New Website Can Help Families Deal With Custody and Visitation Schedules Interactively -- Without Court Intervention.

Question (by e-mail): When my wife and I separated nearly two years, we promised each other that we would co-operately raise our children (a boy, 11 and a girl, 8). We implemented an arrangement by which we shared time equally and expenses equitably for more than a year. Then my wife hired a lawyer to help her get divorced. Not a week after their first meeting, she sued me and arbitrarily terminated what had been a very workable situation. Instead of allowing the children to be with me, she hired a sitter and demanded that I help pay the cost.

For the past seven months, we have engaged in a bitter custody and visitation dispute in the courts. We have been to counselors and mediation without success. My lawyer can not tell me how long this will take; both of us are “bleeding profusely” with legal and related costs; and the children are suffering. My lawyer tells me that the judge who has been assigned our case prefers joint custody arrangements that are agreed to by the parents -- which, in our circumstance, appears to be hopeless. We have a ten page sharing schedule that is most complicated and cumbersome. And our inability to communicate interferes with a rational way in which to share time with our children.

I can’t understand why the court does not mandate closure and revert back to the plan which worked for more than a year rather than allow us to continue to fight. While both of us work, I am convinced that I have better parenting skills and am the psychological parent. I know from the parent groups I attend that we are not the only couple having these problems. Is there something we are all missing?

Answer: Unlike the “old days” when custody was almost always awarded to the mother unless she was proved to be unfit, recent census data indicates that more than 1.4 million children of divorce are now living with their fathers – a record. Because custody decisions have become more gender-neutral in the past several years, litigation about and over children has become complex and contentious which, in turn, has led to long-term economic and emotional drain on the parents.

While psychological testing, counseling, and mediation have become the “buzzwords” of the 1990’s, our research indicates that the courts need to embrace custody planning programs that will help parents solve time-sharing problems without having to run to their lawyers each time they need to charge a date or time.
Today, more and more matrimonial lawyers and court systems are using personal computer based programs that simplify the often thorny and protracted process of establishing parenting plans and time-sharing schedules. These best of these programs not only creates color-coded calendars that can be printed, but also calculates the percentage of time the children spend with each parent and other important data. But in order to use the program or to change the schedules, the parents must contact the lawyer’s office which can become expensive.

Enter www.kidshare.com, an interactive website that allows parents to create and change visitation and parenting plans in a secure environment over the internet and confirm by e-mail -- without contacting lawyers every time a date or time must be changed. At a small fraction of the cost otherwise expended, Kidshare.com provides color-coded calendars quickly and efficiently, and allows parents to create and clearly see their children’s schedules during the co-parenting process. Using this personal online parenting calendar, each parent can easily review the plan, know who is supposed to be in charge and when, and e-mail proposed plans and changes to the other.

We believe that properly used, KidShare.com can help empower parents to regain their lines of communication and take a positive and proactive part in how their children will be raised.

Jan Collins is an award-winning writer and editor. Jan Warner is a matrimonial, elder law, and tax attorney. Both are based in Columbia, South Carolina. Flying Solo is seen in newspapers throughout the United States.

Please send your questions by e-mail to janwarner@flyingsolo.com or by mail to P.O.Box 11704, Columbia, SC 29211.