No reason to drop your kids off in East Jabip. Midpoint dropoffs make no sense.

I don’t know why this is, but many parents involved in custody and visitation plans like to meet halfway between their homes for the dropoff or pickup of the children. They meet at convenience stores, shopping centers, rest stops on the highway and even police stations to deliver the children.

Don’t do this! Midpoint dropoffs and pickups are a blueprint for trouble. Except in rare cases, midpoint meetings lead to a variety of problems. Most commonly, one party is late; the kids grow restless; the convenience store doesn’t want you sitting in their parking lot and shifting overnight bags between cars every weekend.

The better way to divide driving responsibilities is to alternative, with each parent taking turns driving the entire distance between the two homes. When the custodial parent is turning over the children to the non-custodial parent for the weekend, the non-custodial parent should drive to the custodial’s house. He’ll be motivated to arrive on time and pick up the kids and get started on his weekend. When the weekend ends and it’s time to return the kids to the non-custodial parent, she’ll be motivated to retrieve the children at the non-custodial’s place, arriving there on time to pack up the kids and bring them back to her home. This procedure gives each parent a break (so that both parents are not driving every single direction every time), and it tends to improve timeliness. Even if a parent is running late, the children get to stay in the other parent’s home until that parent arrives, rather than waiting in an idling car at a rest stop (perhaps in bad weather).

Of course, if there have been instances of violence or other confrontations at one party’s home, it may be necessary to schedule pickups and dropoffs elsewhere.

In most cases, however, traveling to East Jabip and other parts unknown, simply to “meet halfway,” makes no sense and ought to be avoided.

Let me hear how you handle these situations.

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