What is a “child focused” consideration and why is it so important to maintain in my family?

It is important for parents to support each other’s relationship with the child. Forming, maintaining, and supporting a positive parent-child relationship with each parent is a life-long process, rooted in the early years and extending beyond childhood. Children adjust more easily to change, stress, and loss if their parents work together respectfully to develop healthy ways of communicating, resolving problems, and reducing conflict.

Changes in a child’s family due to separation, divorce, and/or parenting time disputes are stressful and disruptive for children. It is important for parents to be aware of stress their child is experiencing and develop ways to reduce it.

Parents can support their child’s adjustment to changes in the family by establishing developmentally sensitive schedules that preserve and support important relationships and minimize the level of conflict to which the child is exposed.

A parenting time schedule that is good for a child may not be ideal for a parent. To meet the best interests of their child, parents may need to make changes in their own schedules and lives. The parenting time schedule may be different than what a parent wants.

Neither parent should sign the child up for activities or schedule activities for the child that interfere with the other parent’s parenting time unless otherwise agreed to by the other parent.