It is no secret that many kids look forward to summer. The extended break from school gives kids more time to relax, spend time with friends and family, and enjoy their favorite activities. Parents love summer too, but work schedules and other adult responsibilities can sometimes make planning a fun summer for the whole family challenging. If a parent is divorced or divorcing, the challenges they face in designing their summer are multiplied by the fact that they must make their plans within the confines of their possession and access schedule. If divorcing parents have not yet come up with a workable possession and access schedule, the task of planning their summer schedules can be even more difficult.

Fortunately, stress and difficulty do not have to hold you and your kids back from having a great summer. When you work with your attorney and your children’s other parent and their attorney to create a possession and access schedule that is doable for everyone, you’ll have all the information that you need to make summer plans that you and your children will enjoy. If you’re starting your divorce, or if you and your children’s parent are having trouble coming together to decide on a possession and access schedule, now is the time to make creating that schedule a priority. Schedule some time to work with your attorney, your children’s’ other parent, and their attorney to attend to it as soon as possible.

The Texas family court has a standard possession order which it awards in cases where parents cannot agree on a possession and access schedule. Most pairs of divorcing parents do not want a schedule where the kids are with one parent most of the time and with the other parent on Thursday evenings and the first, third, and fifth weekend of each month. Parents are encouraged to set aside their differences, put their heads together, and work with their attorneys to create their own possession and access schedule. Parents who work together to create a possession and access schedule are almost always much more satisfied with the plan in the long run than parents who are awarded the standard possession order by the court.

As you work with your attorney, aim to create a possession and access schedule that clearly states who will spend time with the children when both during the school year and summer vacation. Include specifics for holidays and birthdays. Take care to include rules for how and when last-minute changes can be made to the schedule. Also, plan for communication between the children and each parent when they are in the care of the other parent as well as rules for notifying the other parent about plans to attend camps or other activities far from home and vacations. While you’re working on making a possession and access schedule, you may wonder whether all of the hard work, negotiation, and, yes, compromise is worth it, but as I stated before, parents who do work together to create a schedule instead of allowing the court to award the standard plan are much more satisfied with the outcome. It is almost always worth it to hang in there and do the work until you reach an agreement.

If you would like to talk with an attorney about divorce in Texas, call Texas Family Law Attorney Alex Tyra with your Texas divorce questions today, at (903) 753-7499.