Dedicated Criminal Defense & Family Law Representation

Colorado allows parents with shared decision-making responsibility to access information about their children. Any parenting plan must require parents to give each other contact information for educators, doctors, therapists, religious authorities, babysitters, or any other service provider. It also requires each parent to execute forms that would allow the other parent to access relevant information as well. Parents should try to anticipate the issues that are likely to arise in making future decisions. For example, parents of different faiths who are divorcing should anticipate that a major question likely to arise is what faith and religious tradition the children will follow. Similarly, if one parent wants the children to attend private school, this can be decided at the time of divorce. If one parent hates guns, and the other is a hunter who wants to take the kids hunting, the issue of firearms training might come up. Other issues that can be anticipated are when the kids get to start dating or driving. A sound parenting plan will consider the probability that at some point divorced parents will disagree about child-rearing. The plan should include a process for resolving the dispute, so that the court need not be accessed for minor disputes. For example, the process could be to consult a neutral third party, like an arbitrator or mediator. Or the court might give one parent ultimate decision-making authority.