My Girls Are 13 And 15. I Have Custody Of 1, My X Of Another. They R Busy And B/c My X Is A ***** We "have" To Have "visitation" Papers To "go" By.so What Kind Of Visitation Does Everyone Have Out There For Teens?

that is a really tough one, especially when they get to be involved in activities that require rehearsals, practices, sometimes last-minute notice, etc.

My teen (14) resides with me (I have custody). Two things we've done. When her dad lived close (10 min drive away), we kept the standard every-other weekend visitation. The catch was that he had to take her to all her scheduled activities just as I would if she were with me. If she had early morning rehearsal on Sat. morn, he had to take her. If she had dance pictures on Sat. afternoon, he had to take her. Basically, her life didn't revolve around our visitation schedule, we just took turns being the parent in charge. Then when he moved 350 miles away, visitation was different. What we did then was I allowed him to pick any weekend visits that he could drive up and get her, and usually that involved a long weekend (labor day, fall break, etc.), as long as she didn't have anything she was required to be at for her sports or other activities. If she did have a competition or something on one of those weekends, I would invite him to come up and attend her activity/performance, and give him the option to pick a different weekend that she is free. In the summer we had to arrange time around her activities. Some people would argue that this wasn't fair (he did). But to interupt her acitvities for one weekend, or one week out of the summer could mean getting kicked off a team.

SO, it really had to be flexible. However, we did run into the same problem where there were too many fights, so we had to have a schedule to stick to in order to try and eliminate fights. What I would do is set a schedule based on what we knew at the time, then if something had to change I'd let him know as far in advance as possible. I always make sure that if a weekend that was supposed to be his visitation is interupted that he gets to pick a different one instead. But when he lived close, it was easy. All it was is who is in charge of the child - whoever had visitation is the one who stuck to her schedule as needed.

I hope that helps some for you. Good luck!

You seem to work very well with your x thanks for your reply.