Understanding Holiday Visitation Challenges
Are you trying to work under a holiday visitation schedule and you’re not sure how to deal with last-minute changes? I’m Tulsa family lawyer Carl Birkhead with Wirth Law Office in Oklahoma. I’ve been practicing family law for about seven years, and I want to help make law easy by telling you about what to do if you hit a speed bump right before a custody exchange.
This can apply to any sort of visitation exchange, even if it’s just for a regular weekend or an evening, but I get these types of calls a lot right around breaks from school. People often make detailed holiday plans, figuring out when each parent will have the child, and aligning it with school schedules and break times. But despite all the planning, something always seems to come up unexpectedly.
Common Issues and Practical Solutions
An unexpected relative is coming into town, a trip is trying to get planned at the last minute, or vacation plans are getting delayed. The best advice that I can give you in these types of situations is to do everything that you can to try to work them out with your co-parent without taking them to court.
If you’re having a custody exchange issue or a visitation issue, odds are you’re not going to be able to get it in front of a judge before the holiday visitation starts. If you come to me right before the holidays and tell me that your co-parent wants to change the schedule, even though you all had a plan in place. What can you do about it?
Legal Perspective and Court Schedules
Unless there’s something that is placing your child in danger or the child is in imminent danger of irreparable harm that would give rise to an emergency, my advice is going to be to tell you to grit your teeth, bear it, work out something as best you can, and we’ll address it after the holidays are over. That’s the soonest we’ll be able to get in front of a judge.
I mean, the courts are going to be on a holiday schedule for a while. The dockets are going to be very full with cases either trying to get litigated for custody modifications to be done before the holiday break is over or else dealing with other emergency issues that come up.
Keeping Communication Open
The holiday time of year is when a lot of custody cases are being set either to be established or to be modified because if something needs to be changed up for the kids, that change can happen over the holidays. So let’s say if dad’s getting custody from mom or mom’s getting custody from dad and it’s going to require a school change, the courts are trying to get those handled now, get those litigated now, get those decided now so that way the child can start fresh at the new school after the holiday break is over with.
If you have an attorney, you can always consult with your attorney about this and if the other side has an attorney, the lawyers can talk. I cannot stress this enough though. Holidays are crazy enough as it is. Do everything you can to try to keep from adding visitation stress to that.
Document and Seek Guidance
Try to communicate with your co-parent, and try to work with them as best you can, but if they’re just being absolutely intractable and unworkable, make sure you document every instance of them refusing to work with you. If you have questions about this or if you need some guidance on where to go, please absolutely give us a call.
Schedule Your Strategy Session Today
I’m Tulsa family law attorney Carl Birkhead with Wirth Law Office, and I want to help make law easy. For a low-cost initial strategy session, call us at 918-879-1681 to discuss your holiday visitation concerns. Let us provide the guidance you need to navigate these challenging times.
