How to Write a Parenting Plan: A Co-Parenting Template for Separated and Divorced Parents

A parenting plan is the written agreement separated or divorced parents make about where their children live, how decisions get made, and what happens when both parents want the same time. Most plans cover the same ten areas. The plans that hold up decide those areas in advance, while things are calm, so the plan can settle the conflicts the parents can’t.

In Double Binds in Co-Parenting After Divorce, I wrote about why we keep returning to the plan. Both parents can be right about their pain, and there is still one child and one stretch of time. This post is the plan itself: the ten parts most plans share, the choices inside each one, and the alternatives that fit different families. There is also a printable parenting plan template to fill in together.

When we cannot both agree to a change, the plan stands, and nobody has to prove their pain to get that result.

Why Write It Down at All

Every post-divorce family meets moments when both parents have sincere, emotionally compelling reasons to want the same weekend. A grandparent’s eightieth birthday lands on the other parent’s time. A work conference overlaps spring break. Neither reason is wrong. Comparing whose heartbreak counts more never settles anything, because there is no scale for it, and the attempt turns each disagreement into a contest.

The parenting plan prevents that contest. It is a decision rule we agree to in a calmer season, before any particular holiday or crisis takes over. Following it doesn’t mean either parent’s feelings are unimportant. It means both parents are honoring a structure they chose, so the children don’t grow up inside a negotiation that never ends. The priority order is the children’s stability first, and the parents’ lives and work second.

The Ten Parts of a Parenting Plan

1. The Regular Parenting Schedule

Three schedules cover most families: the 2-2-3, the 5-2-2-5, and week on, week off, often called a 7-7. The first two alternate weekends, so each home gets full, unstructured weekend time, and both build a weekday rhythm, which is where routine lives. The 7-7 trades some of that rhythm for fewer transitions.

Schedule	How the weeks run	Fits best
2-2-3	How the weeks runTwo days with one parent, two with the other, then three. The weekdays rotate each week.	Fits bestYounger children, who do better with short gaps between parents
5-2-2-5	How the weeks runEach parent keeps the same two weeknights every week, and the weekends alternate.	Fits bestSchool-age children, who benefit from weeknight ritual
Week on, week off (7-7)	How the weeks runA full week in each home, exchanged on the same day each week.	Fits bestTeenagers, and parents who live farther apart

The math looks simple. What it buys is predictability. In a 5-2-2-5, Tuesday is always music lessons from the same house, and Thursday is always dinner with the same parent. Children know where they will sleep without asking, and each parent can build work and a life around a rhythm that holds. The 2-2-3 gives up some of that weeknight consistency in exchange for never letting more than three days pass without seeing either parent, which matters more the younger the child.

The 7-7 is the schedule many families reach for first, because it is the easiest to explain and remember. The children spend a full week in one home, then a full week in the other, with a single exchange, often Friday after school or Sunday evening. One exchange a week means fewer handoffs and less packing back and forth. The cost is seven days apart from each parent, which teenagers usually handle well and younger children often find long. Some families add a midweek dinner with the other parent to shorten the gap.

When distance or work makes an equal rotation unworkable, the common alternative is every other weekend with one parent, plus a midweek dinner and longer blocks during school breaks.

2. Holidays, Birthdays, and Special Days

Holidays usually alternate by odd and even years, and they override the regular schedule. Thanksgiving goes to one parent in even years and the other in odd years. Winter break often splits in half, with the halves trading each year. Mother’s Day and Father’s Day usually go to the parent being honored, and families with two mothers or two fathers decide how those days work for them.

These are the days most likely to produce two legitimate claims at once, so this part of the plan needs more detail than any other. A child’s birthday is the clearest example.

Any of these can work if it is decided ahead of time rather than in the week before the party.

Switching holidays is possible when it is planned early. Say one parent’s family is holding a reunion at Christmas, and that parent would like to trade Thanksgiving for Christmas this year. The plan names how far ahead that request has to come, two or three months is common, and how quickly the other parent answers. If both parents agree, the trade gets written down, including when the favor comes back. If they don’t agree, the plan stands as written, and the conversation is over without anyone having to argue the case.

3. School Breaks and Vacations

A good parenting plan asks more organization of parents than most of us are used to. The more we plan ahead, the less the children absorb the cost of last-minute conflict. Parents still have jobs, vocations, and lives of their own, and predictability protects those too.

Summer is where this gets hardest, because camps, school calendars, and two work schedules all have to line up. Plans usually set a deadline each spring for sharing summer plans and camp sign-ups, and name how much notice a parent gives before taking the children on vacation, with dates, a destination, and a way to reach them. Some families keep the regular rotation all summer. Others shift to two-week blocks, which makes travel easier and lengthens the time away from the other parent.

4. Decision-Making

Joint decision-making is the default for the major areas: education, non-emergency healthcare, mental health care, religious upbringing, and extracurricular activities. Day-to-day decisions belong to whichever parent has the children that day. In an emergency, either parent acts first and tells the other right away.

When joint decisions keep deadlocking, an alternative is to divide the domains. One parent has the final say on education after a good-faith conversation, and the other has it on healthcare. That arrangement preserves both voices while giving each disagreement a place to end.

5. Exchanges, Transportation, and the First Call

We start by assuming amicability is achievable. Whichever parent has the children on a given day is responsible for pickups, rides, and childcare. When that parent can’t cover it, because of a late meeting or a work training that runs long, the first call goes to the other parent, before a sitter, a grandparent, or a new partner. Time with a parent is almost always better for the children than time with anyone else. This is often called the right of first refusal, and plans usually set a minimum, such as any absence longer than four hours.

The plan also names where exchanges happen, who drives, how long a late arrival can run, and what travels with the children: medications, homework, sports gear, the stuffed animal that has to make the trip. In higher-conflict families, exchanges at school are a useful alternative, since one parent drops off in the morning and the other picks up in the afternoon, and the parents never have to hand off face to face.

6. Communication Between Parents

Parents agree on one main channel so information doesn’t scatter across texts, emails, and hurried conversations at pickup. When things are amicable, texting and a shared calendar are usually enough. Third-party co-parenting apps like OurFamilyWizard or TalkingParents tend to come in when things aren’t. They keep a timestamped record and make it easier to keep messages about logistics.

The plan sets an expected response time for non-urgent messages, defines what counts as urgent, and holds one line above the rest. Parents communicate directly with each other and never pass messages through the children.

7. The Children’s Contact With the Other Parent

I almost always recommend that children be free to reach either parent at any time. Limiting that contact tends to teach children that loving one parent is disloyal to the other, which is the double bind the whole plan exists to prevent. Some families set regular call times for younger children so the contact is predictable. The structure is there for the parents’ consistency, never to restrict the children.

8. Consistency Across Households

Children settle more easily when the basic structure of life feels the same in both homes. Two households will never match exactly, and they don’t need to. What matters is that the main expectations hold wherever the children wake up.

If one parent is considering a consequence outside the usual range, the parents talk first. Neither parent criticizes the other in front of the children, or where they can hear it, and neither asks the children to carry messages, keep secrets, or report on the other home.

9. Information Access, School, and Activities

Both parents have full access to school, medical, and activity records, and both are listed as contacts. Both can attend school events, conferences, games, and performances, whoever has the children that day. The plan names who registers the children for school and activities, and how report cards, medical updates, and schedules get shared.

10. Changes, Disputes, and the Default

One-time swaps are welcome when both parents agree freely. They are requests, never obligations, and saying no is a legitimate answer rather than a hostile act. When the parents can’t agree, the plan decides.

The plan is there for the moments when we can’t agree.

Lasting changes go through mediation before either parent returns to court. Children’s needs shift a great deal between early childhood and adolescence, so the plan also sets a regular review, every year or two, rather than waiting for a conflict to force one. Most plans also name how much notice a parent gives before relocating.

Shared Values and Common-Sense Defaults

The ten parts above handle logistics. The stronger plans also state values, the agreements that let parents act as a united front on the things that keep coming up. The values underneath the whole plan are the children’s safety, their healthy development, and their growth in school, activities, and sports. When those are named, many specific decisions become givens, and parents don’t find themselves reeling when a request lands on their watch.

Some decisions carry real risk. A friend’s dad offers a ride on his motorcycle. Another family invites the child on a helicopter tour, or on an overnight trip with people one parent has never met. One parent may be comfortable with it while the other isn’t. If the parents can’t work it out, the plan defaults to what most parents would say, which is usually the more cautious answer.

One parent’s comfort doesn’t override the other parent’s reasonable concern.

New Partners

Dating is where shared values get tested most. The common guideline, and the one I recommend, is that parents don’t introduce children, especially young children, to a new partner until the relationship has lasted at least six months.

The first reason is grief. Children bond quickly. When a new relationship ends, they go through another loss on top of the one the divorce already brought, and each loss teaches them something about how long people stay. The second reason is that early introductions tend to bring adult matters into a child’s life before the child can make sense of them. The third is harder to say kindly. A new relationship pulls hard on our attention. The chemistry of a crush is real, and it can crowd out the steadiness children need from us during one of the hardest transitions of their lives. Waiting protects the children, and it protects us from our own distraction.

Plans usually also name how parents let each other know before an introduction, and whether a new partner stays overnight while the children are present.

Common Add-Ons

A few areas don’t apply to every family, and they come up often enough to settle early. For each one, the plan names a default for when the parents can’t agree in the moment.

Extracurricular costs. One parent is often more invested in an activity than the other, like a travel sports team or private lessons. Enthusiasm alone doesn’t commit the other parent to half the cost. Families usually choose one of three arrangements: costs split by agreement up to a set amount, costs split in proportion to income, or the parent who wants the activity pays for it when the other doesn’t agree.

Children with special needs. Therapies, specialists, IEP meetings, medications, and how both parents stay connected to providers.

Phones, social media, video games, and pets. The age for a first phone, when social media accounts open, what game ratings are allowed, and which home the dog lives in. These are minor until the day they aren’t, and a default spares the parents from negotiating each one under pressure.

When the Plan Needs to Be Stricter

Some situations call for a more specific plan to protect the children. General guidance gives way to clear conditions, written with a mediator or attorney, when a family is dealing with ongoing substance or alcohol misuse, domestic violence in either household, a partner or household member with a history of violence or unsafe behavior, a parent’s mental health crisis that affects safety, or threats to leave the area with the children.

Other tools include supervised parenting time, supervised exchanges, sobriety requirements before and during parenting time, and communication only through a third-party app. None of this is the place to start for most families. It is there so the plan can protect a child when amicability isn’t available.

The Separation Agreement Shapes the Parenting Plan

The parenting plan and the separation agreement are different documents. The agreement divides a shared life, and the plan organizes a shared child. How well we move through the first decides how much diplomacy the second will require for the next fifteen years.

High emotion pulls people toward principle and away from the practical. I often use the example of a boat.

Every principle won through attrition in mediation gets paid back in how hard each future conversation becomes. Favoring amicability in the separation is the most practical thing parents can do for the plan that follows.

When the Plan Ends Up in a Drawer

Some families write a careful plan, file it, and almost never look at it again. They handle most things together in the moment, trading weekends and sharing birthdays without consulting a clause. That outcome is rarely luck. It usually reflects how the separation itself was handled, and how much amicability both parents protected while it was still expensive to protect. The plan exists for the hard days, and the families who need it least are often the ones who built it most carefully.