Parenting Plan Template Examples
To begin making the parenting plan, you can look at some parenting plan template examples to help you get started. Here are some basic issues that you should cover when making your plan.
The Child’s Residence
Choosing where the child lives can be one of the more difficult issues that you discuss. This decision must be made with the child’s best interest in mind. Generally, a plan will work better if both parents support where the child lives because there will be less fighting in the future and the parents won’t have to go to court. You can have the child live primarily with one parent, have the child split time between both parents’ homes, or have the child live in one home while the mother and father alternate time there (this is commonly called bird nesting). You must come up with a schedule that outlines when the child is with each parent. You should also determine where the child will be during holidays. (Look at some parenting plan calendar examples to get started on your schedule.)
Legal Custody
Legal custody is the right and responsibility that parents have to make decisions for their children. You need to make some sort of plan for how you and the other parent plan to divide or share this responsibility. A mother and father can both share legal custody, or the full responsibility can be given to one parent. If you decide to share legal custody, you need to determine how it is shared. You can give each parent certain categories to be responsible, both parents can discuss and agree on major decisions, the parents can be responsible for decisions when they have the child, etc.
Health Care
You must decide how you and the other parent will continue to provide medical and dental care for the child. This means that you must determine how the child will be covered by insurance, how you will pay medical expenses, how you will choose medical providers, and what you will do in a medical emergency.
Standards for Raising the Child
Children need consistency, and you and the child’s other parent must work together so the child has some consistency. There will be differences between the parents’ homes, but you can establish some guidelines in your parenting plan for raising the child. These guidelines can be common rules the households will share, like the requirement that the child always wears a seat belt in the car. The guidelines can also be rules about how parents will share information about the children.
Education
You must talk about the child’s education with the other parent and make some plans. In addition to discussing what school the child will attend, you need to determine how you will let your child participate in extra-curricular activities. You must also decide how you will pay for school expenses and extra-curricular expenses. It is a good idea to come up with a plan for how you will both be involved in the child’s schooling–how you will participate in parent-teacher conferences, how you will handle problems should they come up, etc.
Resolving Disputes and Making Changes to the Plan
You should put provisions into the plan about how they will resolve future disputes and make changes to the plan. The idea behind this is to come up with a system that keeps you and the other parent out of court. You need to have some way that you will work out your differences. You can agree to go to mediation, follow a step-by-step procedure, or do anything else that will help. As your child grows older, it will be necessary to make changes to the plan so it better fits the child. Again, you need to have a system for how you will make those changes.

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A meeting between divorced and separated parents to talk about the parenting agreement typically goes like this. The parents begin by talking about an issue, let’s say the holiday schedule. One parent makes a suggestion and the other parent doesn’t quite agree. Pretty soon, they are heatedly arguing about things that happened to cause the divorce. There are insults, yelling, and high emotion. The meeting ends abruptly as one parent storms out of the room.
It’s that time of year–summer is just around the corner, and people are making plans for vacations. This can be a difficult subject for divorced and separated parents, unless they have figured out vacation time in their parenting plan and custody agreement. Because all parents want to have fun with their children, here is how to handle
In this schedule, the first parent has the children for 3 days, the second parent has the children for 3 days, the first parent has the children for 4 days and the second parent then has the children for 4 days. It basically splits the week in half.
In this schedule, the parents simply alternate weeks with the children. You can choose what day to switch, and you can also alternate every two weeks.
In this schedule, one parent has the children for 2 days, the other parent then has the child for 2 days, and then the child goes back to the first parent for 3 days. The schedule keeps rotating, and the child goes to the second parent for 2 days, the first parent for 2 days, and the second parent for 3 days.
In this schedule, the parent has visitation alternating weekends, but the weekends are extended. This calendar shows the extension on a Monday, but the extended weekend could also start on Thursday night or Friday morning.
One parent has the children all the time except on the 1st, 3rd, and 5th weekends. There are several variations to this schedule as well. The visitation can occur on the 2nd, 4th, and 5th weekend or the parents can alternate the 5th weekend. Mid-week visits can also be added.
In this parenting time schedule, the child lives with one parent during the week and has visitation with the other parent every weekend.
The child lives with one parent during the week and on alternating weekends. The other parent has visitation on alternating weekends.
The child lives with one parent during the week and alternating weekends. The other parent has the child on the other weekends and for one evening visit during the week. Parents can have the visit on any evening, and they can also have visits on multiple evenings during the week.
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Custody X Change version 3.15 has been released. This update changes the principle interaction with the repeating cycle and vacations. The new interactions are:
Many parents feel confused and overwhelmed as they begin the process of making their