If you and your children’s other parent have gotten divorced since last summer, you will now be facing a very different type of summer schedule planning than what you have been used to in the past. Many other Missouri parents are in the same situation as yourself and hopefully you can learn a bit about how to navigate this situation from their experiences.

As explained by Coparently, the summer will naturally force some changes to your regular parenting time and child custody schedule as the school schedule does not dictate your children’s lives. Summer camps and vacations can throw quite the monkey wrenches in a parent’s ability to maintain some semblance of structure and order. You and your former spouse should work together before school is out to identify when each of you will be able to take vacation days with your kids so there is no overlap or arguments about this later on.

When planning trips, it is important to keep the ages of the kids in mind. For younger kids, trips should be on the shorter side to avoid creating overly lengthy separations from the other parent. Activities including camps can be made with some input from the kids. This is especially true as kids get older as it is always important to provide this opportunity as children mature.

This information is not intended to provide legal advice but is instead meant to give separated or divorced parents in Missouri an idea of how they can collaborate on their joint children’s summer schedules so that the kids really do come first.