Understanding Florida's Parenting Plan Requirements

The parenting plan is the case

Florida abandoned "custody awards" in favor of a document: the parenting plan, required in every dissolution or paternity case involving minor children, whether the parents agree or fight. If parents can't agree on a plan, the court writes one for them — which is generally the strongest argument for writing your own.

What the statute requires, at minimum

Under Fla. Stat. § 61.13(2)(b), a parenting plan must, at minimum, do four things:

1. Describe in adequate detail how the parents will share and be responsible for the daily tasks of raising the child — homework, meals, activities, discipline philosophy at the level the two households need it stated.
2. Include the time-sharing schedule — the actual calendar of overnights and time each parent has, specific enough that a stranger (or a police officer at an exchange) could read it and know where the child should be.
3. Designate who is responsible for health care, school-related matters, and other activities — including which parent's address controls school registration and boundary determination.
4. Describe the methods and technologies the parents will use to communicate with the child and each other.

Since 2023, Florida courts also start from a rebuttable presumption that equal time-sharing serves the child's best interests — the schedule ultimately entered still runs through the best-interests factors of § 61.13(3). The custody and time-sharing page covers that framework in depth.

What good plans add beyond the minimum

• Holiday and summer schedules that override the regular rotation, with even/odd year alternation spelled out.
• Exchange logistics — where, when, who drives, and what happens when someone is late.
• Travel rules — notice for out-of-state trips, passport custody, itinerary sharing.
• Decision tie-breakers — what happens when shared parental responsibility deadlocks on a school or medical choice.
• Communication guardrails — response-time expectations, a co-parenting app if the relationship is high-conflict, and rules about the child's phone contact with each parent.
• Right of first refusal — whether a parent must offer the other parent the time before using a babysitter for longer stretches.

None of these are legally required. All of them prevent the 9 p.m. Sunday argument that otherwise becomes a court motion. The pattern in modification practice is consistent: families come back to court over what the plan didn't say far more often than over what it did.

Living with the plan — and changing it

A parenting plan is a court order, enforceable on its terms, and informal side-deals don't amend it — only a court order does. If the plan genuinely stops fitting (a new work schedule, a move, children aging into new needs), Florida allows modification on a showing of a substantial and material change in circumstances; here's how that works. And if a move of more than 50 miles is in anyone's future, the relocation statute has its own strict process — build it into the plan now rather than litigating it later.

Key law: Fla. Stat. § 61.13(2)(b) (parenting plan requirements); § 61.13(3) (best-interests factors); § 61.13001 (relocation).