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Below our Mentors answer this question:
Is a two-week on / two-week off custody schedule ever a good idea?
Judge Danielle Douglas
One Size Doesn’t Fit All Children
The standard for making child custody orders in California is the best interest of the child. Family Code section 3011 lists a number of non-exhaustive factors for judges to weigh in determining what is in the best interest of the child. In making the determination of what is in the best interest of the child judges apply the specific facts of the case at hand to each factor. As the judge conducts the weighing process, the judge determines the appropriate weight to be given to each factor. Because each child is unique with a unique set of circumstances there is no one size fits all parenting plan. Generally, in deciding what parenting plan is in the child’s best interest, courts strive to ensure the child does not go long periods of time without seeing the other parent. However, there may be cases where the child’s interest is served by a two week on two week off parenting plan.
Family Code section 3020 declared the court’s primary concern is the minor child’s health, safety, and welfare when ordering a parenting plan. Additionally, the legislature declared that ensuring children have frequent and continuing contact with both parents is the public policy of the State of California. Frequently, courts must balance high conflict parental interaction and the need to have frequent and continuing contact with both parents while ensuring the child’s health, safety, and welfare. One solution may be a two week on two week off parenting plan.
Where the child is of suitable age and maturity there are many benefits to a two week on two week off parenting plan. A two week on two week off parenting plan provides the minor child with continuity and stability. It minimizes hostile custody exchanges while allowing frequent and continuing contact with both parents. It removes the burden the child faces when having to constantly transport essential personal and educational items from one household to the other. Less custodial exchanges and longer custodial time with each parent may prevent the situation where a child refuses and resists spending time with one parent when the child is constantly placed in the middle of custody disputes.
Judges that are hesitant to order a two week on two week off parenting plan should consider such a parenting plan as a summer schedule. The ability to spend two weeks at a time with each parent during the summer, without a regimented school schedule, would allow the minor child significant bonding time with each parent. The two week on two week off summer schedule would eliminate parental disputes over vacation days. Moreover, it would allow each parent to schedule summer activities for the child. Indeed, under appropriate circumstances, a two week on two week off parenting plan or summer schedule very well may be in the best interest of the child.
Dr. Philip M. Stahl
California AFCC members are a diverse group, including judges, lawyers, mediators, child custody evaluators, therapists, and even collaborative coaches. That interdisciplinary focus reminds me that the correct answer(s) to this question will depend in part on your role and nature of your profession. In this article, I will briefly address the research on children’s adjustments to divorce and ways to integrate that research into your role and ultimately answer that question. But first, let me describe a situation that I never understood, but which worked well for the school-aged children (and their parents) from my personal experience. The parents, neighbors of mine, were low conflict, lived about 10 minutes apart, and agreed to a parenting plan in which the children saw one of their parents for about 6 hours on a Sunday once per month, plus vacations. Granted, this was in the early 1980s before there was a major push for shared parenting, but it showed that, at least in this one instance, parenting plans organized by parents that mental health professionals think won’t work, often do. In fact, that was consistent with my doctoral dissertation research, in which I studied attitudes and beliefs about joint (legal and physical) custody among psychologists, lawyers, judges, and a few families who were sharing their children regularly. The psychologists, lawyers, and judges thought that such plans would never work, and the families practicing shared parenting, including older children, loved the plan.
The Research
In general, nearly all research in Western countries[1] in the last 40 years has identified that, barring special circumstances, children adjust most easily to the separation and divorce of their parents if given the opportunity to have both parents involved in a wide range of developmentally sensitive activities on a frequent and continuing basis, with healthy parenting, and in an environment of relatively low conflict between their parents. Nothing in that sentence suggests anything about a specific parenting plan, and there are a wide variety of actual plans the can meet that goal. Developmental considerations would suggest that young children would need quite frequent contact, likely minimizing the extent to which a child is away from either of their parents for more than 2-3 days at a time; preschool-aged children can likely manage 3 or 4 days of separation from their parents; school-aged children can likely manage a week at a time; and adolescents can manage nearly any parenting plan where they spend quality time with both parents. With special circumstances, such as long-distance parenting plans, children who refuse or resist contact with one of their parents, families with intimate partner violence, substance abuse, or mental health problems, those generalities will not apply.
Of note, in research from Australia after changing the law in 2006 to encourage shared parenting among parents, judges were periodically ordering a 2 week – 2 week parenting plan for children under aged 4 when parents lived in cities far apart, similar to Los Angeles-San Francisco. The young children in the research sample were reportedly having significant problems with attachment with both parents.
The 2 week – 2 week Question
So, does any of that suggest a 2 week – 2 week parenting plan is a good idea? As a psychologist, I will always say, it depends. In my opinion, it will depend on who is determining such a plan to be in the children’s best interests and why they are doing so.
Suppose you are a mediator, and you are helping parents reach their own parenting plan. They have a toddler, and one parent says they want a 2 week – 2 week parenting plan and the other parent believes that will be problematic. As a mediator, you can inform the parents of the research and may even strive to encourage a more frequent parenting plan, but I would discourage parents in that situation from agreeing on such a plan. Perhaps a 2-2-3 plan would be the most appropriate for their child. But if it’s a 10-year-old or older child who goes to school in a neutral location about the same distance apart from each parent and who does not adapt to frequent change, perhaps a 2 week – 2 week parenting plan might make sense. The key is that the parents will be making that decision on behalf of the best interests of their child. If such a plan is created by parents, with or without the help of a neutral professional (such as mediator, collaborative coach, their lawyers, or therapist) there is no reason to avoid a 2 week – 2 week parenting plan.
On the other hand, if you have 2 litigating parents that can’t work things out with their lawyers and need to reach a parenting plan decision with the aid of a child custody evaluator or an order of the court, it is unlikely that a 2 week – 2 week parenting plan would make sense. Certainly not for a young child, who would be unlikely to do well with such a plan, and probably not for an older one. However, if the conflict between the parents is very high, but parenting by both parents is generally good, reducing the number of transitions might be helpful and one parenting plan to consider could be a 2 week – 2 week parenting plan.
Conclusions
It should be noted that in “Planning for Parenting Time: Arizona’s Guide for Parents Living Apart”[2], there is no mention of a 2 week – 2 week parenting plan. However, similar to the family I described at the beginning, a parenting plan organized by parents who know their logistical needs and their children quite well, might develop their own 2 week – 2 week parenting plan and determine it to be “best” for their children. At the same time, if I were tasked to recommend to parents (in the role of child custody evaluator) and the court a parenting plan for litigating parents, I can say that in nearly 40 years of doing this work, I have only once recommended such a plan, and I would absolutely never encourage recommending such a plan for young children under aged 6.
[1] Including the US, Canada, Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand, among others
[2] Designed to assist parents in formulating their own parenting plan, available at https://www.azcourts.gov/portals/31/parentingTime/PPWguidelines.pdf. I was on the Task Force that developed that Parenting Guide.
Attorney David Donner
It appears that courts, counsel and evaluators/neutrals may consider a two week on/two week off schedule many more times than actually is implemented. In what arguably is a rare custodial exception to the rule of more conventional schedules, some circumstances may merit a two-week time period with each parent.
For example, a family where the children and/or parents are unduly challenged around transitions might make the case for a timeshare with longer periods of custodial time. The transition difficulties might arise from a relocation and be logistical (long distances or driving times, infrequent flight or challenging transportation schedules). Some children, for a myriad of reasons, have trouble adapting to or managing transitions. This may be due to a child’s particular temperament or parental/family dynamics. In circumstances where a child is gifted or has special needs, a prolonged time with special instructors might make sense (e.g., a child who was an equestrian with Olympic aspirations, a piano prodigy, etc.). A two week on/off schedule is one that might address some of the above custodial challenges.
Two weeks away from a parent can be a long time, especially for younger children. Understanding the child’s attachment(s) to each parent and the parental bond(s) would be important considerations before implementing such a schedule, whether by order or stipulation.