Treat the launch schedule and the household schedule as separate plans. Eligible spouses and unmarried children under 21 may seek L2, and those steps take their own time. Avoid committing to school enrolment, notice periods, or housing on a date the product plan can still change.
Set family decisions against firm points
Tie household commitments to steps that have actually happened rather than to a projected launch. A spouse in valid L-2S status is authorized to work incident to that status, and an employment authorization document is not universally required, but a new employer still needs the household to have reached that point. Children in L2 are not work authorized.
Where the family plans to follow later, write that into the plan. Add a second axis to the household plan: what happens if the assignment is extended. A launch-driven posting frequently runs longer than intended, and an extension is a fresh set of steps for every person holding permission through the principal, not an administrative renewal.
Check each passport's expiry against a date well beyond the current plan, and note any dependant whose own circumstances — a course, a registration, an age threshold — would change on extension. Hypothetical example: a sonar calibration specialist's assignment is scoped at eighteen months, the household maps the paperwork for a three-year version at the same time, and the second map is the one they end up using. Preparing both at once costs an afternoon; preparing the second under pressure costs considerably more.