ne of the thorniest problems in cases involving children is allocating their time with each parent. It
is easy enough to pull a standard visitation pattern out of the word processor but does it really meet the needs of this family?
Does the plan really allocate quality, time between the parents? And how do we get the allocations in percentage terms?
Kidmate is a new software product designed specifically to deal with these issues. Although it is billed as a joint custody
program," it is equally useful in any time-sharing situation, regardless of the custody designation.
The problem
The fundamental problem in working out time-sharing issues is
that it is hard to visualize or calculate the effect of a given plan without a lot of grunt work. We have spent untold hours
marking calendars counting days, writing explanations, and generally driving ourselves crazy getting a handle on complicated time-sharing
arrangements.
It had occurred to me some time ago that this is a perfect job for a computer: repetitive. precisely calculable,
and dull. I even went so far as to start working on a solution. I quickly discovered that this is not a trivial
exercise. Just figuring out when the holidays fall can be a huge headache. I was delighted to discover that
professional programmers had taken on the job.
The solution
Kidmate is a well-thought-out and elegant solution to the problem. It makes good use of the Windows interface and makes
entering and retrieving information simple.
The modern, tabbed interface has the major categories across the top and subcategories down the side. This makes navigating
to the section you need easy.
The heart of the program is in the time-sharing tab, where the basic work of establishing timesharing rotations and viewing calendars is done.
Kidmate has adopted an intuitive-pattern concept that allows the creation of basic units of timesharing to be applied in a given case and
reused later. A pattern can run from one to four weeks, can contain any conceivable alteration of time, and can be precise to
the minute.
Once you have created a pattern, simply apply it to a family calendar for one or all children in the family. Once this is done,
you can view an entire year with timesharing marked in clear, color-coded blocks. This lends remarkable clarity to time-sharing
thinking. Both clients and staff have been amazed at the clarity this approach brings to scheduling issues.
Of course, you could do much the same thing with calendars and markers, albeit with a lot more effort. The killer advantage
comes when you begin to investigate alternatives. By saving a variation on the scheme, it is possible to compare alternative plans with
an ease that is simply impossible using conventional methods.
If you want or need to know what the percentage
distribution of time is, Kidmate will give you a precise calculation for any plan. You can create different weights
for "quality" versus "nonquality" time, so that the client can distinguish between weekend time versus school time
versus sleep time, for example. If your state takes into account time-sharing arrangements in child-support calculations, the
time calculations alone will be worth the price of the program.
Once you have fine-tuned a proposal, you can print it out for review by the other side. Kidmate automatically creates a verbal description
of your pattern, so you can cut-and-paste language directly into an agreement.
Other features include a record keeper that will record actual time exercised and an expense screen to track expenses and allocate then
between parents.
If you do creative time-sharing arrangements, Kidmate will save you time, make your life easier, and give you a creative edge over the
opposition.
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