Planning for Fall Break:
How to Balance Parenting Time and Special Activities
School breaks can be a disruption to the regular parenting time schedule you have become accustomed to since the start of the school year. In preparing yourself and your children for a smooth transition into an unusual schedule, it is important to consider the following in advance:
1. Check your Children’s School and Extra-Curricular Activity Calendar
If you have not done so at the start of the school year, review the school’s calendar to make sure you have the correct dates for any school breaks for the year in your calendar. Having the correct and most up to date information will be necessary for planning purposes. This is a good time to make sure you are receiving important communications from the school as well.
In addition to their school calendar, you will need to be aware whether the school break affects the schedule for after school activities as well. Especially if your children are older or more serious with their involvement in an activity, they may still have practices or lessons to attend that you should plan for. Keeping these in mind will help you better plan your parenting time and/or exchanges. Again, this may be a good time to ensure you are receiving relevant communications with this essential information.
Effective communication between co-parents is crucial.
• Holiday/Vacation Parenting Time Schedule:
Understanding the parenting time orders in place will be crucial to planning parenting time with your children.
Keep in mind what provisions relate to either fall break specifically or school breaks in general. Specifically, make sure you know which parent has parenting time with the children and when under the current orders. Make sure you know where and when exchanges are to occur, especially without having school pick-up and drop-offs being the normal exchange time. If there is any confusion regarding the parenting time arrangements for fall break, feel free to contact your attorney to clarify the order
• Communications:
If there are conflicts with your scheduled fall-break parenting time schedule, you will need to communicate with your co-parent immediately to come up with a new scheduling arrangement. Be sure you understand the protocols for communications and changing the parenting time schedule. Does your communication need to be through the Talking Parents App or another platform? Do you need to provide a certain amount of notice to your co-parent of changes to the schedule? Do any agreements need to be confirmed in writing?
3. Planning Travel
• Notice to Co-Parent:
Many parents will take advantage of the school break and plan trips out of town and out of state with their children. If you plan to take a trip, be sure to finalize the details in advance and comply with any requirements under the orders to either gain the other parent’s permission or provide notice of the itinerary, transportation details, names of anyone else who will be on the trip, and any other details that you are able to provide to your co-parent. Even if not explicitly required in the orders, keeping your co-parent informed will be the best practice. Remember, communication is always key, and more information is better than less.
• Pending Litigation:
If your litigation is still pending, you are most likely still restricted from traveling out of state with the children without permission from the other parent or the Court first under the automatic temporary injunction. If this is the case, ask your attorney to reach out to the opposing counsel or opposing party well before the date of your travel plans to request permission to bring the children out of state and/or change your parenting time schedule. Should the request be denied by your co-parent, then you may be able to discuss the possibility of filing a motion with the Court to request specific permission for the travel. As the Court process is not instant, this type of request will need to be filed sooner rather than later.
• Emergencies:
Planning for emergencies should also be part of your vacation plan as well. This includes everything from packing any medications that may be necessary, ensuring you can access updated medical information and records easily, having emergency contacts in place, and having a plan in the event of unexpected scheduling changes in general (for example, flight delays, rain cancellations, etc.)
4. Planning Other Activities During Parenting Time
Even if you are not traveling anywhere, school breaks are a great opportunity to engage in enriching activities with your children outside of your regular routine. Without school and extracurriculars to schedule around, you can really take this time to be present with your kids and plan memorable experiences for them.
• Museums, Tours, Zoos, Aquariums: These activities encourage learning and curiosity while still being a welcome break from the regular school setting.
• Parks, Hikes, Trails, and Outside in General: This may not be as unique of an experience, but since the weather is beginning to cool down, this option will soon be unavailable. Take advantage of the warmer weather while it is still here. Since it can be less predictable this time of year, make sure you are checking the weather to ensure your child is dressed appropriately for the day. You can also go to a trail and bring bikes, scooters, skateboards, or roller blades to make it more fun. If you can’t make it to another location, try chalk in the driveway.
• Learn Something New Together: Children rarely have autonomy to decide what topics or skills they need to learn. Take this time to ask what your kid is interested in and discover something new together. Look up the answers to random questions about the world together.
• Reading Together: Regardless of whether you are reading to your child or if they are more independent readers, be sure to ask questions about the story and remain interested. For younger children, this may look like asking them to identify things in the pictures or asking them to read or sound out words. For older children, this may be either reading a chapter book to them or having them read a chapter book independently and asking them about their favorite character, what they predict will happen next, how it compares to other books they read, and things like that. You can make it more fun by building a cozy pillow fort together to read in, setting up a hammock or nice chair in a nice shady spot outside, or finding some other creative place to read. To keep things new and exciting, you can also take your kids to the library or a bookstore to choose a new book to read.
• Games: Children rarely have autonomy to decide what topics or skills they need to learn. Take this time to ask what your kid is interested in and discover something new together. Look up the answers to random questions about the world together.
Although it is exciting to be free from the monotony of the regular school and parenting time schedules, it is important to maintain healthy consistency as well. Maintaining normal bedtime and morning routines, mealtime, naptimes, etc. should still be followed to the extent it is feasible to make the transition back to school and regular parenting time as seamless as possible.
Kirsten is a dedicated attorney newly licensed to practice law, bringing a wealth of practical experience across various legal domains. Her professional journey began with multiple roles in legal support, encompassing criminal law, civil litigation, family law, personal injury, and dependency and neglect proceedings. These positions, held both before and during her law school tenure, provided Kirsten with invaluable hands-on experience that profoundly informs her approach as an attorney.
Learn more about Kirsten here.
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