need help with summer vacation issues
:?
this is our first summer using the Indiana Parenting Guidelines, as the BM of SS5 was previously "unfit", and here's the question:
she is supposed to have him 1/2 the summer, but scheduled a vacation during our 1/2, and is trying to twist our arms into letting her take him on vacation during our 1/2 of the summer. we normally would be fine with just changing who has what 1/2, but by the Parenting Guidelines, she is supposed to have him for some holidays and we are supposed to have him for others. we chose to give her the 1/2 that would include those holidays she would get by the Guidelines standards.
so what is the solution? just bend over backwards to give a crappy BM a vacation during OUR time, or stick it to her and say that if she wants to take him on vacation, it has to be on her time?
thank you!
If you ever want to abide by
If you ever want to abide by the actual guideline, then you need to start doing it now. If you bend the rules and switch now, it'll only get worse. She knew her dates for summer and still planned a vacation. Sorry. That was her mistake. I would stick with the guidelines and tell her that that is your time and no you can't switch. I would also follow it to he tee as long as you can before ever switching dates and holidays. She needs to learn to follow the schedule first.
Isnt the ncp supposed to
Isnt the ncp supposed to choose the summer time? Instead of your dh choosing what half she is supposed to have?
I am usually all for following the guidelines-but what is the purpose here? You are not bending over backwards to give BM a crappy vacation-you would be bending over backwards to give your skid a vacation-crappy or not. If you had planned a vaca yourself during that exact time I could see why you might say no-but it sounds as if you are just saying no because u feel like it? Does she have a significant hx of taking advantage of you guys when you are flexible with her? Can you just add a week on to your time somewhere else if you dont want her to have any more time than it dictated by the guidelines?
IDK-that's just my take on it-speaking from experience it is hard for anyone to strictly follow the guidelines at all times. One day you might need some flexibility as well.
I think because whoever gets
I think because whoever gets first half of summer gets certain holidays during the year and whoever gets second half gets the other holidays. I think op is worried that by switching summer times then bm would expect he other holidays to be switched too. And even if they had a verbal agreement to only switch summer times and not holidays how well do those things usually go? I don't think she is doing it to be spiteful.
the ncp may chose her 1/2 up
the ncp may chose her 1/2 up until April 1 of the current year, after that, it is the cp's choice
So did she choose her half by
So did she choose her half by April 1 or did you guys choose?
we chose after the deadline
we chose after the deadline came and went with no decision from BM
So did you guys call her up
So did you guys call her up on 4/2 and tell her what part of the summer she was getting? So did she plan a vacation just recently and had not yet talked to you about it yet? Look, this shouldnt be a big deal. Yes, there is a 4/1 deadline-but is there a reason that it can't be changed? It's not like this has been the schedule for months and you and your dh have been counting on having this specific time and have made all these plans already. It was just 4/9 when you posted.
My guess is there is no significant reason you dont want to change with her-you just dont. Because she did not follow the court order to a T and tell you by 4/1. I suspect this as we've tried to do the same thing to bm. She didnt tell us by 4/1-guess what? I divvied up the summer in a way that was convenient to ME. She didnt like it as it didnt work with some of her plans. Dh reminded her of the 4/1 date and she said she didnt care. In the end we did end up giving in to her-because she wanted to take him somewhere as well-her plans didnt interfere with ours we were just being butts.
If she is totally unworkable, has a hx of messing with you and skid and changing plans for years-I guess i can understand why you might want to stick to the court order, but it really does sound more as if you just want to stick it to her.
well, if we move the break to
well, if we move the break to when it's convenient for her, it screws with the calendar of cp/ncp holidays, and basically just makes things more complicated than necessary and i see no reason to complicate everything because she didn't do her homework.
also, yes, i would like to stick it to her a bit. this is the first summer this arrangement is in place, as SS5 was removed from her care and custody after CPS was called and numerous narcotics were found in his system. also, endangerment, abuse, and neglect were documented by the system. she spent almost a year in jail, in an unrelated fashion, right after the removal. i don't think it's so much to ask that she follow the rules. clearly, it's a lesson she's yet to learn.
How does it mess with
How does it mess with holidays? Holiday time trumps everything-so if you are supposed to have 4th of July-you get it no matter who has physical custody of the skid at the moment? Is there a big distance between you guys that would make this impractical?
I do understand your desire to stick it to her, been there done that-it's just not going to change anything, ya know? She is still probably going to be a crappy bm, but if you dont let her take him on vaca she is just going to be a crappy bm with an axe to grind which will make it worse on all of you-as I promise you, at some point, you will need some flexibility in return.
I believe the IN guidelines
I believe the IN guidelines states that the ncp can choose dates that they want for summer visitation as long as they notify the other parent by either 4/1 or 4/15. Holidays are spelled out specifically with ncp getting certain holidays one year and cp getting them the next-it doesnt have anything to do with summer time.
It sounded to me that they gave her the half of the summer that included her holiday (like maybe Memorial Day) and they took the half that included theirs (maybe 7/4). Holiday time trumps everything. So even if they have July 4th and that is the ncp's part of summer visit-the cp would still get to get the child for the July 4th holiday.
So I'm not sure what the issue is. I know there was a time when we were very inflexible with bm (who was ncp at the time) and truthfully it WAS out of spite and because she had a huge hx of being late, trying to switch things around,etc so we felt justified in enforcing the guidelines. But looking back it was really just because we were pissy. We didnt let ss go on an out of town trip with her one time, because she was leaving a day prior to th beginning of her visitation time and wouldnt be able to get him back until a day later (this was during the summer). I look back now and realize we just cheatd him out of time with that part of his family (which he longed for so very much that he ended up making our lives hell until he got his way and got moved up there with bm). He lived with us full time-so what if she had him two extra days? I'm sure she would have even traded those days some other time had we asked her to.
The past 3.5 years the shoe has been on the other foot and she has had custody. My dh has been full time military and his scheduled is decided by the Army-they dont give a rat's ass about any guidelines-I guess bm could have been a real ass to dh and not let him get him as he couldnt pick ss up at 6pm eowe-sometimes he picked him up at 10pm, sometimes on Saturday morning, sometimes not at all. He was to have half the summer last year and she did get a little pissy because he didnt tell her his dates by April 1st. He kept explaining to her that he couldnt-he actually was having surgery and was going to get 4 weeks of convalescent leave and was going to take ss then. He didnt schedule his own surgery it wasnt up to him. She threatened that she wouldnt let ss come at all or she would just chose whatever dates were convenient to her (I think she was desperate for a break). He told her to go ahead and chose away but that it was meaningless and that if she really wanted to keep ss from him to go ahead but the person she'd be hurting would be ss. She finally relented and dh took him when he could.
I am just suggesting that sometimes it is ok to think about the best interest of the skid. Sometimes it is ok to be nice. Sometimes those things even pay off in the long run.
I would have her dad take out
I would have her dad take out the agreement and read it very carefully line-by-line. Then I would do exactly what that agreement says. To prevent hurt feelings, your DH could just say, "Look BM...this is the first summer we've done this. I think it's important that we stick to the court ordered agreement this year".
Neither my DH and his ex, nor me and my ex even look at our agreements anymore. We are flexible. We compromise. And we work around each other's schedules. But it wasn't always like that. For at least the first five years or so, we stuck to the agreements.
In IN the ncp has a deadline
In IN the ncp has a deadline to let the cp know when they plan to exercise their time. If they don't elect then the CP can go ahead and dictatae times.
The quideline says half of the break and you can break that up however you want - split the week- every other week. It doesn't say that it is consecutive weeks.