Kimm 0:01 Welcome to Conversations with Kimm. We will be talking about holiday parenting time today. Sarah 0:08 Is there a standard schedule of holiday parenting time in Michigan? Kimm 0:13 There are usually holiday parenting time schedules that are kind of consistent throughout the state of Michigan. Each county may tweak that a little bit to go with what they want. But generally, what it is, is that each parent is rotating holidays, so one would get Memorial Day, Labor Day, you know, Christmas or the first part of Christmas. The other one gets Spring Break, Easter, so they're all split up. Each county kind of may say that the holiday let's say Easter, maybe just a Sunday. You only get the Sunday for that holiday. Where in, like, Hillsdale, you get the entire weekend. So from Friday after school, or 6 p.m., I think it was, till Sunday evening at 6 p.m. Sarah 0:53 Can the holiday parenting time be negotiated or changed? Kimm 0:57 One thing I get a lot is about changing the holiday parenting time. You can obviously negotiate with the other parent how you want to, you know say hey, you know, I know, normally you do Christmas Eve all the time, you don't do Christmas. So can every year you have Christmas Eve and then I do Christmas? Or say you know Grandma wants to take us all on vacation to Disneyland for this Christmas, but it's your time. Would you mind switching? So a parent can modify the parenting times together. The order is kind of the fallback. If you don't agree, then this is what has to happen. So hopefully the parents can get along enough to work what's best for the children. Sarah 1:37 Does holiday parenting time surpass regular parenting time? Kimm 1:42 Some of the biggest issues we have with holiday parenting time versus your standard parenting time, being like your alternate weekends or something, is when they clash. So again, as Easter as an example, one parents that may be their standard weekend where they get Fridays to Sundays. And that's their time on their regular weekend. However, in this incident, like maybe mom has Easter this summer this year. So that would be, she would get Friday after school or at 6pm until Sunday at 6pm. So that would trump dad's time. And so we get a lot of anger issues because now dad's lost this weekend. And that's understandable, but that holiday time trumps that. And so that's taken into consideration with some of the other ones. So some of the other ones have longer time periods that a parent would get. So it's just reading the order and figuring out what's what. Sarah 2:31 What happens if a child does not want to go with the other parent? Kimm 2:37 We have a lot of issues with children, teenagers, mainly that say, "I don't care what you want, I'm not going. I have football, I have a girlfriend, I have a boyfriend, I have dance, I have all of this, I'm not going to parenting time. " Now if you have little kids, it's a lot easier because you can put them in the car, and they're gonna go with the other parent. When you start getting to be that teenage level, you can't physically put a child, especially an older child, into a car because then you run into some possible criminal or child abuse, things of that nature. What usually tends to happen is then the one parent who the children don't want to go with calls the police, then the parent gets upset because the police just say, "Nothing I can do for you. You know, it's a civil matter. You need to take it off with the court. " But what the other parent, the custodial parent, needs to be doing is saying, "yes, you have to go. You need to have that relationship with your mother or your father, that you need to do that, that you should go. That's in your best interest to do that. " They have to facilitate that and tell the children that's what they need to do. You're still the parent. They should still be listening to you, though half the time, you know, get a teenager to listen to. So it's just difficult when that happens and you can contact front of the court because of missed parenting time. It's just difficult to start enforcing something when your children start getting to the age where they have their own mind and don't care what you think. Sarah 4:02 What is the best advice that you can give to parents regarding holiday parenting time? Kimm 4:09 The best advice I can give to a parent as it relates to holiday parenting time is the same as I would tell any parenting time questions is: work together and communicate with the other parent. You guys may hate each other, wish you got hit by the bus, but your children still love that parent, and that's their relationship with the parents. So don't destroy that. It's, work with it. Get over your issues, get past them, yell at the other person, you know when your children are not around, but it's your children. Love them. Let the other parent love them. Sarah 4:40 And what can anyone do if they have questions regarding holiday parenting time? Kimm 4:44 If you have questions regarding holiday parenting time or how to interpret your orders, you can always give my office a call at 797-6021 or you can join us on the web at kburgerlaw.com. Sarah 4:55 Thank you. Kimm 4:56 Thanks.