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so I like to call visitation parenting
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time first of all I think it’s really
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important that people don’t look at it
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as their visit with their child that
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they look at it as their parenting time
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with their child and that goes for
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whichever spouse is or whichever parent
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is going to be having parenting time and
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whichever spouse is or parent is the
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custodial parent but every parenting
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schedule should include clud what we
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call a regular access schedule so what’s
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going to happen on a routine basis in
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terms of weekends and during the week
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and then what’s going to happen during
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the week and on the weekends in terms of
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communication with the child so if
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you’re not seeing the child are you
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going to have FaceTime with the child
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are you going to have telephone calls
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with the child what is going to be your
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ability to actually communicate with
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your child and to be able to even see
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your child or say good night to your
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child during the week and then of course
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there are the other pieces of this which
1:01
are the holidays and vacation schedules
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and summer schedule and all of those
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need to be important need to be in a
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custody agreement so we make sure that
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for each parent it it isn’t a cookie
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cutter custody agreement you need to
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know what holidays are important to your
1:19
client what vacations are important to
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your client so sometimes for example a
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parent says every Thanksgiving we used
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to go to my parents and so I’d like to
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have the child every Thanksgiving well
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maybe that’s possible but maybe it isn’t
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because now you may have to actually
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alternate Thanksgiving and so maybe you
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have a Thanksgiving the weekend before
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or the weekend after or maybe you are
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the Friday of Thanksgiving in alternate
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years and somebody else has the Thursday
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and the other alternate years you want
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to decide what to do about Christmas
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break or Hanukkah or any of the
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religious holidays all of that should be
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in with pickups and drop off times and
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where that pickup and drop off time is
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actually going to occur and exactly what
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time it’s going to occur also I find it
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so helpful actually if the parents are
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communicating using one of those apps so
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for example many of my clients
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communicate using our family wizard now
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why is that great first of all it helps
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you change the schedule there’s app
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there’s a part of the app that you can
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change the schedule if you need to and
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the other parent degrees it also
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actually shows when a parent is sending
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the message and when a parent is opening
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up the message message and communication
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is half the battle in all of this and so
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it’s really important in your parenting
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custody agreement to have the mechanism
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for which you’re going to be able to
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communicate with the other parent so I
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usually include an app and we include
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What’s called the Bill of Rights all the
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things that you want to do to protect
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your child from being actually part of
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the disputes that you and or the other
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parent may have together making sure to
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keep your child first and foremost and
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so we include usually the Bill of Rights
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in our custody agreements and that’s a
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very common thing to include and then we
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also make sure that we include the
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mechanism as I said for pickup and drop
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off where it’s going to occur and what
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time it’s going to occur and also
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whether there’s going to be what’s
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called a right of first refusal so if
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you as a parent can’t be with a child
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for example overnight you’re traveling
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out of town for business or for pleasure
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well do you give the other parent the
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opportunity to be with the child that’s
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something else and then most importantly
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there is usually a non-disparagement
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clause so that you are not disparaging
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the other parent whether it be to the
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child to the child’s providers all of
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those types of things and then a
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consultation process so how is it that
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you and the other parent are going to
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actually consult about major issues and
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this goes to whether or not you’re still
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going to have final decision- making or
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you’re going to have sole legal custody
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usually it’s still best to include the
4:04
other parent in making the decision and
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so what process are you going to use are
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you going to email the other parent
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ideas about how a major decision should
4:13
be made and then is there going to be a
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set amount of time for the other parent
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to respond with their View and then
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there’s there going to be another amount
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of time a set amount of time whereby a
4:24
decision is made and how is that
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actually then implemented so those are
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all the kinds of things that should be
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in a custody agreement