Ensuring a Cordial Child Custody Exchange for Your Child’s Benefit

Child Custody Attorneys Give Tips To Handle a Custody Exchange While on an Acrimonious Divorce

Feelings can be raw long after your divorce has settled – especially if you had an acrimonious divorce. When kids are involved, tensions can be especially high. If you do not take precautions, you can find yourself continuing to rehash the problems in your divorce and continuing to battle your former spouse every time you see them. If you are doing that in front of your children, you are going to make it harder for them to move on and to heal from your divorce. You’ll also make it harder for them to have a strong and healthy relationship with both parents.

Let your Gilbert divorce attorney handle your legal arguments, and your child custody lawyer handle the division of time. Put your personal arguments in the past with your marriage, and move forward with a focus on your children. Here are a few things you can do to ensure that the times you do have to see each other – when you are dropping off or picking up the kids for visits – you can be cordial to one another:

Make Sure Everything is Ready

If your ex comes to pick up the kids and they are still getting packed or are finishing up chores or some other tasks, your ex is likely to be annoyed and primed to fight with you. Plus, you’ll now be looking at time you have to spend with your ex, giving you both plenty of opportunity to poke each other’s buttons and start a fight.

Reduce your interaction with your ex and make these encounters much easier on everyone by making sure the kids are ready to go when pickup is scheduled. Make sure they have all their clothes, medications, homework, school things, and other items they need. When your ex arrives, your children should be ready to leave, so all you have to do is hug and wave goodbye.

Arrange for an Exchange in Public

Sometimes, things may be so bad between you and your ex that even those brief moments can provide opportunity for huge blow ups. You can minimize the risk by arranging to meet in public. Everyone is likely to be on their best behavior when they know that strangers are around to watch them act up.
Some options for public exchanges include:

School. One parent can drop the kids in the morning, and other can pick them up in the afternoon.
Daycare. Just like with school, one parent can pick them up from daycare at the end of the day. The kids can have everything with them.
A neutral public place. You can pick a coffee shop, a grocery store, a library, a mall – really, any place that is convenient for you both and that has plenty of eyes.

By picking a public place, you can keep everything business-like and reduce the chance of an argument that will only make your kids more stressed and unhappy. If you choose school or daycare for these exchanges, you may never even need to see your ex at all.

Bring Another Person with You

Bringing a third party with you is a good way to make sure there is always someone watching. Your ex is less likely to start a problem if someone else is there to watch or to get involved. Just be sure that the person you choose is neutral – such as a mutual acquaintance or someone you both trust. Bringing along your new boyfriend or girlfriend is only likely to inflame the situation.

Even if the third party does not help keep the situation neutral, there is still a benefit: You will have a witness to anything that is said or done that may need to be reviewed by your Tucson family law lawyer.

If you take these measures and are continuing to have explosive fights with your ex in front of your children, it may be time to seek help from a counselor or mediator. If you are having fights about child custody or child support, you should consult with an Arizona child custody lawyer to resolve those issues, rather than continuing to fight among yourselves.

The child custody attorneys at My AZ Lawyers can help you to get the child custody or child support agreement that is best for your family. We can establish and order, or we can help you to get the appropriate modifications to your current order. Our goal is to help you get the arrangement that is in the best interests of your children. We serve clients throughout Phoenix, Glendale, Tucson, and Mesa. Call My AZ Lawyers today to talk with a family law lawyer about your goals and your legal options.