Most of what separating parents argue about is fewer arguments than it looks like — and most of what they have actually agreed has never been written down.

The sixteen decisions

Nothing is saved and nothing leaves the page. Mark what is true today, not what you hope. "Not discussed" is a real and useful answer — for several of these it is the most common one, and for a few of them it is the risky one.

Why sorting these three ways is worth more than winning any one of them

• The agreed part is invisible until it is written down. Two parents who agree about twelve things out of sixteen will still describe themselves as unable to agree on anything, because the four live in every conversation and the twelve are never mentioned. Writing the twelve down does not settle the four — it stops them being reopened every Sunday evening, and it is the single cheapest thing available.
• Several disputes are usually one dispute. A fight about holidays that will not resolve is often a fight about money with a calendar attached. A refusal about travel abroad is often about reliability rather than about the trip. An argument about what the child is told is often about whether the child is being asked to take sides. Solving the surface item does nothing, which is why these arguments repeat for years.
• A handful of decisions are not kitchen-table decisions. In most systems, changing a child's school, moving to another town or country, taking a child abroad, non-routine medical decisions, and what happens to the family home are the ones where acting alone has consequences — sometimes a formal step, sometimes a decision that gets reversed. The rules differ everywhere, which is exactly why these are the ones to check before rather than after.
• What you write down is not a court order, and it still changes what happens. In most systems a written parenting arrangement is not binding by itself. Its value is different and real: it removes the weekly renegotiation, it is what a mediator or an adviser starts from instead of starting from nothing, and later it is evidence of what was actually working. That is a large return on one page of writing.
• The child is not a negotiator, a messenger or a witness. The one thing every guideline in every country agrees on: information travels between the adults, not through the child. Asking a child to carry a message, to report on the other house, or to choose is the thing that does the lasting damage — more than the separation itself, and more than any of the sixteen decisions going the way you did not want.
• Reliability settles more disputes than fairness does. Most of the trust cluster dissolves after a few months of arrangements happening exactly as arranged, and most of it hardens after a few months of them not. That is unglamorous, and it is the mechanism behind more of these arguments than anybody wants to admit.

The five patterns

These are the clusters the tool looks for. It never tells you that your argument is one of them — it cannot know that. It tells you which of your disputes fall in a cluster, and gives you the question that tests it.

• Time standing in for money. A dispute about nights or holidays alongside a dispute about money or costs. The test: if the money were settled tomorrow at a figure you both accepted, would the calendar still be in dispute? If not, you are negotiating money in the currency of nights, which is the version that hurts the child.
• Reliability, not the thing itself. Disputes about travel, holidays, medical appointments, or the rules in each house. The test: would you agree to this if the last six months had gone exactly as arranged? If yes, the disagreement is about whether it will be done properly, and a short written arrangement plus a few months of it happening does more than any argument about the item.
• Being told, not deciding. Disputes about information, school, medical or contact while the child is away. The test: is this about who decides, or about finding out afterwards? A rule about telling — who tells whom, within how long — settles far more of these than a rule about deciding.
• Loyalty and what the child carries. Disputes about what the child is told, a new partner, the other family, or contact while away. The test: would this still matter if you were certain the child was not being asked to take a side? Usually the item is standing in for that fear, and naming the fear is what moves it.
• The transition, not the schedule. Disputes about handover alongside nights or house rules. The test: would this survive a fixed place, a fixed time, and a written week? Most handover arguments are about the ten minutes of the handover itself, and a neutral place plus no conversation at the door solves what months of scheduling talk does not.
• The house and the money with children attached. Disputes about the home alongside money or one of you moving away. The test: is this a disagreement about the children at all? Property and maintenance are a separate negotiation with separate advice, and they go better — for everyone, including the child — when they are not conducted through the child's calendar.

How to write down the part you agree on

One page, plain sentences, no legal language, both names on it. It is not a contract and it does not need to look like one.

• Write the week, not the principle. "Shared care" and "a fair split" mean different things to each of you and settle nothing. "Monday and Tuesday nights with me from school pickup to school drop-off" cannot be misremembered, and the writing is what makes the disagreement visible now rather than in three weeks.
• Put the boring specifics in. Where the handover happens, what time, who drives, what travels with the child, who packs the school bag, what happens when someone is ten minutes late, who is called first if the child is ill. Almost every recurring row is one of these and not any of the big questions.
• Write a telling rule as well as a deciding rule. Who tells whom about school letters, appointments, accidents, absences, and how quickly. This is the single most useful line on the page and it is the one almost nobody writes.
• Say what happens when it does not work. Illness, a shift change, a party, a late train. "We swap and the nights are made up within the fortnight" prevents most of the arguments that start with something ordinary going wrong.
• Leave the disputed items out and say so. A line saying "we have not agreed about holidays yet" is honest, is better than a vague sentence covering it, and makes the page usable rather than something one of you refuses to sign.
• Date it, and agree when you will look at it again. Three months for a new arrangement, then at the start of each school year. Children's needs change and so do jobs; a fixed review date turns a renegotiation into a routine.
• Do not make it a trade for something else. The agreed page is not a bargaining chip for money, for the house, or for an apology. The moment it becomes one, both of you lose the only stable thing you had.

This week, in order

None of this needs a lawyer, and none of it needs the other parent to agree with your version of events.

• Write your own list of the sixteen, alone, before any conversation. Not to send. To find out how much of it you already think is settled — which is nearly always more than it feels like.
• Send the agreed part only, in writing, with nothing else in the message. No history, no complaint, no request attached. "Here is what I think we already agree on — tell me if I have any of it wrong" is a message almost nobody refuses to answer.
• Fix the handover before anything else. A set place, a set time, and no conversation at the door. If handovers are hard, a neutral place — a school, a nursery, a relative's house — removes the worst ten minutes of the week for both of you.
• Take one item off the list and test the question. Choose the dispute the tool put in a cluster, and ask the test question of yourself honestly before you ask it of the other parent.
• For anything in the check-first group, get information before acting. A free family-advice service, a mediator, or a legal advice appointment. Doing it in that order costs one appointment; doing it the other way round has, in a great many countries, cost people the arrangement they wanted.
• Ask about mediation even if you are sure it will not work. In most countries it is far cheaper and faster than a court, it exists precisely for the disputes on your list, and in several places some attempt at it is expected before a court will look at a case at all. Ask what it costs and whether there is free provision.
• Tell the school one thing: who to contact and about what. Not the story. Schools handle this every week; the useful message is administrative, and it prevents a large amount of the information dispute at source.

What people believe, and what is so

The drill: 16 kitchen-table moments

Sixteen ordinary moments — the message about holidays, the school form, the passport, the new partner, the handover that goes wrong every fortnight, the child asked to pass something on. Each has an answer that feels like standing your ground and one that keeps the arrangement alive. Pick the one that holds up; every answer explains why.

The page to write

This is the shape of the written arrangement. Fill it in with the other parent if you can, and on your own first if you cannot.

🖨️ Print the card