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Divorced and separated parents know that the child custody schedule is one of the most important parts of the parenting plan. The schedule directly impacts how much time you have with your children. And, the quality of the relationship you have with your child is significantly influenced by how much time you spend with them. If you don't get a custody schedule that gives you enough time with your child, you won't be able to be an effective parent.

To make a good custody schedule, it is better if the parents can work together. When the mother and father are able to cooperate, there is high satisfaction with the finished schedule, and both parties are more likely to follow the schedule. However, sometimes it isn't possible to work with the other parent. If that is the case, you need to prepare a custody schedule and parenting plan that you can show the court. You will be happier with the final plan if the court chooses to accept the one you make.

When making a custody schedule, whether you are working with the other parent or you are working alone, you first need to decide what type of custody arrangement to have. You can choose to have joint custody, where the parents both spend significant time with the children, or sole custody, where one parent has the children the majority of the time and the other parent has visitation. Choose this arrangement based on what your child needs. Some children need to have a constant home and not move around a lot. Other children need to have a lot of involvement from both parents.

Next, you need to create a repeating cycle of custody and visitation. Write out the custody schedule for a number of weeks, and then repeat that schedule over the year. For example, if you choose a two week period and fill out the custody for that two week period, you would then just repeat those two weeks throughout the year.

Once your repeating cycle is finished, you can add a holiday schedule and vacation time. You should go through a list of holidays and assign a parent custody of that time. You need to decide how long the holiday will last, and if the holidays alternate every year. Each parent should get about the same amount of holiday time. To add vacations, you simply mark in the vacation time that each parent has with the children.

It is easiest to make your child custody schedule in a calendar so that you have a nice visual for the whole thing. This also makes it easy to add special events where the custody changes as they come up. Once you have your schedule in place, you will be able to focus on parenting your children. The parenting plan should help fulfill the needs of the children and help you parent them better.

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