If you’re a parent navigating summer, you know that the buildup to it — finding summer camps, paying for summer camps, and getting kids excited about those summer camps — can be exhausting. But once you’ve got them there, summer can be a more relaxed time for everyone in the family. It’s not that time moves slower, necessarily, but without school in session, and with vacation part of many families’ summer plans — not to mention literally longer days around the summer solstice — it’s a natural time for a reset before the hustle and bustle of the school year arrives in fall.
School is out, mornings are less rushed, evenings stretch long into daylight, and kids tend to be less stressed out from their school year routines of juggling homework and extracurricular activities.
So, if you’re a parent contemplating divorce, starting the process and preparing your children for it in summer could be the best time of the year to do so.
Divorce occurs to a number of couples when the weather turns warmer, as it turns out. A recent New York Post article, citing an app called SplitUp, made the case that according to data culled from the last five years, Google searches for divorce lawyers tend to spike as summer approaches.
“To have a good separation [for married couples], divorcing in summer helps ease the transition for children and reduce disruption. As they break up from school, there’s time to deal with emotions and get used to new living arrangements before returning,” said Dr. Danielle Forshee, a psychiatrist the Post quoted in its story.
In other words, kids have more time and space to process the realities of divorce in the slower, summer pace, so by the time they go back to school, and get into that routine, they’re not wrestling with the fresh prospect of change and disruption — everyone has time to process what might change before all the change and activity that a new school year can bring.
With school out, and with a number of workplaces lightening their loads, daily routines are less rigid for both parents and children. That also makes it easier for parents to do what they need to do to get started on a divorce — initial consultations with attorneys, gathering financial documents, conferring with each other about post-divorce parenting plans.
In fact, some people who decide to divorce at the start of the year or in the spring might just be looking to get through the end of the school year to have the mental space that the summer break provides. And strategically, if you’re planning to sell a shared house as part of the process, summer is a good time to either get the house ready or put it on the market.
Summer is also an ideal time, if you’re far enough along in the process to where one of you has gotten their own place, to try out different parenting time schedules. Whether it’s having kids go between the house and the new place or “birdnesting” (where the kids stay home and parents swap between the house and the new place), you can see whether standard parenting plans or alternate parenting plans (like a 5-5-2-2) work better for your kids.
Whether you’re ready to start planning divorce now, while we’re in the midst of summer, or prefer to use the time now to prepare for divorce later in the year, the Law Office of Lisa A. Vance is available to get you started. With an initial consultation, we can determine the best option for your divorce — based on what you and your children need, and then we’ll be with you to see you through to plan the best post-divorce life possible.