In today’s episode of Children First Family Law, Krista explores one of the most high-conflict areas in Colorado family law: relocation after divorce or custody orders. When one parent wants to relocate, whether within or outside the state, courts must decide what serves the child’s best interest, not the parent’s.
Krista walks through how Colorado handles relocation under C.R.S. §14-10-129, explains the difference between a parent’s right to move and the right to move with a child, and addresses a common fear: Is it kidnapping to move without permission? She illustrates these issues with real-world case studies, one in which a parent left without notice, and another in which a parent followed every step legally.
This solo episode covers the legal process, emotional impact, court standards, and how to keep children at the center of difficult relocation decisions. It’s a must-listen for any parent facing—or fearing—a move.
In this episode, you will hear:
- Relocation means any move that significantly disrupts an existing parenting plan, not just moves across state lines
- Parents retain the right to relocate, but not the automatic right to move a child with them
- Colorado requires written notice, a proposed new parenting plan, and court approval under C.R.S. §14-10-129
- Unauthorized relocation can result in contempt charges or emergency return orders, even without criminal charges
- Courts assess each relocation under the best interests of the child per C.R.S. §14-10-124
- Long-distance parenting creates added costs and challenges—judges often assign travel costs to the relocating parent under C.R.S. §14-10-115(11)
- Emotional losses for children include missing friends, schools, and a parent’s daily presence
- Real case examples show why courts value transparency, cooperation, and early communication
- Key case law includes Spahmer v. Gullette, Ciesluk v. Ciesluk, In re Marriage of Martin, and DeZalia v. DeZalia
Resources from this Episode
Relocation statute: C.R.S. 14-10-129: codes.findlaw.com/co/title-14-domestic-matters/co-rev-st-sect-14-10-129
Best interests of the child: C.R.S. 14-10-124: codes.findlaw.com/co/title-14-domestic-matters/co-rev-st-sect-14-10-124
Payment issues: C.R.S. 14-10-115(11), scroll way down to find (11): codes.findlaw.com/co/title-14-domestic-matters/co-rev-st-sect-14-10-115
Key Colorado caselaw around relocation:
In re Marriage of Ciesluk: law.justia.com/cases/colorado/supreme-court/2005/04sc555-0.html
Spahmer v. Gullette: law.justia.com/cases/colorado/supreme-court/2005/03sc751-0.html
In re Marriage of Martin: callidusai.com/wp/ai/cases/2639358/in-re-the-marriage-of-martin
In re Marriage of DeZalia: callidusai.com/wp/ai/cases/2638291/marriage-of-dezalia-v-dezalia
www.childrenfirstfamilylaw.com
All states have different laws; be sure you are checking out your state laws specifically surrounding divorce. Krista is a licensed attorney in Colorado and Wyoming but is not providing through this podcast legal advice. Please be sure to seek independent legal counsel in your area for your specific situation.
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When One Parent Wants to Move – Colorado Relocation, Kidnapping Law, and How Kids are Impacted Podcast Transcript
Intro/Outro 00:00
Welcome to the Children First Family Law podcast. Our host, Krista Nash, is an attorney, mediator, a parenting coordinator, and child advocate with a heart to facilitate conversations about how to help children flourish amidst the broken area of family law. As a child advocate in demand for her expertise throughout Colorado and as a speaker on these issues at a national level, Krista is passionate about facilitating and creatively finding solutions to approach family law matters in a way that truly focuses on the best interests of kids. Please remember this podcast is provided to you for information purposes only. No one on this podcast is representing you or giving you legal advice. As always, please enjoy this episode and be sure to like, subscribe and share the podcast with others you think would benefit from this content.
Krista Nash 00:50
Hey, everyone, welcome back to the Children First Family Law podcast. I am glad you’re here to join me to talk about the most important part of any family law case: the children. I’m your host, Krista Nash. I am a family law attorney in Colorado and Wyoming, and I’ve spent my career focused on advocating for children and helping parents navigate family transitions with hopefully clarity and more compassion. Today’s episode, you’ve got me solo. I decided we needed a deep dive into one of the most emotional and high stakes issues in family law, relocation. What happens when one parent wants to move with the kids? Can you just go? What does Colorado law say? Is it considered kidnapping if you move without permission? And what does a judge actually consider when deciding whether a move should be allowed, whether you are the parent thinking about relocating, the one staying behind or professional working with families. This episode is for you. Let’s walk through what the law says, and let’s never forget what is at the heart of every one of these cases, the well being of children.
So first, let’s talk about the basics of what relocation means in Colorado. In Colorado, the word relocation has a very specific meaning. It doesn’t just mean moving across town or to a new neighborhood. Legally, a relocation is any move that would substantially change the geographic ties between a parent and the children. That could be a move out of state, usually is. If it’s a move out of state, it’s going to affect the geographic ties. But it also can be a move within Colorado that’s far enough to disrupt the parenting time plan, like going from Denver to Durango or Fort Collins to Grand Junction. And in the Denver Metro area, which is becoming, as we all know, much more congested every time we’d seem to turn around. Sometimes we’re now having arguments about whether or not it’s a substantial geographic change, even when it is from one point to the end of the Denver Metro area. Usually that doesn’t go forward as a relocation. But I certainly have had when there’s maybe an hour or more drive or something of that, longer than that nature, it can certainly be considered a relocation. The law doesn’t give strict mileage or strict minute drives during the worst traffic school but certainly we consider all of that, it really is looking at the practical impact. Can the current parenting time schedule still work or not? And the court really does handle relocations differently depending on timing. If the move happens before you are in possession of your final parenting plan orders, then the court treats it as part of the original custody decision and applies the best interests of the child standards that it does in every pre-decree case and those we have talked about in detail on another podcast. But you can either go find that or you can look up Colorado Revised Statutes at C, R, S, 1410, 124, which will give you all of those best interests of the child, standards, factors, really, but if the move happens after final orders are in place, it is considered potentially a relocation under Colorado revised statute 14-10-129 (2)If you’re looking that up, it’s 14 dash 10, Dash 129, and then parentheses, two, end, parentheses, and the court follows a specific legal process to evaluate it either way, though, the guiding question is the same, is this move in the best interest of the child? So I want to pivot and talk a little bit about something I think is very important for everyone to understand if you don’t, which is that you have a right to move, but not automatically with your child. So I’m going to then get into whether or not a move might be considered kidnapping, because I get that question a lot too, and we need to talk about the kind of in the weeds about how courts handle relocation cases. But let’s clear up a really important legal distinction.
First, as an adult, you have a constitutional right to move, and that is from the United States Constitution, which protects your right to travel freely between states, live wherever you want and pursue new opportunities. So if you’re thinking, Wait, I’m allowed to move for a better job, right? Or to be in your family, yes, the answer is, you’re absolutely right. You are allowed to move. But,the critical part is this, your right to move does not automatically include the right to take your children with you, and that’s sort of jaw dropping reality for some parents who think that they can just take their children because, well, their children, however, we now have two parents, and we have a court that has jurisdiction over the children, and therefore we have to carefully handle that you don’t have the same rights to take your kids that you would have before. So once you’re divorced or separated again, even if you were never married, but have established custody orders, the court has authority over decisions that affect your children, so the court can’t stop you from relocating, but it can absolutely say no to you taking the children with you, and you might have a great reason to move, like I said, a better job, a safer neighborhood, more support. Even with all that, the judge’s role is not to decide whether your move is a good idea. It’s to decide whether your child’s move is in their best interest. And sometimes that means saying no, sometimes that means your kids stay behind because their bond with the other parent, or their school or their community, that’s what the judge believes matters more. So just keep all that in mind as we go deeper into these cases and the law around relocation, you can move, but taking your children with you, that’s a legal question, and one the court takes very seriously.
So next I want to answer the question: is moving without permission, kidnapping? This is a question I get all the time, and I think it’s probably one of the most Googled family law questions , if I move out of state with my child or move far away from my co parent, is that kidnapping? And the answer is, it can be. But let me explain, if there’s already a custody order or a parenting plan in place, even a temporary one, then no, you cannot just pack up and leave. Colorado law requires you to notify the other parent in writing, explain why you want to move and propose a revised parenting plan. If the other parent objects, then you have to go to court and ask for permission, and if you don’t follow that process, there really can be some serious consequences. Really, it’s not the same as traditional kidnapping that you might think about from the movies, from a stranger, but it does potentially lead to some civil contempt, some loss of parenting time. In rare situations, there’s criminal charges for custodial interference, although I think I’ve seen that happen one time, and so that’s not usual, that the court is going to do that, but the court does take it seriously if you violate a court order, and you definitely could be ordered to bring the child back. Now, if there’s no custody order in place yet, things are a bit murkier. Technically, both parents have equal rights to the child, so if one parent leaves the state with a child, it isn’t immediately illegal, especially if there is no case that’s been filed yet. But it’s still a risky move. Courts do frown heavily on what they call self help, and often a judge will see that kind of action as interfering with the other parents relationship. I do, though, as a caveat, want to explain that if domestic violence is present, that is handled differently, and the courts, pursuant to statute, are not to hold that leaving against a parent who is the victim of domestic violence. So there is more freedom to leave under our statutes.
Does that mean that you have the right to move, you know, to a different country, or all the way across the United States, or to a different state? Again, we get into a lot of different fact analysis on these but no one is going to argue that a domestic violence victim can’t leave to protect herself or himself and the kids. So that’s an important caveat, and when you should look into So Colorado also, I want you to know has legal tools in place to prevent parental abduction before it happens, and to deal with it if it’s already happened, but there is something called the Uniform Child Abduction Prevention Act, you see a PA and the UC APA. It’s something that was created federally and that the states, most states, maybe even all states, have adopted. You’ll have to check if you’re listening outside of Colorado, but the Uniform Child Abduction Prevention Act, which Colorado has adopted, allows a court to intervene if there’s reason to believe a parent might take the child out of state without permission, courts can restrict travel, require passport surrender, and even involve law enforcement proactively. And so if you are a parent that is worried that your co-parent is going to go leave with a child or children, that is something you can consider is filing a motion to prevent the parental kidnapping. Basically, okay, again, using kidnapping in a little bit different format than we would in your typical stranger type of kidnapping, which is quite different. Also, you need to consider that there is something called the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act. I told you this would be law heavy today, the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Enforcement Act, which is the acronyms we love, acronyms in the law UCCJEA. Again, this is federal, so the UCCJEA governs which state has the right to make custody decisions and which state must enforce them. Um, in most cases, the original state that issued the custody order keeps jurisdiction unless certain legal conditions are met. And so, for example, this involves which state is the home state of the child if someone has moved away more than six months prior, and it’s with the intention to stay. There are a lot of factors around this that peoplehavedone some major cases on where there’s a lot of fact analysis regarding whether the new home state has been sufficiently created for the children. But generally, if you’ve been somewhere more than half the year and this has become your new established home, then that becomes the state. That is that each kid can only have one home state, and so the home state is either where you’re born or where you’ve been living, or where you’ve moved to with the intent, really, to stay there for the six months. Okay, so, but that uniform child custody, Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act is something else you need to consider. And the original state that issued the custody or that already has jurisdiction over your case is going to keep it unless certain legal conditions are met. So if you leave for Arizona, but you already have a Colorado case going, that Colorado case is the first to file. It’s where the kids lived, and unless you can establish and those judges need to talk about whether or not the case should be moved. The case will stay in Colorado. So that’s a lot of law about some of the things that courts think about, but you can’t go wrong by abiding by orders and doing things properly.
Okay, let me give you a couple examples. All right, a case study of when a parent moves without permission. This is just a real life example, but names are changed for privacy. Sarah and Jason were divorced, parents of two boys. They had a court approved parenting plan. Sarah had majority time, but Jason was extremely involved. He coached soccer, helped with homework, and had regular overnights. About a year after their divorce, Sarah’s new partner got a job offer in Oregon. The pay was better, the benefits were great, and she believed it would be a better life for her and the boys. But instead of notifying Jason and going through the legal process, she just left. She packed the house, she moved and told the kids they were starting a new life. Jason showed up for his regular parenting time, and he found the house empty. He was understandably devastated. He immediately filed an emergency motion in Colorado, and the court ordered the children returned while the case was reviewed properly. In the end, Sarah still had a chance to make her case for relocation, but because she acted unilaterally and without court approval, the judge didn’t trust her judgment. Ultimately, the court ruled the boys would stay in Colorado. If Sarah still wanted to move, they would live primarily with Jason. The court’s decision wasn’t about punishing Sarah, it was about protecting the boy’s relationship with both parents and reinforcing the importance of following legal processes.
So let’s talk about a different case study when a parent does it right, and there isn’t a slam dunk that if you do it right, you’re going to win, but you have a better chance if you do it properly. So let’s contrast that last story with Mia and Carlos. They had joint custody of their 10 year old daughter, Bella. Everything was going smoothly until Mia received a job offer in Seattle. It came with a big raise, better hours, and would let her live in a safer neighborhood with better schools. But Mia didn’t just take off. She notified Carlos in writing, proposed a detailed parenting plan where Bella would live with her during the school year and spent holidays, summers and school breaks with Carlos. She even offered to pay for most of the travel costs. Carlos didn’t agree. At first, he was heartbroken, but they ended up in court and presented their cases. Mia showed how the move would benefit Bella’s education and emotional well being, Carlos explained what he would lose. The Judge ultimately allowed the relocation because Mia had gone about it the right way, being transparent, respectful and child focused, the court was more likely to trust her intentions, and they were able even to craft a better plan that included the type of contact through FaceTime and other video coordination to really set up travel, through shared calendars and prioritizing the child coming to see dad. And they created a really substantial parenting plan that maintained Bella’s bond with both parents.
So let’s talk about what a judge actually considers in these cases. Under Colorado law, in a relocation post decree, the court is going to weigh quite a few factors, why a relocating parent wants to move, why the other parent objects, the quality of each parent’s relationship with a child or children, the educational and emotional benefits or harms of the move, family support in each location, the child’s ability to maintain meaningful contact with both parents and when appropriate, the wishes of the child. There is no automatic preference for either parent. The judge’s job is to look at how the move will impact this specific child or children, not what’s easier for the parents. So Colorado case law really emphasizes this. In a case called Spahmer, which is one of the seminal cases involved in this area, the court said that when no prior custody orders exist, relocation should be evaluated, like any other initial custody case under a best interest. This factors analysis, and in another case, Cieslukthe court said that the same applies after divorce, no presumptions for or either parent, although these other factors that I just read off get considered more like why you want to move and why the other parent objects, which goes beyond what we normally just look at in a pre decree or spammer analysis. It’s a little different in the relocation. I think it’s probably easier to meet the standards. This is just me. This isn’t for everybody. Every people would quibble with me, probably, but I personally think that I have seen it be a little easier to meet the standard under the pre decree cases than in the post decree relocations, but they’re not supposed to have presumptions for or against either parent in either think about though, if you’ve already been divorced and your kids are living in a two home situation within Colorado, and they’re doing well and you both know the kids are involved in school and sports and friends. It’s easier to show that they have established community and relationships and schooling and opportunities and that that shouldn’t be disturbed. So when parents are first getting divorced, there’s less of that. Usually, you know, at least we haven’t already lived out what the kids will experience in two homes. It’s usually been one home. And so it’s a little bit easier, I think, to establish that you’re not disrupting the kids. They’re getting disrupted anyway, generally. And so that’s just my personal analysis of it. I think that the post decree relocations are a little bit harder to argue. But again, people might quibble about that, so check with your local attorneys if you would like also.
I want to point out that we used to have some really serious problems with the way that courts would handle these cases. The courts, because of the US constitutional rules about allowing parent to live wherever that parent wants to live, would take a relocation case and say that we are taking the mother and the father or the two parents in the place they say they want to be. And so our analysis of this case is, Mom wants to be in Iowa, Dad wants to be in Denver or in Colorado. And so we are going to analyze this looking only through that lens sometimes that gives us some really confusing outcomes for parents. You might, for example, have a mother who says, I need to move to Iowa because I have a cheaper home. I can buy there. I can get a better job. I have my parents down the street. It’s the only way I can be stable. I’m moving, and the dad says, that’s fine. I’m against the move, but I will take on the primary parenting role and will foster a great summer parenting plan and vacation plan and whatever. And so the court decides kids can’t move. Kids are staying in Colorado, and I’m a mother. I don’t know if you’re listening as a mother or as another parent, what you would do in that situation, but most likely, you wouldn’t move. That happened a lot, so we would get these plans where parents would then be at war, because the parenting plan that issued in the relocation only considered the reality the court had to do under the US Constitution, saying that both parents are going to live where they say they’re going to live. And we ended up with this irrational outcome because the parent who said that she was going to move to Iowa said, Wait a minute, my kids can’t come. I’m not going right? So now we’ve got parents fighting about, are we operating under a two-state parenting plan when we’re really just, you know, 10 minutes away from each other? So since then, there have been two different cases, Martin and Dezalia. Are the two cases., these two cases were Colorado Court of Appeals cases. Those others, I told you about Spahmer and Ciesluk, were Colorado Supreme Court cases, Martin and Dezalia, which, sorry, I only back out for those who don’t know that’s our highest court. And so they carry even more weight than the Court of Appeals, but they’re like the final weight. But our Court of Appeals cases also carry weight if they’re not overturned by the Colorado Supreme Court. So these other two cases, Martin and Dezalia, which were in, I think about 2002 and 2020, Dezalia being in 2020 the judges are allowed to approve dual plans with conditional parenting plans, one if the move happens, and another if it doesn’t. Now I will point out, for some reason, there’s a lot of lawyers and Child and Family Investigators who don’t understand this. I regularly see questions coming up on our family law list and on CFI list services asking about this issue. And so be sure, if you’re a parent listening to this, that you ask the court to be sure to address a conditional parenting plan in case you’re the moving parent and you decide not to move if you lose. Lawyers really need to understand that these conditional parenting plans are approved by the Colorado Court of Appeals, and they definitely would really help eliminate a lot of problems for parents if a parent ultimately decides not to move. So certainly, be sure to ask your judge to create that kind of order. This kind of flexibility is really good because it helps families avoid limbo while keeping the child’s best interest front and center. So I applaud the Judiciary for that, because it has really fixed a problem that we had regarding these cases.
All right, next, I get a lot of questions about long distance parenting and travel costs, and so one part of relocation cases that often gets overlooked is who’s going to pay for all this travel. For example, you know, a parent moves to Hawaii and the kid is still living with the other parent in Colorado, who’s going to pay for all these trips to Hawaii. What if you have a really little kid who has to either have the parent fly with that child or have somebody chaperone the child, and what if it’s to Europe, or what if it’s some other big international setting. So I have cases where kids are shuttling back and forth between the East Coast and Colorado, so their parent might want them to come just for three days, but they’re shifting on these like red eye flights, shifting time zones and coming back tired to school, and it can be very, very disruptive. So you really need to think about all that. But I want to mention the costs. And I can tell you that when parents live far apart, the cost of getting kids back and forth can be enormous. And it is important to understand that pursuant to statute, it does say that the cost of the child’s travel is going to be assigned proportionally to income.
Now, I have seen some courts;I don’t think this is statutorily supported, but I have seen some courts punish the relocating parent and make them pay more. You know, I’ve seen some situations where parents have voluntarily offered that, but statutorily, it really should be proportionally to income for the cost of getting the child there, and if that means that you need a chaperone, then sharing the cost of that. Oftentimes I see one parent fly one way or drive the child one way, and the other parent fly the kid or kids the other way. You really need to think about it. Sometimes they split it 50/50, sometimes people can get creative using frequent flyer miles or meeting halfway, or things like that. But please, do know that our statutes do require, in our child support statutes, you will find this proportional to income for going to see parents in both the places that they live. And that really chaps the parent that doesn’t relocate. They get very, very frustrated about this, but it is what it is, and so you need to be aware of that.
Okay, and let me give you another little practical tip, if you think that your parent is going to be successful, like, if the parent who’s moving is, for sure the primary, if you can be honest with yourself and not get all entrenched and actually say, probably the court is going to let this kid move, it honestly might be better for you to do some mediation or some settlement negotiation to get the other parents who agree to pay for it for X amount of time, or get some other things like get the ability to go visit the child children in that new state. I oftentimes see some really creative parenting plans that allow for you to, for example, if it’s practical and you’re not too far away, for example, maybe Colorado and Texas, or Colorado and Nebraska or something like that, particularly if it’s driving distance, but even if it’s a very short flight that you could have at least one weekend, or even the option of every other weekend, if you can get there and you need to just let the other parent know with a 30 day notice. For example, I’ve seen parenting plans where, let’s say that maybe the parents are like two hours apart. Maybe we have somebody in Grand Junction and somebody in Denver, that’s a little more than two hours. But maybe it’s more like four but let’s say we’ve got people that are driving, okay, four hours, two hours, whatever, apart from each other. Sometimes what we’ll do is we’ll do every other weekend, meeting in the middle driving every other weekend for that child, most of the long holidays where the parent who is not the primary school parent can spend that extra day with a child, and then in the summertime, we flip it so that the secondary parent, no offense. I don’t mean that in any kind of disparaging way, but the non-school primary parent is able to see the children most of the summer, and we reverse it to go back and see the other parent who normally has the school parenting time every other weekend. That’s a lot of driving, a lot of travel for kids. I can’t say it’s great. It’s not great. As we get into teenagers and kids want jobs, and they have their friends or their significant others or whatever, we end up getting a lot of resistance that way. So be aware of that. Also, some people are considering things like home school or some online learning when parents live further apart that can allow for some interesting flexibility for children, so that they can see both parents and beyond. Most of that just please try to remember that this all has a heavy cost on children and sometimes you can get really caught up in, as a parent, your rights and your interests and not what your kids really need. So that’s a very frequent topic that we talk about in this podcast, and something you really need to think about about relocation.
That really does bring us to the part I want to talk about next to just talk about what relocation actually does to kids. So I want you to pause and really think about this part. Because even when your move might be for good reasons, a move can really feel like a loss to a child, even if they seem optimistic to you or positive about it, you have to understand that kids get these loyalty bonds and they don’t want to disappoint you, and they probably feel sorry for you that maybe you want to be with some new significant other, or you want to be able to not work as much, or you need economically or for family reasons, to move kids understand that, okay, but they they’re going to be leaving behind, usually, school friends, routines and one of their parents, even if you’re in your own eyes, maybe even in your kid’s eyes, even in reality, the kid’s primary parent, you are denying your child by moving the right to having both parents fundamentally really involved in their day to day living. And that’s a big deal, and it should be really considered as a very high weight in your calculation. And so while kids are resilient, it’s a massive disruption. Research shows that children do best when they have consistent, meaningful day to day contact, really, with both parents. Long distance parenting can work, but it takes effort, money, flexibility, trust, oftentimes, which are all deeply depleted. I will send you back to my podcast with Dr. Michael Saini a while back about incremental trust building, because usually what’s going on in these families is a deeply, deeply broken trust that the children will never really recover from if parents don’t fix that. So know that if you’re moving it takes even more effort, even more flexibility, even more trust. And think about how the contact is going to be for your child with this parent who is left behind. FaceTime and other video options are great, but imagine how you would feel if that was your contact with your kids day to day. It is just not the same as pancake breakfast or having your parent at the sidelines for your gymnastics event, or something important at school. And it’s not the same as bedtime stories and tucking a kid in and going grocery shopping and making dinners and all of those really important things, like first homecomings for states, you know, first everything’s it’s very, very difficult to deny a parent to be involved in all that. Also, I really think you need to think about decision making if you are going to be in two places, or if not, to talk about decision making and also just the involvement of both parents in the important things for the child. So sometimes parents will say, I want all the decision making, and I’m moving. I want to move. I want all the decision making too. I will say that I find this to not be great, because even though you might be the parent who’s more got eyes on the child, by allowing the secondary parent to have decision making with you, it forces engagement. That allows for more involvement of that parent. So I don’t think relocation is a very good justification. I think it’s a bad justification. I think if parents are far away, it’s even more important that they share joint decision making.
Of course, if we have domestic violence, then split decision making can be better because of the statutory confines around that or sole decision making for one parent. But think long and hard, please, before you start arguing that you should have all the decision making because you’re the one who’s got, you know, feet on the ground where the kid is, it should cause you, as that parent who relocated with the children, to work really hard to engage the other parent. So that means you might need to do more. And a good co-parent who has moved is going to raise the bar in terms of what they are willing to do to help that other co-parent to be meaningfully involved so that secondary parent, you can take your age old approach that divorced couples take, and you can say, I’m not going to help this person, that person you know, the second parent can contact the school, herself or himself, and they can get the coaches scheduled for the soccer games, or that I keep saying soccer, I don’t know why, for the football games, for the lacrosse games, whatever. Or they can, they can look into these things themselves. I don’t have to do that. And in that way, you are denying your child, that parent, to really be involved. What you should be doing to be a good, effective co-parent is I’m the parent on the ground with my eyes on everything, and I’m going to work really, really hard to keep this person engaged so that this person gets absolutely every opportunity to be with our child or children, and more importantly, so our child or children get meaningful engagement from the other parent. So, for example, you know an orchestra concert is happening, or a child’s going to be in some parade or race or anything, a piano recital, invite the other parent. Try to coordinate your best efforts to encourage the parent to come. Hey, co-parent, this is coming up in four weeks. What if you took this weekend and took them to this and it or come with us to it, right? Because we are ‘Team Children’ here as co-parents. We’re on the longest group project with the person we least want to be on a group project with, but it’s the most important group project of our lives, and so we’re going to do it well so that we both prosper and, more importantly, so our kids prosper. So invite the person, okay, there’s a fun run and there’s a recital, or there’s trick or treating, or there’s some Christmas play they’re in, or some other event that’s coming.
Engage that other parent. Invite that parent to things, and therefore we will have less impact, because the child and children will have more meaningful invited by you, the relocating parent engagement, or hey, Johnny’s having a bad day, it’d be great if you could text or video with our kid, because your our child needs you. I can’t tell you how rarely I see this. It is far more common to have a parent just relish and enjoy being primary and icing the other parent out. And it’s really tragic, and it’s a mistake, and a lot of times I see those parents then get resisted by their teenage kids, who are sick of it, and they actually want some time with their other parent, and they are tired of the subtle, or not subtle, messaging that they get from the primary parent, and that poisons your children.
So if you need more help with this, listen to the rest of the podcast. Get some co-parenting counseling, and let me give you some final advice. If you’re the parent consumer vocation, I urge you to be transparent. Talk to the co-parent about it. Make a detailed parenting plan that shows how you’re going to support your child’s connection with the other parent. Be really ready to show why the move is in your child’s best interest, not just yours, and really, really think about whether you need to relocate and what the costs are to your child to not have that day to day, every day with your kids. I mean, with the other parent, could you do some other things that would potentially maybe not meet your needs as much, but would actually fashion a better plan for your kids? If you’re the parent staying behind, keep your focus on the child. Explain how the move might disrupt their stability or relationship with you, but stay respectful. And the more child-focused and cooperative you are, the more seriously the court will take your concerns. That doesn’t mean that the child won’t be able to move, but for both of you, please don’t put your child in the middle. Consider child inclusive mediation. We do that work. I’m happy to help you mediate and conclude your child in that so that we can really figure out what would be best, and that’s going to be dependent on whether how old the children are, which states we’re talking about, which countries. There’s a lot that goes into this, but if you’re going to relocate, put your kids’ pictures in front of you, and really think about what this means for them to have to go with you somewhere. And think about if we can fashion either a great plan to meet that need, those needs better to affirm the other parents engagement in the kids lives. And consider whether you need to move at all, be kind and put your child’s needs above everything else. So I’ll close by just saying relocation cases, I believe, are really some of the most emotionally charged and legally complex situations in family law, and it’s really a lose-lose. All the judges will tell you that, all the child advocates will tell you that it doesn’t mean that every move is bad. There are some moves that are genuinely necessary and that might be better for a kid. Maybe there is a particular program that the kid is really into. For example, a kid that is on ski team and is really thriving in the Olympics, or, you know, Olympics bound, and has a potential to go train somewhere else, right? Maybe that’s something that does meet the kids needs in a way, that staying place, although Colorado probably is a good place to train for that. But, you know, maybe there’s something else. Maybe there’s something else where they can get something very unique. You know, maybe there are programs that the kids really want to do and you need to be in a different place for that. That’s possible. Or maybe genuinely, the parent really needs to stay primary, and genuinely, really does need to move. Those can be okay. Maybe it’s safer, maybe it’s less expensive, but the risk of this being a lose-lose is very, very high. And I’ve found many parents who look back later and say the kids who’ve looked back later and said that parent who relocated robbed me of something very important. So my other parent, and so make sure you’re prioritizing that other parent if you are going to relocate. All right? So I think that is what brings us to the end of this. I just want to encourage you in every situation in family law, to keep your child’s well being at the center of every decision, not just during court hearings, every step of the way, the outcome is so much more likely to protect and support your child long term, and if you’re in the middle of a real case are just starting to think about one. I really hope that this episode gives you some clarity, some insight. I hope I haven’t confused you even more, but at least you know now that it’s a little more confusing than you might expect. So check out more of our podcasts and see if you can get some peace of mind and do what’s right for your children. Please don’t forget to subscribe and share this episode and join me next time. We drop episodes every Monday, I think we’re in the 40s now. So thank you to everyone who’s listening. Be well and as always, keep your children at the heart of your choices.
Intro/Outro 35:32
Krista is licensed in Colorado and Wyoming. So if you are in those states and seek legal services, please feel free to reach out via ChildrenFirstFamilylaw.com that is our website where everyone can find additional resources to help navigate family law as always, be sure to like, subscribe and share the podcast with others you think would benefit from this content.