Welcome back to the Oxin Dying Law podcast. Today we're going to be talking about something that a lot of people end up realizing after the fact was not such a good idea. We're not talking about your average Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday. We're talking about holidays. We're talking about summer. We're talking about sports tournaments. We're talking about family trips. and we're talking about it now so that when you do your parenting plan and you do your agreement, you do not fall into the emotions and the common pitfall mistakes that we see a lot of people make. So, Christine, this is a big one. Um, and it's something that we struggle with a lot, >> especially with people that have younger children. I'm gonna start with Christmas, let you talk about birthdays. Okay. So Christmas with younger kids, parents tend to want to say, "I want to see my kid every Christmas." >> Yeah. I have to see my child on Christmas. >> I want to make sure that both parents get to see the child on Christmas Day. >> That's what's fair. >> That both parents see the kid on Christmas. That's what's fair. What sense would it make for mommy and daddy to not see kids on Christmas Day? Like a world you can't fathom, right? It's the kids. >> The kids would suffer if they didn't see both parents on Christmas Day. >> Tragic. >> So, here's what I'm going to tell you guys. >> The way I prefer to do Christmas, and again, you're free to do it the other way if you want, but it's one of those things where I think if you look back a little further down the road, you'll wish you'd done it a different way. So, here's what I mean by that. The best way in my mind to do Christmas is you divide the break in half and you do the date of the exchange on the day of the midpoint. So first half would be school out until the day of the midpoint. So if there's a 14-day break, right? You pick day seven or day eight. That's the day of the exchange. All right? So it's release until day of the midpoint. Second half is day of midpoint until school starts back. That means that whoever gets the first half that year gets Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. The other parent gets New Year's Eve and New Year's Day and then it flops the next year. Okay. The way some people want to do it, and I'm gonna tell you why I don't like it this way in a second. Some people are like, "Uh, got to see the kids on Christmas Day." So instead of doing the day of the midpoint of the exchange, we make Christmas Day the day of the exchange. So first half is school out until 2:00 on Christmas Day. Second half is 2:00 on Christmas Day until school starts back. Now, that sounds amazing. Why in the world would I say it's not a good way to do it? Well, number one, it's you that wants to see the kids on Christmas Day. It's not your kids. Your kids care about Santa Claus and their gifts. Guess what else your kids don't want to do? And I don't care how old they are, whether they're five, six, seven, eight, or 14 >> or 40. >> What kid or 40, what kid wants to wake up on Christmas morning, open their gifts, and then be rushed out the door away from the gifts they just opened to have to change households, get in a car on Christmas day, and go to the other parents house. No kid wants to do that. Let me fast forward this a little bit more. Now, your kids don't believe in Santa Claus anymore. Did I just say that Santa Claus are not real? Whoops. Hopefully, if you're watching this, you know that by now. Your kids are older. They don't believe in Santa Claus anymore. You've decided that instead of doing the traditional Christmas morning with gifts under the tree, that you're going to treat your kids to a vacation >> this year. >> How cool would it be to see a palm tree lit up with Christmas lights? Yeah. A beach trip would be wonderful, >> right? But you look back, you're like, "Oh crap, I can't leave. I've got the first half of Christmas this year, and I want to take my kids on a week-l long trip, but damn, I can't because I have to be here until 2 o'clock on Christmas Day because the other parent gets starting on 2 o'clock on Christmas Day." So now your ability to ever go on a vacation during the Christmas holiday is gone. >> Yeah. Unless you're going to take it after the day of the holiday, right? >> Without your kids, though, right? Depending on what year it is. >> That's right. Yeah. >> So, those are the things that we want you to consider when we're talking about holidays, summer, birthdays. I've covered Christmas, and there's lots of examples. I'm going to let Christine cover another example. Why don't we talk about birthdays? >> Right. So, I will argue with my own clients on this issue. Do not, if you're taking my advice, do not include children's birthdays or parents' birthdays in your parenting plan. At the end of the day, a birthday is a wonderful thing to be celebrated. I'm about to go on my birthday trip. I am celebrating my birthday big. But I can assure you that if for some reason I had court on my birthday, I'm just going to travel the next week. My same trip, my same amazing birthday dinner, my same amazing birthday catamaran cruise that I've already booked. It's going to be the same whether it is on the one-year anniversary of the day I was born or it is not. So celebrations are what matters. Days are simply not what matters. So when a child has their own birthday like Jar was explaining about Christmas split in half, you think, "Oh, what a wonderful time he gets to see mom and dad on Christmas." All they're thinking is I just don't get to hang out and enjoy my birthday. And remember like there's a high chance birthday's going to fall during his school day. So now he's got school on his birthday. Then he's got to go see mom. Then he's got to go see dad. Like no no no part of his birthday was enjoyable. >> Birthday's gone. >> It's literally gone. And all he has done is transport to from one place to the other. Um and what if he has practice on that day, right? Or now are we checking him out of school? Are we skipping practice because of a birthday? Guys, celebrate. Definitely big celebrate. But celebrate when it's just convenient for you. Um birthdays should be celebrated. The holidays should be celebrated. But nothing confines us to celebrate it on a certain day. In fact, sometimes it is easier, more convenient, and better to celebrate on a different day. I know when I was a kid, if my birthday fell during the week, my party was on a Saturday and my parents were together at that time, right? So, it didn't matter. And think about it. Think about you guys, right? Like when you were together, I bet you did. You probably had like a nice dinner on the birthday, but was the party, the family, the cousins, the kids from school. Did that happen after school? No, it didn't. We've always adjusted our celebrations to fit it. But then suddenly when a parenting plan comes into place, it's, "Oh, but it has to be. I have to have Christmas. I I have to have the birthday." And guys, parents, your own birthdays, absolutely not. Do not drag the child. Mom's week, but dad, today's my birthday. I'm going to pick him up from school. We're going to go do my birthday dinner. Hey, you'll see him in a couple days. Have a big birthday dinner then. Like, it's selfish. It's disruptive. And it opens you up for failure. It just does because somebody is inevitably going to miss or forget or plan and ask for accommodations and just, you know, like celebrate big, but celebrate when it's convenient. >> Thanksgiving, spring break. I'm going mention those quickly because those are those are a couple more that are problematic. Then we're going to move on to summer. But same thing with Thanksgiving and spring break. Look guys, Thanksgiving is a short break. Um, spring break, it's a short break. When I say it's a short break, it's a week long, okay? People like to travel during that time period, right? I mean, Thanksgiving is a big travel time, right? If you take that break and cut it in half, you now have three days. Can you really go and travel and enjoy yourself for 3 days, right? Because you've got to rush back and do an exchange during the middle of the week. Or would you prefer to have the entire break? Much more relaxing, much more peaceful. Yeah, you get it every other year. So, you get the full break one year and then your ex gets it the next year. But at least every other year you can have an enjoyable out of town trip or you don't have to go anywhere. You get the whole week. That's right. >> You get the whole time. Do you think your kids on Thanksgiving Day really want to leave one Thanksgiving feast to go to another, >> right? >> I would imagine you wouldn't want to do that either if you're being honest with yourself. Spring break's another one. Like a lot of people travel for the week of spring break. Well, guess what? You're not traveling during the week of spring break if you split that break break up in half. So don't be selfish. Think about not only what's best for your kids, but really it's best for you. Those short breaks are better served by giving the entire break on an even and odd basis. And usually if you get spring break one year, you don't get Thanksgiving. But guess what? If you're not getting spring break, you get Thanksgiving, right? >> So it's not like you're missing out. You're just getting different holidays every other year. >> And don't be shortsighted either. How many times do you have a client and I give this same little speech to them and I say, "What if you want to go somewhere on I can't afford to go anywhere? I I can't even afford this." Okay. And today you probably can't. But remember, this is going until the child ages out. So if you have a four-year-old and right now you're not in a place where you can afford to go on spring break. I understand that. And a lot of times in an immediate post- divorce situation, you're not. But what if you get remarried? What if you just get a better job? What if your circumstances change? You have set yourself up for just the short-sightedness of next year. What are we doing next year? Instead of what your future could hold, right? Like, open up your mind to what your future could be. Manifest it even, right? Think about it like, you know what? I'm setting a goal. Five years from now, it's going to be my spring break. I'm going start saving today. We're going to Disney. Spring break 2029, baby. Here we come. I'm going to start my savings account now. Use those opportunities to make it a positive instead of just sitting here at the table, you know, at mediation thinking of it as a negative. Like don't be shortsided. Think of the future you want and plan for that future. >> And that happens with summer, too. And I don't want to sound bougie, but a lot of people, you know, like to travel to Europe or whatever during the summer, right? And that you're going to want more than a week for that. I mean, goodness gracious, the flight itself is going to be 8 to 12 hours, right? Two times got to go there and back. two of your days basically right there spent traveling. What do I mean by that? Some people get there two weeks during the summer, but they say, "Oh, it's got to be non-consecutive." >> Yeah, I can't go two weeks without seeing. >> I I don't want to agree to two consecutive weeks because I can't go two weeks without seeing my kid. Well, guess what? Same applies to you. Well, then you'll never be able to take two weeks in a row. And what if in your future that opportunity comes? Like Christine said, your circumstances change. You marry well, you hit the lottery, you know, you get offered a free trip through work, whatever it is. >> Parents decide they want to do a 65 year anniversary cruise. Yes. And it's going to be 14 days. I mean, just things happen, right? And you may say, "That will never happen to me." Well, it won't if you keep that mindset, right? >> So, go for the two consecutive weeks during summer. Even again, even if you don't go anywhere, it's nice to have an extended period of quality time with your kids. Even if you're just staying home, even if you're doing things around town, two weeks, it feels like a lot more meaningful time than one week does. So, I would say build in the option. It's not mandatory. You can build into your parenting plan that the parties may have up to two weeks consecutive should they so elect. You don't have to elect two weeks in a row. You can choose just to have one week in July and then another week in June if you want to do it that way. But build in that option so that if your circumstances allow, you can. And I want to let people know too, um, unless parties agree to something different or unless truly one party's circumstances don't accommodate it, courts are leaning toward 50/50 in the summer pretty standard. I would say more often than not, 5050 summertime. And that can look like multiple things. That can be week on, week off. That could be two weeks on, two weeks off, depending on the circumstances. But I would say unless one parent truly just travels a lot for work and the other happens to be a teacher, right, who's off for the okay, that may not work. But it may, if the dad still wants it or the mom still wants it, the non-teer parent still wants it, it is going to probably default to an equal sharing of summertime. I've had several families over the past two to three years that I've checked back in with that did what I think, again, not having kids, I'm going to put that out there. um what I thought was a really smart plan and one parent gets June and the other parent gets July and the next year they swap and like Jared said like when since your marriage when have you had that much uninterrupted time with your kids and I'm not calling the other co-parent an interruption but the truth is when you divide a family you no longer have the opportunity for uninterrupted time one-on-one with your children that you used to have. That is one of the sacrifices of getting the divorce. There are a million benefits, but in every family, there is something that is going to be a problem, right? There is some issue that we just can't resolve. And one of them is the sharing of your children. So, think about it like having a month of uninterrupted time. It might be worth Yeah. having a month of I mean, I can say because I don't have kids, a month of freedom, right? I mean, a month where you don't have to worry about your kids. They're with their other parent. they are probably doing something super duper fun or they're going to camp or they're traveling or they're just having like camp dad. They're just one-on-one with dad and you get a month of breath. Like I don't have to worry about them. I don't have to worry about getting them here, getting them there. I can literally scrub my entire house. I can rearrange every closet. Um I can go see friends that I haven't seen since college, whatever the circumstances are. Again, your situation is what you make it. So sometimes thinking of the negative, I can't stand the thought of going a month without seeing my kid instead of thinking, hey, what a pleasure it would be to have a month with my kid, but also to have a month where I know my child is just well cared for, in great hands. I don't have to think about it and I can do whatever I want to do. I mean, take that opportunity. So, that's not super common, but I have seen a couple families do it and report back how much they really enjoyed having that big chunk of summer break where one you one-on-one just uninterrupted quality time and then just a breath of fresh air. >> And you know, something else I would add since we're talking about parenting time, be flexible. Um, yeah, we have too many people that are so inflexible, they literally read their order and if it does not say that the other parent can have the time and that parent asks for some extra time, maybe they have a conflict. Okay, it's really their weekend, but they've got somewhere they need to be and it's a legitimate reason. So, they ask, "Hey, I can't exercise this weekend. Would you mind swapping with me? Can I have the following weekend?" And you say no. Okay, we have those people that say no >> just out of just because. just because, >> right? >> It goes both ways. There is going to be a time where you're going to want to swap or you're going to want to change and you have not been flexible with them or are they going to be flexible with you? Right? And we're not even talking about extra time. We're just talking about swapping time. Life happens. Things come up. Try to make these decisions based on what's best for your kids, not because the order doesn't allow it or not because you're being selfish, right? Try to be flexible because if you're flexible with them, they're going to be flexible with you. And that's what co-parenting is. That is working together trying to make sure that you accommodate changes and you accommodate life happening so that it works out best for your kids. Um the example I'll give is extracurricular activities. So uh we have a a big argument in cases all the time where he shouldn't schedule activities that fall during my time. And I always look at that and I shouldn't say he, he or she, okay? Could be he or she. And I always look at that because by the way, I have three kids, okay? And I know how that works. And guess who doesn't control the practice schedule, >> right? >> Guess who doesn't control the game schedule. >> Hey, even if dad's the coach, how well he's the coach. Well, that doesn't mean that he gets to work on his kids parenting time schedule, right? Like there's still rules in place, but you're right. They don't control. >> What we'll have parents do is literally say, "Well, not only do I not want you to schedule activities during my time, but I'm not taking them." Mhm. So, what you need to know when you're taking that position is you're either saying your kid should never be on any type of sports team or you're saying it's okay for them to be on the team but never play in a game. Because I can tell you right now, if your kid is missing practices every other week during the other parent's parenting time, guess who's not playing in the game that weekend? Your kid. So, you really doing what's best for your kid, right? When if the other parent has the right to sign the children up for extra troop activities, that parent doesn't control when the practices are. That parent doesn't control where the games are. Some of those are going to fall during that parent's time. Some are going to fall during your time. You need to make every effort that you possibly can to get your children to their activities because that's what's best for your kid. Um the coach will hold it against them. I guarantee you your kid will be missing out if they enjoy that activity. You are depriving them of participating in that activity. And frankly, what I like to put in my parenting plans, I don't just say, you know, I never frankly say unless there's a problem that you can't schedule activities during the other parents parenting time. I actually say the opposite. >> I say that um both parents recognize that activities Yep. >> including practices and games are going to fall during both parents' parenting time. And both parents shall make all reasonable good faith efforts to ensure that the children attend any activities that fall during their time. >> That's right. But I want and it goes both ways like everything does all these you know tips are reciprocal. So think of a different example. Um because of maybe we'll just use dad because of dad's work schedule. His parenting time is just every other weekend but he gets every Wednesday dinner visit. That's what his schedule accommodates. He works really hard. He financially provides for his children. So that's the way that he best contributes. And he uses every minute of his weekends and his nights to bond with his children. All right. Somebody has limited time. All right. Now, the child is in soccer. And soccer practice for this young child is only on Wednesdays. That's it. Soccer's on Wednesday. Practice on Wednesdays. Games are on Sundays. Swap with dad. Let him have a Tuesday or a Thursday dinner. Don't say, I mean, you can come to soccer if you want. Right now, if he has practiced four days a week, okay, it's not going to work out. But if you as the primary parent have all this time with the child and that activity happens to fall on the one night that the other parent has, swap with them. Don't say, "Well, okay, you can pick up from school, but you got to take them straight to practice and then I need them back here by 7:00." All right, just make that accommodation because you're setting the child up to either have to the other parent is put in a position where they say, "I already have such limited time. Now I got to choose. I got to choose whether to let my child be in this activity or basically just not see my child for the rest of this season. So, yeah, be accommodating both ways, right? Schedules change, things change. Um, make sure that you're prioritizing number one, what is best for the child at all times. Practice is best for the child. Activities are best for the child, but making sure you still get to see both parents regularly is still also best for the child. So, don't be so rigid that you're like, well, I don't schedule practice. It wasn't up to me. I didn't make practice be on Wednesdays. out of my control. Nothing's out of your control. You can swap for one season to dad's night being Tuesday and now the whole situation is resolved. >> If you're creating a parenting plan, don't just think about today. Don't think just about tomorrow. Think about Christmas two weeks, two years from now, summer two years from now. Birthday, sports, and all the things that your family does. And guess what? If you can't do that, we'll help you with offices in Swani and Athens. We're always here to help. Hit subscribe wherever you're watching. We'll see you next time.