When getting a divorce, one of the most difficult things to agree upon is custody and visitation. In many cases, both the mother and the father want to have custody of the children.

While it was once rare for the man to get custody of the children, times are changing and men are more commonly winning custody because it is in the best interest of the children. Regardless of who retains custody, however, decisions must be made about visitation.

Making decisions about visitation can be a difficult process that depends upon a number of different factors. Obviously, the courts and the parents need to think about what is best for the children.

At the same time, each parent has a different schedule as determined by employment. In addition, the city and state in which the parents decide to live can have an impact on visitation.

If one parent lives in California and the other lives in New York, arranging for weekend visitation is certainly out of the question. Therefore, there is no one simple answer to visitation.

Your options for visitation arrangements is varied and dependent upon your unique situation. Some of the most common options include:

• Weekend Visitation - With weekend visitation, the custodial parent keeps the children during the week while the other parent gets them on the weekends. For some parents, this arrangement is undesirable because the weekday parent feels as if he or she is saddled with all of the responsibilities of school and activities while the weekend parent gets to have the children for the "fun" time. For this reason, a more common weekend visitation arrangement is for the custodial parent to keep the children during the week and to share the children every other weekend.

• Weekday Sharing - If both parents live in the same town, it is possible to share custody during the weekday. Some children alternate each night with a different parent, though this arrangement can make it difficult for the children to feel a sense of stability since they are moving from one home to the next each evening. Therefore, most parents with this arrangement choose to have the children spend a few nights in a row at each home.

• Summer Vacation - If the parents live far away from each other, they may decide upon summer visitation. In this scenario, the children stay with the custodial parent through the school year and part of the summer, but spend the majority of the summer with the other parent.
  Some parents that live near to each other also choose this scenario simply because it provides more stability for the children, though it does require the children to go for longer spans of time without seeing the other parent.

When determining a visitation schedule, holidays are also taken under consideration. If the parents live near enough to each other, they generally share the holidays, with the children alternating holidays with their parents.

The alternative schedule often changes from one year to the next. For example, the mother might get the children for Christmas one year while the father gets them for Christmas the next year.

Working out a visitation schedule is not easy for anyone involved. After all, both parents will want to have the children as often as possible and the children won't want to have to choose between parents. Nonetheless, it is something that must be done and, for the sake of the children, needs to be adhered to as strictly as possible.