Help with time calculations?

[Human Way]

If i have my child from friday 3pm till monday at 8am when she goes to school, how many days is that?

I have heard that different judges calculate in different ways.

When Calculating my time do i consider it three days or four?

It makes a difference when calculating the final percentage of time spent.

Thanks.

[sharong593]

If anyone has an answer to this I would like one for me as well but it is friday at 9pm until sunday at 2....I am thinking this is only a day and a half.

[Foredeck]

I've read a few case laws regarding this, and there's no definite answer unfortunatly.

Most judges agree that you shouldn't count hours, some think you count in full days, some count in blocks of half days. I believe that if you have the child for 10 hours, that would be 0.5 days, and if you have him for almost a full 24 hours, that would be 1 day.

Also, some judges say that if you have the child for 39% of the time, it's close enough to 40%. However, there seems to be more precedence for the 40% being a hard limit.

Also, the time at the day care can be tricky. In general terms, you have to see who brings the child to day care, who prepares the lunch and who would stay home if the child was sick. However, some judges just rule it out, and count the 40% of the time for the time that the child is with either the mother or the father.

I personally count the nights, I don't calculate when our daughter was dropped off or when she's at day care. If she spends the night at my place, it's one full day with me. I know that it's not precise, however, I have quite a bit of margin of error, so that it's impossible to calculate that I have her less then 40%.

Hope that helps.

[billiechic]

I would think that since you have 3 nights (F, S, S) and 3 mornings (S, S, M) that it would count as 3 days. That would be the easiest way to count it.

[Human Way]

I guess i have her for ten days. 10 divided by 28 = 35.7% I would need two more days for 40%. 12 divided by 28 = 42.8% This is a monthly calculation. When i add up the summer months, then do the division, the yearly percentage is more like 40%. I would gladly have her 50% of the time, all year. Haggling over a day or two is exhausting.

[Mess]

It's fluid, which is the way it should be, or there would be court cases arguing over 2 hours a week.

The direction the fluid flows should hopefully be based on the intent of the schedule, and the experience of the children. If the children's actual experience and belief is that they have "almost" equal time with each parent and each parent is equally involved with their lives, then the full 16 waking hours each weekend day should count as much as the 4 hours spent together during the week after school and before bedtime.

The child could easily perceive it the other way though, that the 5 weekdays with one parent outweigh the 2 days with the other.

The thing is, you have to be able to sit in front of a judge and articulate these arguments. This is what would push your 35.7% to be viewed more liberally.

I would say, by my calculations, there are 168 hours in a week. 40% would be 67.2. You have them 65 hours, that's 39%. I would then say that those hours are primarily waking hours where you have actual one-on-one time with kids non-stop, while during the week the other parent is mainly spending an hour in the morning and 4-5 in evening in actual parenting time.

Now, if I was on the other end, I'd argue it differently. But you have to make your case and sell your time with kids as quality time. In this case, you are shooting for shared parenting, not full custody, so I think the interpretation should more liberal. The experience the children have is that they have significant time with you, you are actually raising them and involved with them, you are not trying to take full custody away from their other parent, just acknowledge that the reality is you are sharing the responsibilities of raising them equally.

and edit to add, on Mondays if she were sick, would you not keep her home with you? Or would you call her mom to stay home with her and drop her off? Make as many arguments as you can.

[Human Way]

Thanks mess. I am currently typing out my agruements, and trying to get the ex to meet with me before this all goes down. The advice on here is great.

I was wondering if any one has ever used a Parenting Time Calendar software. Here is a link to one example Parenting Time Calendar Review by April Bowen

I wonder if they are helpful or a waste. Yes im still doing the old fashion way, paper - pencil.

[Mess]

Honestly I can't see the point of it. First, like we already mentioned, there is no firm way to analyse how time is shared. In one situation your weekend sched would be considered more time, another judge in another situation might say less. So the way this software calculates time doesn't necessarily help you.

Second, and maybe you haven't run into this yet depending on the child's age, but you are going to run into issues like sports teams, music or swimming lessons etc, that one parent or the other will participate in. Perhaps you would like to coach the sports team during the week. Perhaps your ex used compete in a certain sport and she wants to take her to practice on the weekend. You should be able to modify your schedule according to your child's needs FIRST, and worry about the access levels later. You can always swap a day or have a make-up day.

Something that worked reasonably well for us the first year was to set up a Google account (ie Mess_Family@....) where we both had the password. We then set up the homepage with Google calendar and put in the kid's schedules.

You can set up email reminders for certain events or changes (long weekend, etc) and be able to download it to your computer. Now, yes, either of you can mess it up, but it forms a decent historical record of your access, if you need to look back and say "I had her for every long weekend".

You can set up the schedule as blocks of time across the week, so it shows in a solid coloured bar which house she is at and what the switch-off time is. Looking at the time blocks like that, it was obvious to us that the kids were in one parent or the other's care during the day when they were at school, the switch off was after school because that was how we arranged sick-days and holidays.

We used the email address as the main one for the school, parent/teacher mails, newsletters, etc so that we both got the emails. You can set it to leave the mail on the server and forward incoming mail to your personal accounts.

Eventually we stopped using it, just because we weren't fighting over the schedules at all and it got so routine. But it was very helpful the first year when we were getting used to things.

As far as totaling up percentages, you have to either negotiate and agree, or make your pitch to a judge. Once you have a system, just use a calculator and total the hours. If the judge says you are over or under 40%, just agree and deal with it, neither of you should worry if one parent goes over one week every now and then. There is a point where you need to stop challenging each other and co-operate with the system you agree on.

BTW I love blurbs on the ad for the software:

Give Your Ex a Custody Calendar and S/he Will Never Show Up Late Again!

If only it were that easy!

[Human Way]

thanks mess. i love the google calendar idea. That would work great for us, as we always have to find to meet to sort it out on paper. This way we could up date it continually. good stuff.

[DADCANTWIN]

Help with time calculations?

Well! This is how it went down for me. As far as hourly "time" it worked out to be 47.5/52.5% in my EX's favour. Basically. She has them M,T,W till 2:50pm when I pick up the kids from school. I have them W,T,F til 5pm and we alternate weekend. My weekend then becomes W,T,F,S,S til 4pm. Its pretty close to 50/50 as you can get. HOWEVER, the judge ruled that it is really ONLY 6 out of 14 nights (43.? %) This leaves me open to exposure to unilateral support because of some Supreme Court decision. (I can find the case for you if you like) SO, would you like 15 mins to think about it he says to the amazement of my lawyer as well as myself. My EXs lawyer INSTANTLY demands double the CS I was required to pay according to the tables. There was NO choice at that point in time. DOUBLE was still better than FULL . Not to mention the risk of court cost at a trial. The irony is that she can make $80K IF she worked F/T but only wants to work 4 days. Why not , I supplement the 5th day so why bother working. Tell me the system is fair.. LOL! Its only money. Good Luck my friend

[dadtotheend]

This just underscores that when it comes to the 60/40 split there is lots of discretion as to how the split is measured. Both sides can make an argument when time is at the margin, but it will basically be up to the judge that you get.

If you are in case/settlement/trial management conference, where you are not required, except by the judges coercion, to agree, you can put it off until the next conference, when you might get a more sympathetic judge.

Every time you're in a conference, the presiding judge is excluded from making a ruling in a motion or at trial. So you won't have to deal with that person if/when the chips are down and a ruling will be made

So if you don't like the way the judge is leaning in a conference, you don't have to go there. You politely but firmly reserve your rights and move on. Call it judge shopping.

Of course, that does have a way of keeping you in the cesspool.

[billiechic]

DTTE, what are you saying here? That if the judge is not advocating something you can agree to then keep your mouth shut and wait for the next step?

Just want a little clarification.

[Nathank]

New post

Hey Just wondering how to make a new post....my problem is...my ex ask our Day care provider if she could "doctor her reciepts" to make it look like she was paying more for daycare, so that I would have to pay her more....The day care lady told her she would not do it and that she will no longer be caring for our daughter because she is sick of my ex trash talking me infront of our daughter (the daycare lady phone my wife today and told her all of this) My ex told me that the daycare lady was not watching ANY children anymore because she was trying to start her own business. So basically lies on top of lies....so what should I do knowing my ex is trying to make me pay more then I have to by way of fraud? Other background info.....I have shared custody 50/50 and I already pay her $912.00 a month for child support and 75% of extra and Daycare....

PLEASE HELP!

[dadtotheend]

DTTE, what are you saying here? That if the judge is not advocating something you can agree to then keep your mouth shut and wait for the next step?

Just want a little clarification.

Kinda. If it's anything that results in an "order on consent" arising from a conference, then either party doesn't have to feel compelled to agree and worry about a significant order being made, whether it's for SS, CS, custody, access, equalization or divorce.

Think about the conferences with which you've been involved. It's almost always an order on consent of the parties. The parties are (sometimes heavily, sometimes coerced) influenced by the judge. But you are not obliged to agree after his/her honour sends you out to the hall to agree "or else".

[billiechic]

I havent been to any case conferences yet, but I think I understand. Anyway, I retained a lawyer today so hopefully I will not make any decisions without support of my lawyer.