You hate it, but you’ve agreed to a long-distance parenting plan because your work takes you away from home far too often or you need to relocate to a spot that’s too far from the kids to make regular visitation easy.
The only problem is that you and your co-parent seem to have different expectations about what long-distance parenting is like. They constantly take your kids’ phones away as punishment for various infractions, and they’re not great about giving you access to the kids when you call their number.
Could a long-distance communication plan be in order? This can ultimately set some “ground rules” for how communication between you and your children will be managed – and that can provide stability for everyone involved.
What goes into a communication plan?
Your plan should be tailored to your family’s unique situation and needs, but some of the things you can negotiate with your co-parent include:
- What you both can agree on as a reasonable time period of the day or night within which you can contact the children, keeping in mind any time differences and the children’s ages
- Whether your co-parent will give you privacy for all your calls, beyond any assistance they may need to give your child with the phone, tablet or computer
- Whether your ex can take the kids’ phones away without your consent – and how you will contact them when that happens
- Any boundaries you want to establish about other issues, such as communication between you and your co-parent beyond what is necessary to facilitate the e-visits
A long-distance parenting plan can be frustrating to establish, and it can take experienced legal guidance to get it right.