The School Is Not the Issue: Reframing Parenting Time, Distance, and Children's Best Interests

Educational information only. Every child, family, parenting arrangement, and court order is unique. Decisions about parenting schedules should be based on the individual child's circumstances and best interests. 

One of the most common disputes separated parents face arises when a child starts school. A parenting schedule that worked well during preschool years suddenly comes under scrutiny. One parent lives closer to the school. The other parent lives farther away. The conversation quickly shifts to driving times, exchange locations, school mornings, and whether the parenting schedule should change. 

At first glance, the issue appears straightforward. If one parent lives closer to the school, shouldn't the child spend more school nights with that parent? 

Perhaps. But that question may be too narrow. 

In parenting coordination, I often see parents become focused on solving what appears to be a transportation problem without first determining whether transportation is actually the problem that needs solving. When discussions focus exclusively on kilometres, commute times, and logistics, parents can lose sight of a much larger question: 

What level of travel is reasonable in order to preserve a child's meaningful participation in both parents' lives, both communities, and the opportunities that help define a healthy childhood? 

Once the issue is framed that way, the discussion changes entirely. 

A Common Example

Imagine a child attends school in Abbotsford. One parent lives nearby. The other parent lives in Chilliwack, approximately thirty minutes away. The child is entering kindergarten, and one parent proposes changing the parenting schedule so that the child spends most school nights in Abbotsford. 

The proposal may be thoughtful and genuinely motivated by concern for the child. Educational stability is important. Consistent routines matter. Adequate sleep matters. Reliable school attendance matters. 

The difficulty is that school attendance is only one part of a child's life.

Children do not simply attend school and return home. They develop friendships. They join sports teams. They participate in music lessons, dance programs, theatre productions, swimming lessons, scouts, birthday parties, and community activities. Over time, they develop a social world and a sense of belonging that extends far beyond the classroom. 

When parents focus exclusively on minimizing travel, they can unintentionally overlook many of the experiences that contribute to healthy child development. 

The Hidden Assumption

Many schedule discussions contain an assumption that often goes unexamined: Less driving is automatically better for the child. That assumption deserves closer scrutiny. 

If a child joins a soccer team in Abbotsford, should the Chilliwack parent decline participation because the drive is inconvenient? If the child's best friends live near the school and birthday parties occur there, should those opportunities be limited because they require travel? If the child develops a passion for baseball, theatre, dance, or music, should participation be restricted because one parent lives farther away? 

Most unseperated families do not approach childhood this way. Parents routinely spend hours every week driving children to practices, lessons, tournaments, competitions, and activities because they recognize the developmental benefits. The issue is not whether driving exists. 

The issue is whether the opportunities justify the driving. That distinction matters because childhood itself often requires travel. 

Childhood Happens Outside the Classroom

School is important, but childhood cannot be reduced to school attendance. Many of the experiences that shape confidence, resilience, social skills, leadership, and identity occur outside the classroom. Team sports teach cooperation and perseverance. Music programs develop discipline and creativity. Friendships provide belonging and emotional support. Community involvement helps children develop confidence and connection. 

When parents consider schedule changes, they should ask themselves not only how a proposal affects school attendance, but also how it affects the broader experience of childhood. 

• Will the child still be able to participate fully in activities? 
• Will the child still be able to maintain meaningful friendships? 
• Will both parents remain actively involved in supporting those opportunities? 

Those questions may be every bit as important as the location of the school. 

The Risk of Creating Different Types of Parents

Another issue frequently overlooked in these discussions is the effect that schedules can have on parental roles. When one parent receives most school nights, that parent often becomes responsible for school mornings, lunches, homework, reading practice, teacher communications, school projects, appointments, and daily routines. The other parent may receive more weekends and recreational time. 

Neither role is inherently better. Both involve important parenting responsibilities. The concern is that children benefit from experiencing both parents as complete parents. They benefit from seeing both parents help with homework, attend activities, prepare meals, manage routines, and participate in recreation. Childhood is healthiest when both parents share in both the work and the joy of parenting. 

A schedule should not inadvertently transform one parent into the administrator of childhood while the other becomes the entertainment director. 

The Value of Ordinary Time

One of the most overlooked aspects of parenting is the importance of ordinary moments. When parents think about quality time, they often imagine vacations, special outings, birthday celebrations, or exciting activities. Yet some of the most meaningful parent-child interactions occur during entirely ordinary routines. 

The drive home from school is often where children talk about their day. It is where parents learn who their child's friends are, what happened at recess, which teacher they admire, what made them laugh, what made them sad, and what they are worried about. Conversations that might never occur face-to-face at the dinner table often emerge naturally while travelling together. 

Many parents can recall years later the songs they sang in the car, the stories they shared, and the conversations that unfolded during routine drives. Adults frequently view transportation as lost time. Children often experience it as connection time. 

This does not mean long commutes are always beneficial or that transportation burdens should be ignored. It means that travel should be evaluated in the context of the relationship opportunities it creates as well as the inconveniences it imposes. 

The Question Most Parents Never Ask

The biggest mistake parents make is beginning with the schedule. They ask: "What parenting schedule should we use?" That is often the wrong starting point. 

A better question is: "What kind of childhood are we trying to create?" Once parents answer that question, the schedule often becomes much easier to design. 

If parents want their child to participate in sports, maintain friendships, attend birthday parties, join extracurricular activities, remain connected to both communities, and enjoy meaningful relationships with both parents, those goals begin to guide the schedule. 

The schedule becomes a tool. It is no longer the objective. 

A Framework Parents Can Use at Their Kitchen Table

Before proposing a schedule change because of school attendance, each parent should independently answer the following questions. 

School

• How important is minimizing travel to school?
• What concerns do I have about the commute?
• What evidence do I have that the commute is affecting the child?

Activities

• What sports, arts, and community activities do I hope my child will experience?
• Where are those opportunities likely to occur?
• What level of driving am I willing to undertake to support them?

Friendships

• How important is participation in birthday parties, playdates, and social events?
• What transportation burden is reasonable to support those relationships?

Parent-Child Relationships

• How important is it that each parent participate in ordinary weekday parenting?
  
• How important is it that each parent participate in extracurricular activities?
• How important is it that each parent have meaningful weekend time?

The Child

• What is unique about this child?
  
• Does this child enjoy travel?
• Does this child struggle with travel?
• Does this child thrive on routine?
• Does this child thrive on variety?

Only after both parents answer those questions should they begin discussing schedules. 

A Simple Formula for Solving the Problem

Parents often believe they are arguing about a parenting schedule. In reality, they are usually arguing about priorities. 

A more productive approach is to follow a simple process: 

Step 1: Identify the opportunities you want your child to have. 

Step 2: Identify the communities in which those opportunities are likely to occur. 

Step 3: Determine the transportation required to support those opportunities. 

Step 4: Decide what level of travel is reasonable. 

Step 5: Build the parenting schedule around those priorities. 

Most parents do the opposite. They begin with the schedule and then attempt to fit the child's life into it. 

The better approach is to build the child's life first and then create a schedule that supports it. 

The Schedule Should Serve the Child's Life

Perhaps the most important principle is this: 

The schedule should serve the child's life. The child's life should not be reshaped merely to serve the schedule. 

When parents become locked into debates about kilometres and commute times, they can lose sight of the broader objective. The goal is not to create the most efficient transportation plan. The goal is to support a healthy, meaningful, and well-rounded childhood. 

Children are unlikely to remember whether a drive took twenty minutes or thirty minutes. They will remember friendships. They will remember soccer teams. They will remember school concerts. They will remember family traditions. They will remember the parent who showed up. 

Most importantly, they will remember whether they felt connected to the people and communities that shaped their childhood. 

Before changing a parenting schedule because a child is starting school, parents may wish to pause and ask a different question. Rather than focusing on how to reduce travel, they should consider what experiences, relationships, opportunities, and connections they hope will define their child's childhood. 

Once those priorities are identified, the transportation question often becomes much easier to answer. Because the issue is rarely the drive itself. The issue is deciding what is worth driving for.

Written by Cori L. McGuire, family law mediator, arbitrator, collaborative family law lawyer and Parenting Coordinator with a family law practice in British Columbia since 1998. For other articles on school, read Choosing a School: A Guide for Separated Parents.

© 2026 Cori McGuire. All Rights Reserved. Proprietary Workflow.

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