Custody Agreements for Toddlers and Young Children—Protection and Predictions

When parents divorce or separate, it can have a profound effect on their child. Young children don’t completely understand the reason why their parents are fighting and not living together anymore. They may even blame themselves or think they did something wrong to cause the separation.

Although you may be caught up in your own stress and frustration with the situation, you should make an extra effort to consider your child’s feelings and protect them.

Creating an effective custody agreement is a good way to take care of your child’s needs.

Most custody agreements for young children contain verbiage that prohibits the parents from making negative or disparaging remarks about each other in front of the child. This is included because it is in a child’s best interest to protect them from hearing damaging things about his or her parents.

You should never talk negatively about the other parent in front of your child and you should never tell a child anything bad about the other parent. Telling your child that “Daddy was too busy to come today because he is a jerk” doesn’t hurt your ex. It devastates your child.

Instead of bad-mouthing the other parent, you might say something such as, “Daddy loves you so much and he is so sad that he can’t come today. He says he can’t wait to see you next time.”

Children believe what they are told and they view the world from their own perspective. You should make every effort to protect your child from feeling as if the other parent has left because of something the child did or the other parent didn’t come for a visit because the child was “bad”. No child should be led to believe they have a “bad mommy” because it only makes them feel as if they did something wrong to make her that way.

You should also make sure that other people (such as family members and friends) also adhere to the policy of refraining from speaking ill of the other parent.

Children should always be told and assured that both parents love them. This should be done by BOTH parents. “Mommy and I love you so much!” is something a child needs to hear, and needs to believe.

When you make positive comments about the other parent in front of or to your child, you reinforce positive beliefs. This will make your child feel better about the situation and have a better sense of self.

Besides protecting your child from disparaging remarks, a custody agreement should also contain an effective method for modifying the plan.

The needs of children change as they develop and grow. The needs of a toddler are much different from the needs of a high school student. Therefore, your toddler custody agreement will be much different from the custody agreement for an older child.

Your custody agreement should grow with your child and should contain age-appropriate visitation schedules and provisions.

You should always consider what is best for you child when making your custody arrangements and in everyday life. Children of divorce grow up with a much better perspective when they have parents that had the foresight to predict their changing needs and protect them from emotional harm.