A custody journal can be a helpful tool for you if you anticipate having a custody issue with your spouse. Keeping track of your time spent with a child, as wells as documenting discussions with the other parent regarding children’s issues, can prove an invaluable tool. As discussed below, the information kept in a custody journal can help you help your attorney during the original case, as well as in the event you have to go back to court to seek help in spending time with your child.
What to Write in the Custody Journal
The basic idea of a custody journal is to keep track or record of information all in one place as it happens. It is the contemporaneous record keeping that will help your case, not the rushed summary you can try to come up with as you are headed into custody litigation. Rushed summaries written just before a hearing or trial in a custody issue are fraught with danger because you may be confused or misremember anything that may have happen further back in time.
What you write in a custody journal – as it happens – can and should include your timesharing or visitation with a child, obviously. But also important dates, discussions you may have had with the other parent or persons who have a role in your child’s life, tracking behavior patterns of the child as well as of the other parent, etc.
Writing entries as they happen also has the benefit of providing a chronological order of the events in your journal.
The second important concept to keep in mind is for your entries to be written in neutral language and not language that disparages the other parent. Keep in mind that if your attorney is able to introduce any part of your journal as evidence, they will have to introduce it as is, with no corrections/rewriting to the content or it will lose all effectiveness. Descriptions of the other parent should be respectful and simply a matter of fact. For example, they are “Mother” or “Father” not “that SOB” or like language.
Benefits of Keeping a Paper Custody Journal
Keeping a paper journal as opposed to a digital has several benefits.
First, you can easily provide information to your attorney during your case. This will make it a matter of simply copying the journal and provide it to your attorney. On your attorney’s side, it may be easier for them to use the information to present your case, and may even be appropriate to introduce portions of the journal into evidence, should they be determine that this is what they want to do.
Second, by keeping a paper journal, you gain a sense of control over the situation. This results from you actually doing the record-keeping as it happens as well as being able to have information handy when you need it.
Third, these journals can be read by parenting investigators, for example, as part of their investigation. It can present your case more succinctly to the investigator and provide a historical perspective of your relationship with the child and the other parent, apart from what you can provide during an interview.
If you are facing a custody battle consider the Child Custody Visitation Journal, below.
Child Custody Visitation Journal – Record Log for Visitation, Calls, Vacation and Travel Notice Requirements
The Child Custody Visitation Journal – Record Log for Visitation, Calls, Vacation and Travel Notice Requirements is a paperback journal (not an e-book) that will help you keep track of all details related to your visitation schedule and efforts to spend time with your child. It will also help you track when the other parent has tried to, or actually interfered with, your visitation with your child.
Benefits of The Journal
- Easily prove to the court what has been happening with your visitation – no more trying to remember when any important event happened during visitation, or who said what to whom.
- Track each of your individual visitations using dedicated entries to track each visitation event – 70 pages with 2 undated entries per page provide you the opportunity to track 140 visitation events.
- Track you communications with the other parent using dedicated conversation entries – 16 pages with 4 undated communication entries to keep track of your communication with the other parent or caretakers (a total of 64 available entries).
- Know your notice requirements for vacations, holidays and travel at a glance – 2 Summary Logs let you track alternating year provisions and required notices for each event, whether summer, holiday and travel.
- Record additional details or jot down important notes – use the additional blank Notes pages provided.
