In every household with children, the arrival of summer (and the end of the school year) brings a certain amount of disruption. Though parents’ schedules and obligations remain the same, the kids suddenly no longer need to wake up early for buses or drop-offs. Homework is no longer a consideration, and neither are after-school activities. For divorced parents, the summer vacation from school can represent either a blessing or a curse, depending on how your normal visitation schedule is structured. A parent who normally has responsibility for school days suddenly has a lot of time to fill, and possibly a new need for childcare where school had previously fit the bill, while a parent who wanted more time with their kids suddenly has a lot more options. As is always the case in a divorce involving children, all decisions should be engineered with what is best for the kids as the guiding principle. Here are some ideas for figuring out visitation over summer vacation, as well as some information regarding issues that sometimes arise:

• Some court-ordered visitation schedules will be broken down into separate school time/vacation time schedules. Doing this ahead of time can avoid relitigating custody.
• Parents have the opportunity to leave the schedule as it is, but options for summer schedules that depart from the school-year schedules include:
  • Alternating custody every other week, usually beginning and ending on a Friday early evening.
  • Providing custody to the non-custodial parent for a six-week period with small periods of custody for the custodial parent in between.

• Custody and visitation agreements can be written to include specific extended periods of time for a non-custodial parent to take a child on vacation, whether in or out of the jurisdiction. The same can be true for a custodial parent who wants to depart from the normal rotation in order to allow for an extended period for vacation. In all cases, language is needed to address the need for consent to take a child out of state or out of the country. Failure to do so has the potential of inviting charges of kidnapping.
• Shifting your custody schedule may have an impact on child support. If your summer schedule is going to make a significant change to the amount of time either parent is providing care and the change creates a financial issue, consider addressing the issue at the time that support is being negotiated.