Co-parenting is a unique challenge. It combines all the stress of a business partnership with all of the sensitive realities of family. As a result, it can be truly difficult to co-parent in ways that both honor the best interests of your children and prevent you from wanting to scream into a pillow at regular intervals.

Thankfully, co-parenting in the Digital Age is easier in many ways than it has been traditionally. As a result of numerous electronic resources, co-parents can communicate in effective, meaningful, and consistent ways without having to get on the phone with one another or regularly meet face-to-face. When you are thinking about ways to make your co-parenting situation more manageable, consider integrating some popular apps into your communication approach.

Which Apps Might Work Best for You?

Some apps are specifically designed to facilitate effective co-parent communication. WeParent, FamCal, ParentShip, 2Houses, and OurFamilyWizard were each designed with co-parents in mind. Their various features facilitate single-platform messaging and record keeping, calendar sharing, and a host of other resources that co-parents may find to be uniquely useful when trying to “keep each other in the loop” while avoiding unnecessary interaction and/or tension.

For a variety of reasons, when a married couple is struggling to make their relationship work, it does not always make sense for one of them to file for divorce. However, if a couple’s struggles are significant enough, separating from one another may be a healthy option. By legally formalizing their separation, each spouse can benefit from numerous protections as they contemplate whether divorce, reconciliation, or long-term legal separation is the best way forward.

Separate Maintenance: The Basics

In Michigan, the state recognizes a formal separation through the separate maintenance process. Separate maintenance functions like the “legal separation” process does in other states. Without formal recognition of a couple’s separation, each spouse could remain uniquely vulnerable to the practical, financial, and legal consequences of the other’s conduct. Additionally, formalizing a separation can allow couples to detail child custody, child support, and spousal support obligations in legally-enforceable ways.

Essentially, a separate maintenance case allows spouses to benefit from most of the arrangements that are typically finalized during a divorce. Parents can formalize child custody, parenting time, and child support arrangements, and spouses with or without kids can address asset and debt division concerns and formalize spousal support expectations via this process.  

In Michigan, February is the month that most residents start thinking about summer. The cold has defined life for long enough that dreams of hot summer days start to preoccupy the minds of many. Daydreaming is a healthy stress reliever. Yet, there is another important reason to start thinking about summer now if you are a coparent. A failure to be proactive now could impact your summer months for the worse.

Summer Is a Unique Time

Whether you are currently navigating a separation, a divorce, or your child custody order has been in place for some time, it is important to consider how your coparenting approaches may need to be modified during the summer months. The best interests of your child or children likely manifest in different ways during the summer than they do during the school year. Carefully considering either how to craft a parenting plan for the summer or whether your current order needs to be modified in February will better ensure that a healthy, manageable arrangement is in place by the time that summer rolls around.

Summertime Considerations

The supreme standard that governs child custody matters in Michigan is the “best interests of the child” standard. When contemplating how to approach this upcoming summer, scrutinize whether your plans reflect the spirit of this standard. Could your child genuinely benefit from more time with you or your coparent? Have their passions and interests been given adequate consideration? Are their social needs being met?

If you and your child’s other parent are going your separate ways but will both remain active parents to your child, it is time to construct a parenting time schedule and a parenting time plan. These parenting time resources will help you to clarify when your child will spend time with each of you, how you will address certain co-parenting responsibilities, and how you will both remain connected to your child when they are not residing with you.

Remaining connected and invested in each other’s lives is important, no matter how often your child resides with each parent. In the Digital Age, many co-parents are finding that including so-called “virtual visitation” provisions in their parenting time plans can help to facilitate consistent communication and connection.

What Is Virtual Visitation? 

Virtual visitation can be accomplished by engaging in any form of electronic communication that is developmentally appropriate for your child. You can talk on the phone, send emails, text, play video game apps as “friends,” utilize a video call app, or even record stories that your co-parent can play when your child is falling asleep.

Child custody refers to the rights and responsibilities of each parent and child indicating the time a child will spend with a parent and each parent’s ability to render decisions on behalf of a child. Judges can structure child custody agreements to satisfy the unique schedules of both parents, as they typically seek to promote a strong bond between parents and children unless one parent endangers a child.

Custody agreements can be reached between spouses through various negotiations, including mediation, and judges will usually order those agreements. Cases in which parties cannot agree can still result in joint custody determinations, although how judges award parenting time in joint custody cases can vary widely.

Types of Child Custody

When it comes to descriptions of custody arrangements, there are typically the following kinds of agreements: