Navigating school-year extracurricular activities as a co-parent?
Turn to the 5 W’s for guidance.
By Katie Lin Daly
Transitioning from summer to school is always a bit difficult, and it can be even more so when you’re in a co-parenting relationship. Whether this is the first school year you’re parenting separately, or you’re a tenured professional, it never hurts to study up on the provisions that touch on school and extracurricular activities.
In back-to-school spirit, let’s discuss the who, what, where, when, why, and how of custody and school-year activities. Your reading assignments are your custody order/agreement and your support order/agreement (which I’ll call documents for the sake of brevity).
As a caveat, this article will speak in generalities. Every family is different and will have unique circumstances that color what is best for that family. If your parenting situation requires more care and attention than generalities provide, you should speak with a family law attorney.
WHO
Who can make decisions about enrollment in activities? Your custody document should include a determination of “legal custody.” Legal custody is the ability of one party or parent to make important decisions for a child, including medical, religious, and educational decisions.
If your custody document says that you have sole legal custody, you are the one to make the decisions. Likewise, if your custody document provides the other party with sole legal custody, it’s their call.
If your custody document gives all parties “shared legal custody,” no one can make unilateral decisions for the child – all decisions need to be shared. If you have shared legal custody and want to enroll your kiddo in an activity and the other party does not, you may need the court to intervene to make the decision.
What is slightly less common is that one party has sole legal custody for only certain types of decisions. If, for example, you have sole legal custody for medical decisions, you would still need to make educational decisions with your co-parent.
Who pays for activities? Your support document should address how the costs for extracurricular activities are shared. Usually, the costs for agreed-upon activities are divided by the same percentage as unreimbursed medical expenses, which are calculated using the ratio of both parents’ income to their combined income.
If your kiddo is in an activity with regular and predictable costs, that expense may already be built into your support order. Your document may break down the monthly payment amount into components (i.e., $Z, which includes $Y base support and $X for baseball). If the activity cost is built into the support amount, then the party receiving support would pay the full cost to the provider.
When an extracurricular cost is not built into the support amount, the support document should specify the percentage breakdown for agreed-upon or specified extracurricular activities. Check the wording of your support document to see if both parents are to pay those costs directly to the provider or if the parent who enrolls in the activity pays up front to be reimbursed later.
Regardless of the payment scenario, it’s a good idea to keep receipts and invoices for your kids’ expenses.
Who is responsible for transportation/attendance? Let’s say the parents agree that little Timmy will participate in karate every Saturday. Under the custody document, the parents alternate weekends. Who takes Timmy to karate?
Your custody document might say that the parent with custody is responsible for ensuring that the kids get to their activities, or it might say that the parent who enrolled the child will take them.
Generally, unless provided otherwise, all parties should have the opportunity to attend practices, meets, games, etc., when appropriate.
WHAT
What types of activities are considered? I’ll borrow a definition from the support guidelines: activities that are “related to the child’s educational, extracurricular, or developmental activities” and “reasonable under the parties’ circumstances.”
Using this definition, “extracurriculars” might include sports, teams, clubs, groups, troops, classes, tutoring, etc. There are also overlaps between what might constitute an educational activity (tutoring, school clubs) and a religious activity (CCD, Hebrew school). Keep in mind that if either parent has sole legal custody for education, for example, educational extracurriculars would be their sole decision, but sports may not fall under the same umbrella.
You’ll also want to consider the costs of activities. If two parents make $20/hour and work full-time, $2,000/month horseback riding is not going to be considered reasonable. However, if both parents are independently wealthy and a child has been taking private tennis lessons for 10 years, it is likely that that expense will be considered reasonable.
Beyond costs, the nature of the activity is also important to consider. Girl Scouts? Probably reasonable. Kiddie fight club? Probably not. Additionally, the court will generally look at whether the child has done the activity before and the child’s preference as a way to determine the appropriateness.
Generally, it’s good for kids to be involved in activities outside of the classroom. Extracurricular activities can be an ally in every sense of the word and help them developmentally, socially, academically, mentally, emotionally, and in many other ways. (Pun intended!)
WHERE
Where will activities be enrolled in? When parents live in different school districts, it can be difficult to determine when certain extracurricular activities will take place. It is easy enough to say that your child will play baseball through school, but if your kiddo is in a travel league or a club team, which travel league or club team should they join?
If your custody document is silent as to the where, use logistics to guide you: activities that occur right after school might be near school, and activities that occur on parent #1’s custodial day might be closer to parent #1’s home.
WHEN
When (which days) do activities happen? This is discussed a bit above regarding transportation, but parents should be cognizant of what your custody document says and both parents’ schedules when enrolling in activities.
To use the Timmy example above, if one parent only has custody every other Saturday and karate is on Saturdays, it might not be appropriate to enroll Timmy in karate if it will take up most of that parent’s custodial day. On the other hand, if Susie wants to take a pottery class on Wednesday, and one parent has a dinner visit on Wednesdays, that might be a good opportunity to participate together and refuel afterwards. A good general rule to follow is that if one parent is the one who suggests an activity, they should schedule it during their custodial time.
HOW
How do you communicate about activities? Sorry to repeat this again, but you may find this information in your custody document. You may be required to agree to certain activities in writing, and there may be a time frame for responses about enrollment.
If you communicate with your co-parent using an app like Our Family Wizard or AppClose, use that app to discuss enrollment, schedules, games/meets, and even costs.
If you don’t use a co-parenting app, texts and emails can usually satisfy a requirement that requests be in writing. Outside of co-parenting apps, using a shared calendar can be an easy way to communicate the scheduling side of activities for co-parents, other adult parties (step-parents, grandparents, and childcare providers, for example) and even for older kiddos.
WHY
You may have noticed we went out of order here. The most important thing to remember when dealing with anything involving custody of your child/children is that the why should be in their best interests.
Whether enrolling kids in an activity that will benefit them physically, mentally, emotionally, socially and academically, or simply minimizing conflict between you and your co-parent, try to keep their best interests top of mind.
If your custody order/agreement or support order/agreement does not answer any of these questions, or if the answers need to change, it may be time to reevaluate.
Do you have questions about interpreting your custody agreement regarding activities or other issues? Think it may need to be modified, your homework assignment is to reach out to a member of our family law team or contact the office directly at 215.362.2474.