When you're divorced or separated from your children's other parent, one thing you have to do is keep up on a custody arrangement. This year, you may have had a custody agreement where you had the kids from Monday through Friday, saw them on two major holidays and had the other parent take care of the rest of the custodial time.

While this arrangement might have worked for you in 2021, that won't necessarily be true in 2022. If you're getting a new job, want to make sure your child is on your ex's taxes next year or just intend to have more time to yourself to work or do your own hobbies, then discussing a modification of custody might be smart in late December or early January.

Why is the New Year a good time to go over custody?

There is no specific time when you should think about your custody arrangements, but the end of the year and beginning of the next year works well because it's such a prominent time on everyone's mind. Lots of people like to “start fresh” in the New Year, so addressing custody concerns now could be a good option.

On top of that, children are typically out of school until early-to-mid January, so this timeline gives you the freedom to try new custody schedules and arrangements before adding school back into the mix.

This time of year is a good time to address issues you had in the previous year and how you'd like 2022 to go, too. You may want to talk about missed custody pickups or problems with how certain issues, like detention at school, were handled. Then, you can make changes to your parenting agreement and custody schedule, so you have a fresh contract for the next year.

There is certainly no obligation to change your custody schedule at the end of a year, but this is a good time to set aside a few moments to look back over the last year to see what is or isn't working. Doing that, you'll be better prepared to tackle your custody responsibilities in the future.