Divorced and separated parents often put many hours of effort into designing a shared custody plan that parents and children can accept. Now we are experiencing a pandemic that creates an entirely unprecedented challenge to all of those careful arrangements.

The Texas Supreme Court has provided some assistance by publishing an emergency order instructing parents sharing custody to stick to the original agreement as much as possible, as though schools were still in regular session. For example, if the parent is supposed to pick up the child after school, but the school building is closed, the parents may have to agree on another location but the time for the pickup should theoretically stay the same.