Perhaps you only have occasional visitation with your children or weekend custody because you work a high-demand job and cannot guarantee being available for them during the week. Maybe you simply worked third-shift hours, and your schedule made it hard for you to have adequate time with your children.
For many parents in a co-parenting arrangement, a change to their employment situation can mean changes to their custody arrangements as well. Ideally, the other parent of your children will enthusiastically support you when you ask to spend more time with the children. If they agree to increase your parenting time, going to family court to make those changes official will be a very smart move.
A cooperative modification is a simple process
Provided that the two of you aren’t litigating against one another, modifying your parenting plan doesn’t have to be a challenging process. You can update the documents and file paperwork with the courts. An uncontested modification often only requires judicial review.
Taking the time to change your parenting plan to reflect that you now have the children more frequently helps ensure you can continue to assert those rights even if there are issues in your relationship with the other parent. When all you have is an informal agreement, you are at risk of losing that time at any point. Additionally, having the children spend more nights at your home could reduce your child support obligations.
What if the other parent is uncooperative?
When your schedule or circumstances change and you are in a position to spend more time with your children, you may be able to request a contested modification. Typically, you’ll need to be able to show a significant change in circumstances.
Provided that the change caused by the new job is substantial, a judge may agree that it would be in the children’s best interests for them to spend more time with you. After all, judges typically want to see the children spending as much time as possible with both parents, as such arrangements typically reduce how difficult divorce proves to be for the children.
There are many reasons why a change in your job might potentially mean a change in your parenting arrangements. Realizing that pursuing you need a formal custody modification will help you turn those professional changes into a beneficial growth for your family.