The Legal Issues 149
Joint custody can also have its disadvantages: (1) Frequent back-
and-forth movement between parents may be quite stressful for
some kids. (2) It limits the geographic mobility of the parents since
they must generally continue to reside near one another. (3) It
may unrealistically raise the kids’ hopes that their parents will
one day get back together. (4) It increases the number of issues
and incidents for parents who are not on friendly terms to dis-
agree about—since all decisions must be made jointly. (5) It may
increase the likelihood of frequent returns to court if no agree-
ments can be reached by joint decision makers. (6) Kids who
require more stability/security in their lives, or who have diffi-
culty with frequent changes or with adjusting to new situations,
may not do well with joint custody. (7) It is particularly tough on
younger kids (approximately aged one to six).
Visitation
Whenever I date a guy, I think, is this the man I want my children to spend their
weekends with?
—Rita Radner
Parents may amicably negotiate whatever visitation rights they
want, and the court will generally approve them. This is often pref-
erable to leaving it to the court to otherwise impose its “standard”
visitation schedule. It is certainly better than having no specific or
written visitation schedule at all and instead using only some hap-
hazard approach to visitation that you make up as you go along.
When visitation rights are considered, they should be struc-
tured with the ages of the children in mind. For instance, the
noncustodial parent might spend shorter installments of time
with younger children, although the meetings might occur more
frequently. With older children (primarily because their time is
taken up more with school and extracurricular activities), visita-
tion might consist of two weekends each month in addition to
several school vacations.
It’s also a good idea for the custodial spouse to encourage the
child to maintain telephone and written communication with
the noncustodial parent. Remember, if both parents are flexible,
visitation need not necessarily be limited to that schedule agreed
upon in the divorce decree.