Family Law, Divorce, Custody and Child Support Attorneys in Denver, Colorado

The Two Pillars – Frequency & Consistency

There’s no law, statute, rule or court procedure that talks about the two pillars of parenting time. This is just our law firm’s invention.

We find, however, that the two pillars concept is extremely useful for communicating to a client and a court, why a particular PT (“Parenting Time”) schedule works or doesn’t work.

Frequency – this is how frequent the parent and child get to spend time together. Expert after expert tell us that the more frequent the parenting time, the better for the child.

Generally, then, a parenting plan that has no more than 2 days between a child’s time with either parent is better than one that has 7 days between.

This is not always the case and every family is different. For some post-divorce families, a week-on, week-off schedule works great.

Consistency actually has two prongs to it. One is “in practice,” i.e. are you being consistent in exercising your parenting plan; the other is really about predictability for the child.

Predictability for the child means that a child can answer on his or her own, the pervasive post-divorce question, “am I with you tonight?” The parenting time schedule is so predictable and consistent that the child knows, for example, on Tuesday, they’re always with daddy, or I’m with mommy on Fridays. The schedule has consistent days and the child can expect and rely on it.

Which brings me to the “in practice” aspect of consistency. If a parent isn’t consistently exercising their parenting time, they are failing all the way around, to the detriment of their child.

First, a child needs both their parents working together to raise them. It’s each parent’s responsibility to help guide and direct their child into adulthood. If a parent isn’t stepping up and using their parenting time for this purpose, then they’re failing all of us, but especially their child.

Second, a child comes to rely on that time with that parent. Believe me, they’re heartbroken when they have an expectation of that time with mommy or daddy and they get stood up. Once a child develops this kind of expectation, it’s gut wrenching for them when it goes unmet.

So, in our law office, when we develop a parenting time schedule with a client, we keep these two pillars in mind and we make sure the client fully understands why they’re so important.

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