The addresses and contact information of you and your co-parent will no doubt change over the course of raising your child. As a single parent, it’s important that you have the ability to contact the other parent at any time. As such, any changes to one parent’s contact information need to be given to the other parent as soon as possible.
To ensure that this takes place, the parents may want to include the following provisions in their parenting plan:
- The parents agree that if their contact information should change, such as their cellphone numbers, their email addresses or their physical addresses, they will tell the other parent and provide the new contact information within at least seven days.
- The parents agree to keep the following contact information current between them at all times: residential addresses, work addresses, mailing addresses, home phone numbers, cellphone numbers and work phone numbers.
- Both parents agree that they will not harass one another with the contact information they have. In other words, they cannot invade the peace of the other parent, nor invade the other parent’s privacy. Furthermore, they cannot use the contact information to harass, annoy or disturb the other parent.
An intelligently planned parenting agreement will safeguard the parents and children from disagreements and lack of clarity as the child grows and matures. However, because most newly single parents have never created a parenting plan before, it can be easy to overlook important factors like the need to maintain up-to-date contact information. Therefore, all parents should familiarize themselves with example plans and example provisions to ensure their parenting agreements meet the specific needs of their families.
Source: CustodyXChange, “Parenting Guidelines,” accessed June 08, 2018
