The Role of Parenting Plans in High-Conflict Custody Cases

You’ve heard that very young children engage in parallel play, but you may not have heard the term parallel parenting, which has a similar function. In high-conflict custody cases, the parents involved are often at the stage that they simply can’t put their animosity behind them to the degree required for high-quality co-parenting, which requires a significant amount of teamwork. It is in these challenging instance that parallel parenting plans are often employed. If you’re facing a high-conflict child custody case, you need an experienced Orange County child custody attorney in your corner.

Your Children’s Best Interests

It’s important to recognize that, when the Orange County family law court makes child custody determinations, they are always guided by the best interests of the children involved. When there is no significant reason for ruling otherwise, this generally means affording each parent a generous parenting time schedule.

Two factors that the Orange County family law court consider in child custody cases is each parent’s commitment to effective co-parenting and each parent’s willingness to support the other’s happy, healthy, and ongoing relationship with the children. In high conflict custody cases, these tend to be in short supply, and as a result, parallel parenting schedules are often employed.

Parallel Parenting: What’s It All About?

The goal of parallel parenting is limiting the interactions between parents, hopefully reducing conflict. In high-conflict cases, a court may introduce a 3rd party parenting coordinator to make certain decisions and mediate communication. Divorce is hard on children, and while parents who dedicate themselves to being the best co-parents they can is the goal, parents who aren’t actively fighting are an improvement over parents who are.

When parallel parenting plans are put into effect, they strive to effectively address exactly when the children will be one parent and when they’ll be with the other. By going into considerable detail in the parenting plan, the degree to which the parents need to interact with one another is seriously limited, which generally translates to far less conflict. The bottom line with parallel parenting plans is that very little is left open to interpretation.

When Do Courts Consider Parallel Parenting

The Orange County family law court turn to parallel parenting plans in situations like the following:

• When the parents share a complete lack of respect for one another that is more closely associated with open hostility than with solid co-parenting
• Either parent – or both parents – is so emotionally distraught by the divorce or breakup that they’re incapable of communicating with the other effectively
• When one or both parents harbor so much resentment toward one another that it actively interferes with their ability to engage in productive co-parenting

In extreme cases, a third party – who serves as a parenting coordinator – may be appointed by the court or may be employed as a matter of mutual agreement between the parents. Parenting coordinators engage in measures that help minimize conflict between openly hostile parents, which can include overseeing their parenting. While these coordinators don’t submit custodial recommendations or perform any psychological evaluations of the parents, they can report either parent’s interference with the other’s parenting – or any other actions that don’t align with the children’s best interests.

Limiting Communication

If you and your ex are engaging on a parallel parenting journey, the idea is to seriously limit the amount of communication you’ll need to engage in. Parenting being what it is, however, a certain amount of back-and-forth has to happen in order to simply to keep up with the kids’ busy and ever-evolving lives – in addition to the mishaps and minor emergencies that tend to go hand in hand with childhood.

Legal Custody

Effective communication between parents when it seems virtually impossible is generally accomplished – in part – by carefully spelling out exactly how they will address primary decision-making on behalf of their children. In high-conflict situations, parents often divide these decisions between themselves according to category. The kinds of decisions addressed by this legal custody – as opposed to the physical custody that is covered by the parenting plan – include all the following:

• Where your children attend school
• The health care your children receive
• The extracurriculars and travel your children participate in
• The religious education your children receive

Other options include continuing to make these decisions by consensus, which can be accomplished through a parenting app or another form of electronic communication. Alternatively, one of you may be afforded the right to break a tie or may be assigned sole legal custody, which means that parent will make each of these important decisions on their own.

The Matters Addressed in Your Parenting Plan

In addition to addressing the ins and outs of your children’s days, your parallel parenting plan will need to closely attend to matters like the following:

• Exactly when the children will be with each of you, which includes drop-off and pickup times
• Exactly how the exchanges will be handled – sometimes, doing the exchange at a close relative’s home, such as a grandparent’s, facilitates smoother hand offs
• How each birthday and holiday, including Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, will be divided between you
• How each school break will be handled
• How you will handle scheduling changes, cancellations, the children’s sick days, and beyond

Your plan should pay careful attention to the ground rule when it comes to how all necessary communication between the two of you will be addressed. This often comes down to using a parenting app that incorporates a messaging system.

An Experienced Orange County Child Custody Attorney Can Help

Child custody cases tend to be emotionally charged, but if you are facing down a high-conflict case, the related challenges are amplified. In response, California courts offer a parallel parenting option. The seasoned child custody attorneys at Minyard Morris – proudly serving Orange County, California – have the legal insight and experience to help skillfully guide your case toward a favorable resolution that upholds your parental rights and limits conflict in the process. Learn more by contacting or calling us at 949-724-1111 today.