Child Custody - Parenting Time and Legal Decision-Making

A Parenting Plan is a detailed plan that outlines a parenting time schedule, communication procedures, exchange procedures, how changes and violations of the plan will be resolved, a schedule to review the plan. It also details each parent’s rights and responsibilities for the personal care of the child and for decisions in areas such as education, health care and religious training.

Under A.R.S. 25-403.02, every parenting plan needs:

• Designation of legal decision-making as either joint or sole
• Each parent’s rights and responsibilities for the personal care of the child and for decisions in areas such as education, health care and religion
• A practical schedule of parenting time for the child, including holidays and school vacations
• A procedure for the exchanges of the child, including location and responsibility for transportation
• A procedure by which proposed changes, disputes and alleged breaches may be mediated or resolved, which may include the use of conciliation services or private counseling
• A procedure for periodic review of the plan’s terms by the parents
• A procedure for communicating with each other about the child, including methods and frequency.

A tiebreaker provision is a section of your parenting plan agreement that determines which parent gets to make the final decision about an issue when the parents cannot agree. This type of provision can help avoid costly litigation and fighting over the children.

For instance, you could mediate all ties, before going back to court. Your “mediator” in this situation can be anyone you choose; an attorney, pastor, grandparent, social worker, counselor, psychologist or anyone else who can help you. You could decide that one parent can break the tie in two matters and the other parent breaks the tie in the other two areas. You could attempt to negotiate as many of these issues during the divorce as you can anticipate. If you know your child will need braces, plan for it now and negotiate it now, before anger or other future partners muddy up the water. Let’s say that you know your child will play soccer and it will be played on Saturdays. Saturdays are both mom’s and dad’s parenting time on every other weekend. You can write into your agreement that sports that fall on the non-visiting parent’s parenting time can be made up by agreement of the parties. Soccer that falls on both parents time alternately, when the parents have 50-50 parenting time may not be a reason to keep the child out of sports and there will be no make-up time. If you know that one grandparent always takes the kids to the lake in the summer for a week, write that into the agreement now. But do not put your child in the middle. We repeat: do not put your child in the middle.

The law favors equal parenting time when both parents are considered fit (meaning no criminal behavior, drug or alcohol abuse, neglect, domestic violence, etc.) and in most cases the court will order equal parenting time. Parents with equal parenting time share time with the child in a manner that assures that the child has substantially equal contact with both parents. The actual schedules that carry out this plan can vary with each family.

The legal parents of a child can decide a parenting plan schedule without intervention from the court. However, if an agreement cannot be reached, the judge will decide legal decision-making based on the best interest factors. The court may determine other factors that are necessary to promote and protect the emotional and physical health of the child.

A.R.S. 25-403.02 D. says that “A parent who is not granted sole or joint legal decision-making is entitled to reasonable parenting time to ensure that the minor child has substantial, frequent, meaningful and continuing contact with the parent unless the court finds, after a hearing, that parenting time would endanger the child’s physical, mental, moral or emotional health.”

Sole custody and legal decision-making is awarded to one parent if the other parent is deemed unfit because of alcohol or drug dependency, criminal behavior, child abuse, neglect or domestic violence.