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The Halloween season is a fun time of year for many people in Louisiana. You and your kids may enjoy going to festivals, trick-or-treating, decorating the house, making costumes and generally participating in all the spooky fun. However, this year may be slightly different because you and the other parent are going through a divorce or may have recently finished your divorce.

When creating your parenting schedule for custody-related time, did you remember to include Halloween as one of the holidays? For some, Halloween is a fun time of year but not as significant as holidays like Thanksgiving or Christmas. Still, assuming that you will spend the evening trick-or-treating with your kids without having that arrangement in place with your ex could cause problems.

Can you work together?

If you and your ex have already finalized your parenting schedule and did not include Halloween, you may want to take the time to address that day with enough time to make arrangements. In other words, avoid calling your ex the night before to tell him or her that you intend to take the kids trick-or-treating. If you and the other parent both want to have the kids for Halloween activities, you may be able to take advantage of any of these options:

• If you and your ex can remain civil and avoid petty arguments, consider taking the kids trick-or-treating together.
• If you do not believe that going out with your ex would work and you do not have custody on Halloween, try to come up with new traditions that your kids could enjoy. You may not get to trick-or-treat with them on Halloween night, but you may be able to have a spooky movie night together.
• If you and the other parent both firmly want to spend time with the kids on Halloween, you may have the ability to split time between different activities. You could take the kids trick-or-treating, and the other parent could take them to a festival or other event.

These options could help you and your kids navigate this first Halloween after the divorce as well as possible. You may even have some ideas of your own that would allow you to make the most of the holiday still.

Getting it in writing

If Halloween becomes a point of contention between you and your ex, you may reach a point where you need a formal agreement regarding who will spend time with the kids at this time of the year. Getting any agreements regarding custody in legal documents is smart because those documents can help combat any custody arguments that may come about later.