Joint Custody: Pitfalls to Avoid

I read this morning that a Saudi Arabian couple had divorced because they could not agree on the name of their child. That seemed to me to be a silly reason to end a marriage, but it reminded me how complicated it can sometimes be to share joint custody with your ex-spouse. After all, those people were not even exes at the time they had their squabble. Being an equal parent with your former husband or wife is a challenging proposition. I am still very much in favor of joint custody over sole custody, because it gives the children a better chance of having two active parents, and it does not set up one parent as superior to the other. However, it can often be quite complicated to reach agreement on even the most basic decisions. Here are some common decisions that holders of joint custody share when they are divorced:

1) Discipline. Will there be corporal punishment? Will a grounding that one parent imposes in his or her home be enforced in the other parent’s home?

2) Privileges. What about the bedtimes in each home? Cell phones? How much TV may the kids watch?

3) Unsupervised time. How old must the kids be to stay home alone for an hour? Two hours? Four hours? At what age can a kid care for his or her siblings with no other adult present? If you hire a babysitter, how old must he or she be, and how much older than the oldest child under care?

4) School. Will both parents be listed in the school directory? Who will be called first in the event of an emergency? How about parent-teacher conferences – are the parents civil enough to attend the same one, or does the school need to schedule separate ones for each parent?

5) Health and nutrition? Will a vegetarian diet be observed at one home? If so, how about the other? What kind of health care will the children receive – traditional, acupuncture, chiropractic, psychotherapy?

6) Religion. If one parent is religious but the other is not, will the kids attend religious services every week, even during the other parent’s parenting time? If both parents are religious, will the children attend worship services with one, the other, or both?

In sum, joint custody is a wonderfully rewarding approach for most people. However, like almost anything, it carries its potential problems, and the more responsibly they are anticipated at the outset, the less likely they will cause issues down the road.