Hey there, I am trying to help a friend at work and need a little direction.

He was divorced about six or seven months ago, and his ex-wife has residential custody of the two children. He is paying the standard Illinois child support of 25%. In the parenting agreement, he was to get the kids every other weekend and an extra night during the week. Although this arrangement worked out well at first, there have been a number of changes and now he has the kids almost every weekend, and they seem to be spending more and more time at his home during the week. The change was as a result of his ex-wife changing jobs. His frustration now is that he has to pay the child support, but he seems to be doing most of the child care himself. He was told that he could not revisit the custody for at least two years from the original order. He is keeping track of what days he has the kids and what days she has the kids, but can that be used as evidence in a hearing? What else can he do to prove that the kids are actually residing at his home?

Any suggestions here? When trying to establish that a child is actually spending a majority of their time at the non-custodial parent’s house, what documentation would be helpful in court. Without any documentation, it would just be a he said she said situation.

who takes them to the Dr? which parent's school district are they in? showing he is the primary caregiver will take a lot of witnesses.

If he can't go back to court for 2 years, I recommend that he stick to the agreement.

Then sit down with the ex and explain that if they both want to change the agreement, that's great. But it will be done as quickly and as inexpensively as possible.

Otherwise, the ex needs to look into daycare or a nanny.

He has no intention of breaking the agreement at this point, but when the time comes to reassess the agreement, he wants to make sure he can present his case.

Her new job has her working a third shift from 7 pm to 7am. She works four days a week, but she does not always have the same days off. He still takes the kids every other weekend, but if she has to work on a Friday or Saturday, he will also have them on his off weekend. The end result is that he has the kids four or five nights a week, and most weekends. The biggest problem he has is with the school. He does not live in the same school district as his ex-wife, so he has to drive them to school every day. Since she does not work days, she does pick them up after school, but then he picks them up from her house by 6 so she can then go to work.

If this is going to be the continuing schedule, he would like to enroll them in the schools near his home. Currently, both kids attend the same school, but next year they will be in different schools with different start times.

Assuming your state has some of the same guidelines we do here in NC.........

Has he checked in to shared custody??? It sounds more like neither parent has primary on their own, but in fact are SHARING the responsibilities of being the primary caregiver.....

My suggestion would be that you guys find out if that is an option in your state... and rather than suing for primary/residential caregiver, try to work together for a shared agreement to reflect whats really happening...

God Bless!
Amy