Parenting plans are documents that outline the role each parent will have in their child’s life after divorce, and the responsibilities they carry. When parents cannot come to an agreement, a judge will issue a parenting plan. In either case, an agreement is legally binding once it is issued or approved by a judge. It is common to have questions about parenting plans, as they are not something many people have dealt with prior to divorce. Below are the answers to some of the most common questions people have about these plans.

What Should You Include in a Parenting Plan?

Even when you can agree with your spouse about a parenting plan, there are still certain factors you should include within it. Many people think parenting plans only outline child custody situations, but there is much more to them than that. A parenting plan should always include:

• The amount of time the child will spend at each parent’s home
• The manner in which you will communicate with a matter relating to your child
• How holidays, vacations, and special occasions will be spent
• Cultural and religious practices important to the parent and/or child
• The child’s medical needs, and the responsibilities each parent holds for meeting them
• Where the child will attend schooling
• The type of lifestyle the child will enjoy
• Discipline expectations
• Any special needs of the child
• The process of modifying the parenting plan, if necessary

When addressing each of these factors, parenting plans must always work in the child’s best interests.

Divorce is very tough on children — a fact that has been well documented over many decades. Divorce has been associated with academic difficulties, disruptive and illegal behavior, low self-esteem, depression, and emotional distress. When children of divorce enter adulthood, they are more likely to live in poverty, have children out of wedlock, marry at a young age, and get divorce themselves than their peers from non-divorced families.

Because a parent’s strongest instinct is to protect their children from all of this, some spouses decide to either make the marriage work for the sake of the children, or they agree to get divorced, but only after the youngest child is on his or her way to college and out of the house. While both of these options seem like the right thing to do for your children because the family is kept in-tact, the truth is that both of these approaches may be more harmful than a simple divorce and shared custody.

How Delaying the Divorce Can Harm Your Children

Children are much more in-tuned with their parent’s emotions and thoughts than we give them credit for. Even very young children, or teenagers who are seemingly off in their own worlds, pick up on subtle insults and tension between their parents. The fact that you want to get divorced means that you are unhappy with the marriage, and that unhappiness will only intensify in the years to come as you wait for your youngest child to graduate high school. Parents may think they are helping their children by soldiering on during the marriage, but they are only doing themselves and their children a disservice. After all, one cannot fake happiness no matter how much effort is put into the facade.

Children, especially, can have a difficult time with divorce. Divorce brings much uncertainty into the lives of everyone in the family, and children, who thrive off of stability, can be affected much more strongly than others. There are things you can do to help alleviate some of the stress your children have because of the divorce. Here are five ways you can help your children cope with this big change in their lives:

1. Explain the Divorce to Your Children in Terms They Can Understand

Children’s understanding of divorce will vary based on their age and maturity level. Younger children will need to be explained to in simple, yet truthful terms about the divorce. The conversation can be as simple as telling your children that mommy and daddy no longer want to fight all the time, so they will be living in different houses. Older children will usually require a more explanatory response, but you should be careful to reveal too much information as your children do not need to hear about your marital problems.

2. Encourage Conversation about Their Feelings

You should tell your children that it is normal for them to feel sad or angry about the divorce. You will have your own feelings about the divorce, and it is important for your children to be able to have theirs. Allowing your children to talk about their feelings will allow them to progress through the grieving process.

After a divorce, it is common for an individual to go back to their maiden name or take the last name of the person they are remarrying. In Illinois, anyone who has undergone a divorce has the freedom to change their name whenever they would like.

When it comes to changing the last names of children, however, the law is a tad more complex. Following a divorce, a judge will take a child’s best interests into consideration when deciding whether to approve a last name change. Under Illinois law, a judge is required to ask the following questions when a parent would like to change their child’s last name:

• Does the child’s other parent approve of the last name change?
• Is the child okay with changing their last name?
• What type of relationship does the child have with their other parent and family members? For example, does the child have a poor relationship with the father whose last name they currently have?

Why Change a Child’s Name

It is never easy realizing that your marriage is heading toward divorce but for those couples with children the decision is even harder to reach but is it best to stay together for the sake of the children? Even as the national divorce rate has notably decreased over the past 10 years, how we manage divorce and the children involved is still a statistical presence.

Rosalind Sedacca, CCT, a parenting coach for Child-Centered Divorce, an online parenting support network, expressed her views on the effect of trying to stay together for the sake of the children.

Unhealthy Relationships