A parenting plan is a written agreement between the parents of a child or children; the parents may have either been married, in common law relationship, or didn’t cohabit at all but they’re now separated  and they need a written agreement detailing their rights and obligations going forward with respect to raising the child. Generally speaking, a parenting plan is normally contained in a comprehensive separation agreement which might deal with other issues such as division of property, spousal support, etc. but it can also be a standalone agreement in which the only discussion is with respect to the children.

The first determination in any parenting plan is whether or not the parents will continue to have joint custody of the child. Custody pertains to the parent’s legal authority over the child in terms of dealing with teachers, doctors and with the moral training or religious upbringing. As the parents of the child, presumably the parents have joint custody, the question is whether that should continue now that they are separated. That agreement has to be reached or determined; if it’s a sole custody situation one parent will have the final say on those important questions. In addition to the custodial arrangement, the parents will also agree upon the parenting plan detailing the specifics of access. There are traditional scenarios where the child will primarily reside with one parent, there would be potential for a shared parenting situation where the child resides with each parent equally or something close to equally and that can either be an alternating weekly basis or some other arrangement. There are also situations where in cases of more than one child there would be a split parenting arrangement, one child primarily resides with one parent and the other resides with the other parent.

Once the time that the children spend with each parent has been agreed upon or determined, what will flow from that is also the consequences that flow financially with respect to child support. If the children primarily reside with one parent, that parent is presumptively entitled to table child support under the child support guidelines. In a shared parenting arrangement there might still be child support obligations but those would have to be determined based upon a more thorough analysis of the overall economic situation of the family. In addition to the basic table child support, the parties would also normally agree upon the sharing of special or extraordinary expenses. That sharing is normally done in a proportionate income basis which is the requirement under the federal child support guidelines. To be enforceable. the parenting plan has to be in writing, signed, witnessed and dated. Though it is a contract between the parents, it is technically not binding on the courts. The courts will presumably want to honor or respect the wishes of the parents, but if there is a change or need to review the agreement, the court is not bound by that contract and the court has the power to impose a resolution or determination which is in the children’s best interests which may be on terms that are different form the terms the parents agreed to.

The other aspect of parenting plans is that children of course get older and their needs change, so the parenting plan will likely have to be reviewed at some point in the future. Many parenting plans will have a dispute resolution clause incorporated into the agreement which sets out a mechanism for the parties to deal with those potential changes as the children get older. Once children get to be the ages between 12 and 14 or older, they begin to have an impact themselves on the outcome of the parenting plan as their wishes become more mature and more determinative.

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