A well-written child custody agreement within your divorce agreement will help you co-parent children more successfully after divorce. It is the most important document you will craft as parents and deserves your best effort. It can be 1 page long or 20 pages long, but it must detail how you plan to raise your child(ren) together.

The list of what you need to consider can be mind boggling, but that’s ok because this is important.

Some Things Your Child Custody Agreement Might Cover:

• Mission statement of what’s important
• Name and date of birth of each child
• Standards of conduct for parents
• Parent responsibilities, decisions and appointments
• Basic education and college
• Medical care and insurance
• Dental care and insurance
• School decisions
• Child care and nanny
• Religious affiliation and training
• Time spent with each parent, including school, summers holidays
• Transportation to/from each home
• Terms for moving away
• Financial contributions of parents
• Duration of agreement and handling changes
• Resolution of disputes arising form the agreement
• Death of parents (wills guardians)
• Provisions for catastrophic events
• Long illnesses
• Drastic income loss
• Child’s surname
• Statement of paternity
• Parents access to information and records

And don’t forget: The Child Custody Agreement also needs to include the details of your time-sharing arrangement: Weekly schedules , vacations, birthdays, holidays, grandparents

You may not need all of these topics in your child custody agreement, or even most of them, but this will give you a place to start on this portion of your divorce process. The ideal situation is to give your child consistency in an inconsistent world.