Describe the situation or problem.
When my ex-husband and I separated, neither of us felt it was fair for the other to have an "every other weekend and half the summer" kind of relationship with the kids, so we agreed to sharing custody by having the kids live in each of our homes for a week at a time.

What advice can you offer?
It turned out that a week was not enough time for our children to accustom themselves to the differences in household styles, and so we all felt constantly disrupted. After a few months of this arrangement we agreed we had to lengthen the amount of time the kids spent in each home. Our next attempt was for a week and a half at a time in each home, but that quickly proved disastrous, since the kids were changing "home cultures" during the middle of the school week. So we then changed to two weeks in each house at a time. There have been times when we have had to alter the amount of time in one house or the other in order to accommodate specific phases one or the other child was going through.

Please add any additional comments or suggestions.
The most important consideration in keeping this system working for each and every one of us has been allowing the kids to feel free to come and go between the homes as they needed to. (A visit to one parent during time with the other has never been forbidden; forgotten items or lost mittens are easily retrieved and each of us has been willing to run over to the other house for those purposes as needed so that the kids would feel it was a natural and accepted thing.) The kids have grown to feel their time in each of the homes is sacred, and now that they're old enough to be home alone they usually choose not to visit the other parent if their home parent is out for the evening or working late, although this was usual when they were smaller.

We have felt that by having two separate homes in this way our children have grown to understand differences between people in a way they might not have if they lived exclusively with one parent. Our home cultures are very different, mine more structured but less traditional, their dad's much less structured than mine, but far more traditional. These differences don't bother our children, we feel because they had equal time with each.

This advice is most appropriate for parents with children in...
Preschool and Younger
Elementary School
Middle School
High School & Beyond