A parenting plan is simply a written document, whether agreed to by the parents or imposed by the Court, setting forth how parties will raise their children.  Sophisticated family lawyers have been using parenting plans for years, even though parenting plans were not always required.  However, with the changes to Florida Statute section 61.13, parenting plans are now mandatory.

When the legislative changes went into effect, I received numerous telephone calls from other lawyers asking, "Do you have a parenting plan form that I can use?"  My answer was, and remains, the same.  "I have about thirty of them."  The entire point of a parenting plan is to avoid a "one size fits all" model, which has been discredited over the years by empirical research by child development experts.  Every family is different, so each parenting plan should be customized to address the dynamics of any given family.

Some parents want to be more involved in the lives of their children, some less.  Some parents have individual strengths in certain areas of a child's live, while others have different contributions to make.  In developing an appropriate parenting plan, both parents should try to take an objective look at what they have to offer for the benefit of the children.  This is not an easy task because both parents usually have their own agendas and have a difficult time seeing things through the eyes of their children.  This is the reason why both parents should seek a qualified child custody lawyer to determine what is in the best interests of their children.