let me start with the area of education. It is expected in either the custody article of your entire agreement or in a parenting agreement itself that there would be a commitment and an affirmation that each parent, regardless of whether there’s a primary residential parent, regardless of whether one parent has final say in the event that parents disagree about making major decisions for the kids, regardless of everything. Both parents, with respect to education, are given the right to be aware of all major educational information affecting their child, the selection of schools and information about the schools that a child and the parents might be considering, the opportunity to meet with individuals who work with the child, teachers, principal, school guidance counselor, tutors, to meet with those individuals, to understand the child’s development and progress from the perspective of those individuals, and to meaningfully participate in the child’s educational development in that way. That is regardless of what your parenting schedule is.
For instance, if you have a parent-teacher conference that is scheduled on a Tuesday night, and Tuesday nights are never your nights with your kids, it’s always your co-parent’s night, it makes absolutely no difference. Anything related to your kids’ education, meeting with the school, visiting schools, visiting a potential summer camp, anything, each parent is entitled to participate in. Somewhat related to that, and I say related because I envision a lot of these events taking place at a child’s school, but somewhat related to that concept is that each parent, regardless of parenting schedule, regardless of legal custody or the ability to make major decisions for your child, each parent is always entitled to attend and to celebrate special events for the child. Maybe that’s a weekend soccer game. Maybe it’s a piano recital or another special event, a school play. Any events like that in your child’s life, absolutely both parents are entitled to and invited to attend. It does not matter what your parenting schedule is.
As with anything I say, there are minor exceptions to this. Maybe if you had a case where there was a very serious history domestic of violence between the couple, maybe one parent is not permitted to attend certain functions or to attend things on days when they’re not scheduled to be with the child, that’s possible. In the overwhelming majority of cases, both parents are going to be fully entitled, regardless of the parenting schedule, to attend any special recitals, events, plays, anything special that their kids are doing, are involved in, whether or not it’s their day to be with the children.
Then shifting over to the sphere of medical and health-related decision making for your kid, similar to education. Regardless of how you have structure legal custody, whether you have joint legal custody, so whether parents are making major decisions together by mutual agreement, or whether you’ve said, “Well, no. This parent actually has sole legal custody,” or. “We have joint, but this parent has the final say if we can’t agree on a medical decision for our kid,” even if you have said that both parents are entitled to all medical information that’s relevant to their kid, to have copies of any reports, any testing, to talk with doctors, nurses, treating therapists, anybody providing medical care or carrying out a medical assessment of your child. Each parent is equally entitled to speak to that person. This also goes for routine appointments. Practically speaking, they may be scheduled by one parent. It’s pretty common to say that the scheduling parent will let the other parent know. And certainly, the other parent is entitled to participate in routine appointments with the doctor or dentist or a therapist. They don’t have to, but it’s pretty common to negotiate that you would at least advise your other co-parent of the scheduling of those kinds of routine appointments.
Of course, anything that’s non-routine or more serious related to a child’s health, both parents are entitled to all information, all access to all treating professionals. If a child were ill, and due to their illness, let’s say they’re confined to one parent’s house and just aren’t well enough to leave it, or God forbid, they’re in the hospital for some period of time, regardless of the parenting schedule, both parents are entitled to have access to the child, to spend time with the child, caring for the child when the child is sick. That is not typically a term that you need to negotiate for it to appear in your divorce agreement. It’s something that you can confirm that it’s in the agreement, but it’s really something that you should be able to take for granted will be in there, and then you should confirm that it’s in there, if that is important to you. It’s very, very common to see in most, if not all, divorce agreements.
Also related to a child’s health, and hopefully this is never relevant for you, but in the event of an emergency, a health-related or medical emergency, typically you can expect that your agreement will say that if a parent is physically present with the child, that parent will make an emergency decision if one were needed to be made for the child. As soon as the parent who is present or who first learns of a medical emergency related to the child, as soon as they have the opportunity to, they will immediately notify the other parent of what’s going on and facilitate that other parent’s access to the child, to talk with any treating medical professionals. Again, this is just common boilerplate in a custody agreement, in a parenting agreement or a custody article of a divorce agreement. If it is something that is important to you to specify, you want to take a careful look and make sure that it’s in there. But again, it shouldn’t be something that you feel like you have to negotiate for or that you need to gauge what things you’ll give up in order to get confirmation that your co-parent would advise you immediately in the event that there were any medical emergency with the child. That’s just something that is expected of both parents.
Usually, this next item will fall under either the educational and/or special event and/or medical categories, but any and all communications received by a parent related to the child that are significant and that relate to a child’s educational, development, or their health, or any special events, recitals, games that they’re involved in should be shared between the parents. What’s typically easiest, if it’s doable, is to give both parents’ contact information to any of the institutions that might be sending a parent information about the child, so that they can send those communications to both parents and so that it’s not falling on the shoulders of one parent to keep forwarding emails, forwarding communications to the other parent, because that can be onerous. Most importantly, the gist is that both parents are equally entitled to have access to all communications about the child and not to be boxed out or out of the loop in terms of whatever communication one parent might receive about the child. That really needs to be shared with both parents. Whether or not the communicating institution has opted to share it with both parents, each of the parents has their own affirmative duty to go ahead and share that with their co-parent.
Another common clause you’ll see related to travel, and we’ve spoken about this in prior episodes a bit, but what I would say would be the gist of travel commitments that really you don’t need to negotiate would be that if a parent is anticipating traveling internationally certainly with the child, they have to notify the other parent. That is pretty standard. In fact, it’s often standard to identify that if a parent is traveling out of state with a child or beyond a certain distance with a child, they will notify the other parent. That wouldn’t be seen as an unusual term in any way or really something that you should have to bargain or negotiate for. That would be considered pretty boilerplate. At a minimum, international travel should require notification to the other parent of that travel so that both parents are aware if their child is traveling out of the country.
Finally, a clause we see in almost all agreements is that both parents have the right to reasonable communication with their child or their children when the child is not with them. When it’s your co-parent’s time to be with your kid, you are still entitled to communicate with your kid. Obviously, this is somewhat dependent on your child’s ability to talk on the phone, but it’s considered very standard in an agreement and not something that either parent really needs to negotiate for that both parents would have reasonable, not intrusive but reasonable, access to communicate with their kid when the kid is with the other parent. There should not be some kind of communication blackout as a result of a child being with your co-parent. At the same time, of course, you want to honor that that child is spending time with your co-parent and constant communication would probably not be appropriate, unless that’s something that’s just common between you and your child and something that both parents are on board with. In general, a reasonable amount of communication at reasonable times that are not disruptive to the scheduled parent’s time with the child is completely not just permissible, but it’s a parenting right that is protected for you in almost all parenting agreements.
That was our mini-episode on custody terms that you should expect to see in your agreement and that you should not have to negotiate for. I hope it was helpful for you.