Nesting: A New Solution for Your Parenting Plan

 Posted on March 06, 2019 in Family Law

Divorce is hard on adults. It can have serious impacts on each spouse’s physical and emotional health, with long-lasting implications. For children, divorce is orders of magnitude more difficult. Children often suffer from short to long-term problems following the separation of their parents. These issues range from behavioral and educational to physical and psychological, causing depression, anxiety, and a variety of other disorders. Divorce is tough on kids, but it does not need to be crippling on your child. In fact, living in a happy household is most likely much healthier for you and your child than pre-divorce, being exposed to loud arguments and deafening silences. Now that you have taken the first step in improving your and your child’s lives, the next step is to consider what type of parenting plan or living situation will best suit your child’s needs. A relatively new option that many parents have never heard of is called nesting, and it involves keeping the child in one home, while the parents take turns coming and going.

Stability and Predictability Are Key for a Child’s Health

Imagine how hard it is on you to be going through a divorce and the months of uncertainty afterward as a fully developed, emotionally cognizant adult. Now imagine being a child, not knowing what will happen next, where you will live, where you will go to school, and what the future holds. One type of parenting plan can make a huge impact on your child’s happiness and their ability to cope with this new situation. Traditionally, a child of divorced or separated parents spends time moving between the mother and father’s homes, potentially dividing their time equally between their mother and father, or spending the weekends with one and the weekdays with the other. This continual change in sleeping and living arrangements, the never-ending back and forth between homes, and the constant change in schedule is hard on children. Nesting can be a solution to this problem by allowing the child a more consistent, predictable, and stable lifestyle. The child lives in one home, while the parents take turns living with the child while staying at another shared home or separate homes during their off time.

Bird Nesting Requires Cooperation Between the Parents

As you can imagine, nesting requires a high level of communication and agreement between the parents. Because of a lack of communication and agreeability are often the cause of divorce in the first place, nesting is not for every divorced couple. It also demands more of the parents than in the traditional living model. While nesting disrupts the parents’ lives, who are more able to deal with disruption in their lives than their children, it allows the child to maintain routine, continuity, and permanency. Consistency is a cornerstone of child raising.

Call Our DuPage County Law Offices for Assistance Today

Creating the ideal parenting plan for your child can have a positive effect on their school work, physical development, self-esteem, and overall happiness. To talk with an attorney more about nesting, call the skilled Hinsdale family law attorneys at the Law Office of Martoccio & Martoccio today at 630-920-8855 to schedule a free consultation.

Sources:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/co-parenting-after-divorce/201307/birds-nest-co-parenting-arrangements

https://www.parenting.com/article/the-need-for-consistency