Grey’s Anatomy star, Kevin McKidd and ex-wife Jane’s
divorce has recently been finalized. The parties were married for 17 years and have two children together.
Their children are 17 and 15 years old. The parties have joint custody
of the children. With respect to the access agreement, Kevin and Jane
have agreed to a nesting arrangement whereby the children will remain
in the family home and the parents will rotate in and out.
What is a Nesting Arrangement?
A nesting arrangement is a form of parenting access whereby the children
remain in the family home and the parents live in that home when they
are having their parenting time with the children, but live in a different
residence during the other parent’s parenting time. To this end, a
nesting arrangement differs from that of a typical parenting arrangement
because it is the parents who move back and forth between the family home,
instead of the children shuttling back and forth between the homes of
each parent.
Generally speaking, a nesting arrangement is a temporary parenting plan
employed during the immediate post-separation period when financial and
practical details are still being worked out by the separating couple.
For example, the separating parties may agree to a nesting agreement while
the parents are waiting for the family home to sell.
A nesting arrangement is a child focused parenting arrangement which eliminates
the need for children to move between two different residences. A nesting
arrangements helps minimize the disruptions to the children’s day-to-day
lives following their parent’s separation and gives the children a
feeling of permanence – their environment does not change and they do
not have to pack up and “move” on a regular basis. That is to
say, in a nesting arrangement, the children reside full time in their
family home, continue attending the same school, continue to participate
in the same extra-curricular activities, and continue to build relationships
with their same friends. As such, a nesting arrangement may help provide
the children with some stability following the separation of their parents.
A nesting arrangement may also be beneficial because it will allow the
children to see that their parents can have a healthy and cooperative
relationship even after their separation.
Notably, however, a nesting arrangement will only work for a short period
of time as it requires great cooperation between the two separating parents.
That is, it takes a huge effort on the part of the parents to make a nesting
arrangement work – grocery shopping, household chores, a sense of ownership
over the residence, and new partners can all be flash points in this type
of arrangement. Furthermore, it can be expensive to maintain two additional
residences, where each parent lives when they do not have parenting time.
All in all, a nesting arrangement is not the solution for all couples,
but for separating parents who can communicate and cooperate well enough
to employ a nesting strategy, it may be a good short-term solution that
can help establish a sense of security to their children during a very
uncertain time.