If you’re planning on taking a vacation with your children over summer break, there’s much more to consider than destination and mode of transportation. When you’re divorced, there are parenting time schedules, court orders and advance notice to deal with.
Most custody orders specifically note that each parent is entitled to a certain amount of uninterrupted parenting time for a vacation each summer. However, you’ll likely need to provide several weeks’ notice to your ex for planning purposes, and you may also need to gather contact information or a full itinerary depending on what your court order says. It’s possible that either you or your ex will disagree with the others vacation choices. If you can’t come to a resolution after discussing the situation, you may need to go back to court to see about a modification to the order.
What if you’re planning a solo vacation while your ex exercises his or her parenting time? It’s still a good idea to let your ex know where you’ll be and make sure this parent have contact information. If you’re planning to carry your cellphone, that may be enough, but it’s not a bad idea to also provide the phone number of the hotel at which you’re staying or a phone number of a friend going with you in case there are unexpected issues.
No matter which one of you is going on vacation, keep in mind that today’s technology gives parents and children many more opportunities and methods to keep in touch than years past. Maybe you can do a video chat with the children or send your ex pictures of their first trip to the beach.
Source: Our Family Wizard, “Vacations With Your Blended Family,” accessed July 15, 2016