Child Visitation: Visitation Exchange
As mentioned in the child custody vocabulary article, visitation exchange takes place every time a child goes from the physical custody of one parent to the other. The visitation exchange is the hand-off; the "A intersect B" of the child's home-life Venn diagram; indeed, the visitation exchange is where worlds collide. In cases where both parents are able to set aside their personal differences, there is usually no problem with the visitation exchange.
Visitation exchanges become problematic, however, when parents have unsettled personal issues. In the extreme, a domestic violence case severely complicates the visitation exchange, especially when restraining orders are in effect (an order that parents stay at least 100 yards from one another, for example). In these difficult situations, visitation exchanges are often conducted in public places where a hothead parent is more likely to behave him or herself. It could be a restaurant, where one parent can sit in the back and send the child to the front. It could be a local police station, a hospital, or even a library.
In extreme cases, one parent might leave the child with a visitation supervision monitor with the other parent arriving 15 minutes later. The visitation would proceed under the supervision of the third-party monitor until the visiting parent's departure 15 minutes before the custodial parent's return. Since the goal is to allow the child the opportunity for a quality relationship with each parent, creative visitation exchanges are sometimes necessary. Conflict or violence between parents, obviously, undermines that goal.
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