The new financial year marks a scheduled review of your Parenting Plan

Before we know it, Christmas will be here again. It is a time of year that many separated parents become disgruntled if their parenting arrangements haven’t been updated and made in-line with current circumstances.

Let’s look to the future and to the past for the moment. Last Christmas, were you happy with the time that you had with your child? Do you know that Christmas 2018 will look like for you? Do you think that you need to make some adjustments?

Each year, your child gets older and their needs change. Perhaps they want to spend more time with their friends, perhaps your circumstances have changed and you need to change the future arrangements.

Now is the time to:

  1. Start the conversation about what is working for you and your child’s other parent as well as for your children
  2. Start the conversation about areas for improvement with the existing parenting arrangements
  3. Act and make the necessary changes to your parenting plan and parenting orders

You know that leaving the negotiations on a mortgage until the last-minute leaves you with very little time to find the best interest rates and leaves you with no choice but to take what has been offered to you. We can use this analogy on many things – as the saying goes “when you are over a barrel, you are barrelled.” This means that the closer you leave discussing and acting on changes to parenting arrangements for Christmas the less power and time that you have to calmly discuss and work towards a Parenting Plan that suits everyone.

You have three options for creating a parenting plan:

  1. Choose to create a new parenting plan with your lawyer and easily spend upwards $4000
  2. Craft your own parenting plan by yourself
  3. Follow Divorce Answered’s affordable customisable template that guides and prompts (click here for more on the Parenting Plan)

Remember, updating or creating a parenting plan doesn’t have to be expensive. Divorce Answered has a comprehensive click-the-clause Parenting Plan that is:

  1. Detailed and thorough
  2. Quick and efficient
  3. Allows you to also to create unique clauses
  4. Make an unlimited amount of changes (so you can add the feedback from your legal professional or from your child’s other parent
  5. Populates a plan so that you can lodge it at court (individually or by consent) and have it made into an Order
  6. Allows you to save money on your legal fees creating a parenting plan and reinvest the savings back into your legal budget (or put it towards something fun!)

This week, I would like to invite you to please review your parenting arrangements, consider what would work well for you and for the people involved, consult the other parent and then make the changes necessary before you run out of time.

Click here for more information about a Divorce Answered Parenting Plan

