The goal of any separation where children are involved, is to observe their best interests, avoiding stressful situations while encouraging maximum contact between both parents. In cases where parents are unable to successfully negotiate time spent, it is left up to a court to come up with a solution. These agreements will often look to the child’s history, leading up to the separation, in order to create a plan that best suits their needs. Change is inevitable when dealing with a separation but this does not mean that there needs to be a negative impact on children. After considering each parent’s schedule, ability levels and capacity to directly care for the children (generally preferring that children are given direct parental care over unrelated third parties, such as paid caregivers like nannies or daycare centres), a decision is met regarding a joint care schedule.