Trying to figure out the most child-focused custody arrangement that you can? While it may be unconventional, you may want to consider “birdnesting.”
To do this, parents are the ones who change where they live every so often, not children. The children always stay in the same home. In some cases, the parents have just one secondary home as well, and they trade it back and forth. Other parents will each have their own secondary homes that they do not share.
The upsides here include the fact that children are often happier, more comfortable and less stressed if they don’t have to move. It gives them some consistency in life and the children know where “their” home is, rather than feeling like they live in two places. It’s often much easier on them.
Sometimes, this works out easily considering the assets the parents own. For example, a husband and wife may own a primary residence and a beach house in California. When they split up, if they want to share custody equally, the wife may decide to live with the children, in the primary home, for the first week. The husband simply lives alone in the beach house. After the week is up, the wife moves out to the beach house and the husband moves into the primary home for the next week.
This can also make the property division process easier since the parents share the costs and don’t have to sell either one of the homes.
An arrangement like this isn’t going to work in every situation, but it shows just how important it is to really look into all of your options.
Source: Psychology Today, “”Bird’s Nest” Co-Parenting Arrangements,” Edward Kruk Ph.D., accessed May 05, 2016