Thankfully for modern co-parents, staying connected with a child who isn’t residing with you at the moment is easier in the Digital Age than it has ever been before. Numerous technological innovations allow parents and their kids to connect regardless of how far apart they are physically.
Virtual visitation is the formalization of a parent’s right to connect with their child while their child is residing with their other parent. Including visitation terms in a parenting plan can allow both parents to benefit from communication opportunities whenever their child is residing elsewhere.
Crafting a workable approach
If the idea of integrating virtual visitation terms into your parenting plan intrigues you, keep in mind that you’ll need to craft a schedule and an approach that works for everyone. Don’t, for example, insist that you will speak to your child every Thursday at 6 p.m. if your child is involved in a lot of extracurricular activities. Being this specific with your scheduling could lead to a lot of conflicts.
Phrasing scheduling terms in ways that set clear – yet flexible – expectations tends to work best. For example, you could agree that you’ll speak with your child on Thursday evenings at 6 p.m. unless both parents have agreed upon an alternative time no later than the previous day.
If you and your co-parent can agree on virtual visitation terms that will work for both of you and for your child, you can seek legal guidance to integrate these mutually-agreeable terms into a parenting plan draft or execute a modification to an existing order. If your co-parent is resistant to the idea of virtual visitation but you believe that adding this arrangement to your family’s co-parenting approach would be in your child’s best interests, you can ask the court to honor your parental rights in this way.
