School holidays: organising time off between two homes

The autumn break is coming, and with it the question that returns every holiday period: who has the child, when, and how you tell each other. For separated parents, the school calendar is often the first sticking point of the year, the one that revives tensions you thought were behind you.

Plan ahead rather than negotiate under pressure

Tension rarely comes from the principle, it comes from the notice. A request made three days before departure forces the other parent to rearrange work, their own time off, sometimes that of a new family life. Setting dates well in advance, even roughly, completely changes the tone of the exchange: you are discussing a calendar, not a balance of power. Many families end up fixing the whole school year's holidays in September, once and for all, and spare themselves five negotiations a year. Alternating the most sought-after periods from one year to the next also stops the same argument being replayed each time.

What the agreement covers, and what it forgets

Most parenting agreements mention holidays but say nothing about the details that cause trouble: the time and place of handover, who pays for travel, what happens to a single public holiday or a long weekend, how to handle a last-minute invitation to cousins. These blind spots are what produce the tense phone call the evening before. A useful agreement goes into the practical, even if it feels pedantic while you are writing it: what seems excessive on a good day becomes precious on a bad one. Each parent's share of the costs also connects to the wider question of child maintenance.

The periods that cause the most trouble

Not all holidays are equal. The festive season carries the emotional weight: each parent wants an evening, wider family expect the child, and the arrangement runs into traditions people hold on to. The summer raises a different problem, that of length: a child staying several weeks with one parent needs easy contact with the other, without those calls turning into a matter of surveillance. Short breaks, meanwhile, mostly collide with work constraints, which never follow the school calendar.

When one parent lives abroad

As soon as a border is involved, holidays stop being purely a matter of logistics. Travel costs money, travel documents matter, and a longer stay with the distant parent needs a written framework, including who travels with the child and how the return is handled. We look at these situations in our article on shared custody and relocation abroad. When a planned return does not happen, the situation changes in nature and meets the question of the wrongful removal of a child.

Put what you agreed in writing

A verbal agreement holds as long as the relationship holds. As soon as a disagreement appears, memories diverge in good faith and each parent recalls the version that suits them. A short summary message sent after the conversation is usually enough to prevent that. It is not about distrusting the other parent, but about fixing what was said while everyone still agrees.

If the conversation stalls

Sometimes no date is ever suitable, or one parent decides alone. Before going to a judge, a neutral third party often helps unblock a calendar: that is the whole point of family mediation. If the deadlock holds, holiday periods can be set in a more binding way, looking at what serves the child rather than what suits the adults, as in any question touching the child's best interest.

The first holidays after the separation

The first year is rarely representative. The landmarks have shifted, habits from the family as it was come back at the wrong moment, and the child is testing what their place becomes in each of the two homes. Aiming simple helps: clear dates, few novelties, and a right to be bored rather than a packed programme meant to prove something. Holidays are not a contest between two households, and a child senses very quickly when they turn into one. The arrangement will find its rhythm in the years that follow, once that first passage is behind everyone.

If organising the holidays turns into a conflict every year, a first conversation helps put in place a framework that holds, in French or English.