When you and your spouse are considering the ways that your divorce in Georgia may impact your child, the transition from one home to two is often a factor. However, according to Psychology Today, some parents who have joint custody may be able to maintain a single family home for their child. This arrangement, known as “bird nesting,” would require you and your spouse to secure a second residence where one of you would stay during the other parent’s custody time with the child.
Although sharing a common residence and maintaining a second place to live may be expensive and inconvenient for you and the other parent, the stability it provides for younger children may be worth the trouble. For example, one of the potential benefits to your child is the ability to remain in the same neighborhood and school so that contact with friends is not lost.
In order to make this style of co-parenting work, there must be strong commitment from both you and your ex-spouse to follow the agreement and respect each other. However, if your divorce involved significant conflict, this method of co-parenting may be a bad idea, as it may create situations where your child is exposed to more disagreements.
Many parents opt to use this only as a method of transition while the child is young, or until the initial trauma of the divorce is past. In this case, there may be legal issues to consider when drafting a parenting plan that takes the temporary nature of the situation into account. This information is provided for educational purposes, and should not be interpreted as legal advice.
