Grandma Deaton used to call it “Beggar’s Night” when I was young enough to legitimately dress-up and hit the streets for Halloween. She also had a detailed briefing for my parents on how to avoid getting their house and car windows soaped by malcontents.

When it comes to facilitating cooperation between parents after divorce, I wouldn’t want to leave the impression that begging and petty vandalism are axiomatic in holiday schedule negotiations.

After all— Halloween isn’t just the first holiday of the school year that divorced moms and dads need to settle. It’s also one that might just set direction for just how much joy you’ll have available right through New Year’s Day. Who’ll be tricked and who’ll be treated here?

As holidays go, Halloween can be you’re Parable of the Talents, as described in Matthew 25:14-30. It’s more complex than many elements of Christmas planning, yet lower-octane (sugar metabolisms aside).

Consider:

• Because of lead-times, costume selection and preparation for the child may fall during time with one parent, but lock in a decision to be followed by the other parent. (This may also mean some disappointment on the party of the first part, or of the child, or of both in said creating Dad or Mom not being present to see the ultimate fruits of those efforts.)

• Halloween isn’t typically associated with a day or two where classes are not held in schools. Thus, a parenting time settlement agreement or Judgment of Divorce that specifies an equitable schedule between the two households may be in practical application very disruptive to broader routines such as homework and bedtimes.

• How do mom and dad deal with candy, here versus there — and, more importantly, consumed in one household prior to departure for the other?

• In addition to Beggar’s Night, costumes are sometimes worn to school. This may mean even further questions regarding the preparing-parent versus the parent with whom the child will be residing when the day to wear their special outfit arrives. As a domestic relations mediator, I could add here the story of an “emergency” negotiation I was called in to facilitate when a child’s hand-made Halloween costume was torn during one of these elementary classes, which was the day before the apple of her parent’s eyes was to go out trick-or-treating. Which parent had a “right” to repair it?

• Community differences can sometimes inadvertently render this a non-holiday. Consider a divorce clause that defers Halloween to the parent with whom the child happens to be staying when the celebration comes up. Mom lives in a community where the appointed evening comes after the child has gone to Dad; at the same time, Dad’s community has designated “Halloween” for some day prior to the star of his parenting time.

These are legitimate issues. Parents who divorce don’t suddenly lose the commitment they’ve previously held in advocating values for their children (which, perhaps part-and-parcel of the fact that they’ve divorced, can differ in large and small ways from those of their former spouses). Health, safety, and, yes, religion, are all wrapped up in Halloween.

One cannot simply look to the so-called Best Interests factors for a definition of how the parent who’s focused solely on his or her child would act in addressing each of the issues inferred from those points listed above. Even in Scripture, spiritual leaders have “parted company” in disagreement. Acts 15:39.

Neither do parents forfeit desire or claim on this opportunity to maximize fun-sharing.

In divorce mediations, it’s not uncommon to hear folks who are getting along well suggest that vague terms of general agreement on questions such as holiday scheduling should suffice. In fact, I often find it easier to motivate higher-conflict spouses to hammer things out. Each readily sees the need for specifics.

The thing that couples who do enjoy “good will” should realize is that circumstances always change. Witness radical changes in the Michigan economy and the very existence of corporate entities that only a few years ago would have been thought everlasting. Job shift assignments and travel requirements affect time demands. People move, sometimes short distances, sometimes far. The former spouse with whom you enjoy a close, fluid relationship right after your marriage to them ends may legitimately distance her- or himself from you upon later marriage to someone else.

In good will then, even when trust seems at an ideal apogee, there’s an imperative to make and document detailed agreements. Fundamentally, paperwork increases the likelihood that you’ll both perpetuate this condition (if not reducing the temptation to shrink from otherwise reasonably inferred obligations).

The early Church even struggled with written rules. Galatians 3:1-25 speaks to the question of whether or not the coming of Jesus Christ obviated Old Testament law. It did not. As Paul writes in 1 Timothy 1:8, “We know that the law is good if one uses it properly.” In other words, even those who are saved can benefit from and rely upon written direction in charting their actions.

Where children are involved, I always at least propose to couples in mediation that they include Halloween details taking up a page on this area alone in their divorce settlement documentation. In over twenty-five years of practice, I’ve never had a parent come back to me with a conflict that’s come from an ambiguity here. Conversely, I see a lot of post-judgment work come from parents who’ve been otherwise advised that they’d be served by write-ups that touched on all holidays 250-words or less.

Okay. You’ve come this far in considering how how up-front questions can improve long-term stability in parenting. Now I’d like to suggest one more stretch that might be right for more than a few.

In marriages, we routinely see one parent show an aptitude and predisposition toward some things that the other does not. And vice-versa in other aspects of child-rearing. This parallels 1 Corinthians 12:4, which starts a discussion of “spiritual gifts,” and concludes by verse 31 with the truth that none is preferable to the exclusion of the least among these; all forms of service are honorable. The same can be said in parenting.

Maybe one of either Dad or Mom better services junior as being the point person on all Halloween activities, every year. Balance that against a different parenting capability better led by the other parent, elsewhere in the year.

Let 2 Corinthians 9:6-7 guide you in prayer before deciding. “Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”

We’re half-way through October and steaming full-speed to the first test of cooperative parenting à la holidays in the new school year.

My Grandma Deaton wouldn’t want anyone to get spooked by it.

Neither would I.

Dell Deaton is a divorce pastoral counselor, independently practicing since 1983. He can be reached through www.divorcepastor.wordpress.com or on (734) 668-2001 in Saline.