A parenting schedule designed for two nearby homes may stop working after a military reassignment. Alternating weekends can become expensive, exhausting, or impossible when parents live across the country.
The solution is a specific, child-focused plan. “Reasonable visitation by agreement” often leaves too much uncertainty when travel, leave approval, and school schedules must be coordinated months ahead.
Rutter recognizes that distance may justify longer but less frequent visits. Summer, winter break, spring break, and alternating holidays can provide meaningful time without repeated school-week travel.
The appropriate length depends on the child’s age, relationship with each parent, needs, safety, and ability to tolerate travel and separation. No parent automatically receives a particular number of summer weeks because of military service or distance.
For some families, a three- or four-week summer block is a useful proposal. For a very young child or a strained parent-child relationship, a different plan may be needed. The reasons should be explained rather than assuming one schedule fits every family.
Specify when summer dates must be requested, which parent has priority in alternating years, and how school obligations affect the selection. Address what happens if military leave is approved late or duty orders change.
Holiday periods should have identifiable start and end points. “Half of Christmas” can produce disputes over flights and exchanges; a defined school-break segment is easier to administer.
Remote contact should also be practical. Provide suitable windows, account for time zones, and avoid using calls to intrude on the other parent’s time or expose the child to adult conflict.
Identify who books tickets, acceptable airports, accompaniment requirements, exchange responsibility, and allocation of travel expenses. Address missed flights, cancellations, and notice of changes.
The order should not rely on either parent having access to military transportation that may not be available. Nor should it assume a young child can travel alone simply because a carrier offers that option.
A permanent reassignment and a temporary deployment can require different orders. Deployment protections and return procedures should not be lost inside a general long-distance clause.
A proposal for four summer weeks still leaves questions: consecutive or divided weeks, selection dates, school commitments, and travel time. If both parents want the same holiday period, the order needs a priority rule rather than an expectation that they will resolve the same dispute each year.
An illustrative plan might alternate selection priority annually and require proposed summer dates far enough ahead to investigate travel. The exact deadlines and length should fit the child, the school calendar, and the member’s actual leave constraints. This is a drafting example, not a standard military entitlement.
Travel can make a facially generous schedule impossible to exercise. Identify realistic airports, ticket costs, accompaniment requirements, and who advances expenses. A parent should know whether a missed flight creates an obligation to rebook, reimburse, or give prompt notice.
Remote contact also needs realistic boundaries. Calls should support the relationship without interrupting school or turning the child into a monitor of the other home. A missed call during a genuine duty restriction should be handled through a workable alternative rather than an automatic accusation.
Parents cannot anticipate every delayed leave approval or cancelled flight. They can agree on a method for notice, a response period, and how a proposed adjustment will be documented.
The plan should give each parent a usable baseline and protect the child from being placed in the middle. Edgar & Dow can help frame a proposal around the family’s actual travel and duty circumstances, rather than an impressive schedule that neither parent can carry out.
A useful order identifies how much notice is reasonably possible, how the other parent receives it, and how proposed replacement time will be discussed. It should also address who bears avoidable and unavoidable travel costs when plans change.
The answer need not be identical for every event. A cancelled flight and a documented duty change can create different practical problems. Clear procedures allow the parents to respond without reopening every part of the parenting schedule.
The child should receive a consistent explanation appropriate to age. The adults should handle the scheduling disagreement directly, rather than ask the child to negotiate replacement time or deliver complaints.
A plan that anticipates change can still provide predictability. The baseline schedule gives the child dependable contact; the change procedure deals with the exceptions. That combination is more useful than either a rigid schedule that cannot be followed or an undefined promise to arrange visits later.
Official sources · California Courts guide to moving with a child
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