Every Florida divorce involving minor children requires a written parenting plan. The plan must address parental responsibility, time-sharing, decision-making, and communication. Under Fla. Stat. § 61.13, the court will not enter a final judgment of dissolution until a parenting plan is in place, either by agreement of the parents or by order of the court after a contested hearing.
Mediation lets you and your co-parent design the plan yourselves, in your children’s interest, without a judge making the decisions for you. Charles Geller has been a licensed clinical therapist for more than 30 years and a Florida Supreme Court Certified Mediator for 20 years. That clinical background matters most here. Parenting plans are not just legal documents; they are the operating manual for your children’s next decade.
What does a Florida parenting plan have to contain?
Fla. Stat. § 61.13(2)(b) requires every parenting plan to address, at minimum:
- How both parents will share and be responsible for the daily tasks associated with the upbringing of the child
- The time-sharing schedule. specifying the time the minor child will spend with each parent
- A designation of who will be responsible for health care, school-related matters, and other activities
- The methods and technologies that the parents will use to communicate with the child
Most plans go further than the statutory minimum because the more specific the plan, the fewer conflicts arise later. A workable Florida parenting plan typically addresses:
- The school-year time-sharing schedule (week-by-week, with overnights specified)
- The summer schedule
- Holidays and school breaks (Thanksgiving, December break, spring break, three-day weekends, each parent’s birthday, child’s birthday)
- Exchanges. where, when, and who transports
- Transportation responsibility (and what happens when one parent moves)
- Communication while the child is with the other parent (phone, video, text. and at what times)
- Health care decisions, including how routine vs. major decisions are made
- Education decisions (school choice, IEP/504 plans, tutoring, extracurriculars)
- Religious upbringing
- Travel. domestic and international, including passport handling
- Relocation procedures (Florida’s relocation statute requires written agreement or court approval for moves over 50 miles)
- How disagreements about the plan will be resolved going forward (often a return to mediation)
Charles drafts the parenting plan in plain language as the mediation session progresses. Every required element is included; specific provisions get added based on your family’s needs.
How is time-sharing decided in Florida?
Florida law does not start with a “default” 50/50 schedule, despite a common misperception. Under Fla. Stat. § 61.13(2)(c), the court must “order shared parental responsibility for a minor child unless the court finds that shared parental responsibility would be detrimental to the child.” Time-sharing itself is determined by what is in the best interest of the child, with 20 statutory factors the court considers. Those factors include each parent’s demonstrated capacity to facilitate a relationship with the other parent, the moral fitness of each parent, the home environments offered, the geographic viability of the parenting plan, the developmental needs of the child, and the child’s reasonable preference if the court considers the child of sufficient age and maturity.
In mediation, you and your co-parent decide the schedule. You are not bound by the 20 statutory factors the way a judge would be, though you should consider them. Charles walks through what a judge would weigh, surfaces options that have worked for other families with similar logistics, and helps both parents see the trade-offs.
The schedules that work for divorcing Florida families are wide-ranging. Some families use a week-on, week-off schedule. Others use a 2-2-3 schedule (Monday-Tuesday with Parent A, Wednesday-Thursday with Parent B, Friday-Sunday alternating). Others use a school-year primary residence with extended summer and holiday time with the other parent. The right schedule depends on the children’s ages, school location, the parents’ work schedules, the geographic distance between households, and what the children themselves will tolerate.
How is child support calculated in Florida?
Child support in Florida follows a statutory formula. Fla. Stat. § 61.30 sets the child support guidelines schedule and the calculation procedure. The basic inputs are:
- Both parents’ net monthly income
- The number of children
- Each parent’s share of overnight time-sharing
- Health insurance costs for the children
- Work-related child care costs
- Any special needs or recurring uncovered medical expenses
The statute provides a guideline table that produces a baseline child support number based on combined net income and number of children. That baseline is then adjusted based on each parent’s share of overnight time-sharing. When one parent has the child for 73 or more overnights per year (20% of overnights), Florida’s “substantial time-sharing” calculation applies, which often reduces the support obligation compared to a sole-residence calculation.
Mediation handles the child support calculation as a math exercise on top of the time-sharing decision. Charles produces the calculation using current statutory guidelines and walks both parents through the inputs and the result. The mediation produces a Child Support Guidelines Worksheet (form FL-Family Law 902(e)) that is filed with the final judgment.
The guideline number is presumptive but not absolute. Parents can agree to a different number for documented reasons, subject to court review.
Why does the research say mediation helps children?
The largest meta-analysis ever conducted on divorce and child outcomes pooled 2,257 correlations across 115 study samples and produced a clear finding: what damages children of divorce is not divorce itself. It is the interparental conflict that accompanies high-conflict divorces (van Dijk, van der Valk, Deković & Branje, 2020, Clinical Psychology Review). Reducing conflict between parents directly improves children’s adjustment, both short-term and long-term.
Mediation is the divorce process specifically designed to reduce that conflict at the source. The randomized controlled trials backing this claim are unusually strong for social science research. In a one-year follow-up of families randomly assigned to either mediate or litigate their custody dispute, parents who mediated reported substantially higher satisfaction than parents who litigated, and complied more often with child support orders (Emery, Matthews & Kitzmann, 1994, Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology). Twelve years after the original study, the differences were still measurable: non-residential parents who mediated were “more involved in multiple areas of their children’s lives, maintained more contact with their children, and had a greater influence in coparenting” than those who litigated (Emery et al., 2001).
Parenting-plan design also matters within mediation. Mediation models that explicitly center children’s needs (sometimes called “child-focused” or “child-inclusive” mediation) produce measurably better adjustment for the children one year later (McIntosh et al., 2008, Family Court Review). A child-focused frame is part of how Charles runs the parenting-plan portion of the mediation: the question is not “who wins.” It’s “what schedule and decision-making structure gives these children the best shot at a stable next ten years.”
Why does Charles’s clinical background matter for parenting plans?
A parenting plan is a legal document, but the conversation that produces it is an emotional one. Recently divorced individuals show substantially elevated rates of anxiety and depression compared to general population baselines, and process factors during the divorce explain meaningful variance in those symptoms (Sander et al., 2020, Journal of Mental Health). Process factors include how the conversations went, whether the parents felt heard, and whether the spouse perceived the outcome as fair.
Charles began his clinical therapy career more than 30 years ago and has been a licensed Florida clinical therapist since 2004. That training shapes how he handles the mediation room when one or both parents arrive emotionally raw. He knows how to slow a conversation down before it derails. He knows how to surface what a parent is actually worried about underneath what they are saying. He knows how to bring two parents who disagree about something into a position to hear each other.
This is not therapy. Charles is not your therapist; he is your neutral mediator. But the clinical training is what allows him to mediate effectively in the highest-emotion room a divorce process produces: the conversation about the children.
Can we change the parenting plan later if life changes?
Yes. Parenting plans are modifiable. Under Florida law, a modification requires a showing of a “substantial, material, and unanticipated change in circumstances” and that the modification is in the child’s best interest. Common modification triggers include a parent’s relocation, a significant change in either parent’s work schedule, a child entering middle or high school with new logistical needs, or a documented change in the child’s needs.
Modifications can be handled by agreement of the parents (a stipulated modification, filed with the court) or, when parents disagree, by motion before the court. Mediation is well-suited to stipulated modifications. Many of the parents Charles works with return years later to update the original plan as their children grow.
Frequently asked questions
What must a Florida parenting plan contain?
Under Fla. Stat. § 61.13(2)(b), every parenting plan must address: how parents share daily upbringing responsibilities, the time-sharing schedule, who is responsible for health care and school decisions, and how the parents will communicate with the child. Most workable plans go further and specify school-year and summer schedules, holiday rotations, exchanges, transportation, communication during the other parent’s time, and a process for resolving future disagreements.
Who decides time-sharing if my co-parent and I disagree?
In mediation, you decide together. If mediation does not produce an agreement, a Florida judge decides based on the 20 best-interest-of-the-child factors in Fla. Stat. § 61.13(3). Most divorcing Florida couples reach agreement on time-sharing in mediation; contested time-sharing trials are rare and expensive. The 12-year University of Virginia follow-up found that parents who mediated maintained substantially better coparenting relationships than parents who let the court decide (Emery et al., 2001).
Can we change the parenting plan later?
Yes. Parenting plans can be modified by agreement of the parents or by court order, on a showing of a “substantial, material, and unanticipated change in circumstances” and that the modification is in the child’s best interest. Mediation is well-suited to stipulated modifications when both parents agree the plan needs adjustment.
How does Florida calculate child support?
Florida child support follows the statutory guideline schedule in Fla. Stat. § 61.30. The calculation uses both parents’ net monthly income, the number of children, each parent’s share of overnight time-sharing, health insurance costs, and work-related child care costs. When one parent has the child for 73 or more overnights per year (20%), Florida’s substantial time-sharing calculation applies. Charles produces the calculation in the mediation session and provides the Child Support Guidelines Worksheet for filing.
Is Florida a 50/50 custody state by default?
No. Florida starts with a presumption of shared parental responsibility (decision-making), but time-sharing is determined by what is in the best interest of the child. The court considers 20 statutory factors. A 50/50 schedule is one common outcome but is not the legal default. In mediation, you can structure any schedule that works for your family, as long as the court can find it serves the child’s best interest.
What if my co-parent and I disagree about schooling, religion, or major medical decisions?
The parenting plan should specify, in advance, how these decisions get made. The two most common structures are “joint decision-making” (both parents must agree on major decisions in the named category) and “primary decision-maker” (one parent has the final call, with notice and good-faith consultation required). Mediation surfaces this question explicitly. For families with a known disagreement (one parent wants private school, the other wants public; one parent practices a religion the other does not), the parenting plan can specify how the issue is handled — sometimes by naming a specific school district, a specific religious practice the child will be exposed to, or a process for revisiting the question as the child gets older.
What about extracurricular activities and travel?
Most plans address both. Extracurriculars: who pays, who transports, whether either parent can sign the child up unilaterally or whether both must agree. Travel: standard rules for domestic travel (typically notice required), specific rules for international travel (typically written consent and passport handling), and any restrictions on travel during the other parent’s time.
What does Florida law require about parenting courses?
Both parents in a Florida dissolution involving minor children must complete a court-approved 4-hour parenting course before the final judgment is entered, under Fla. Stat. § 61.21. The petitioner must complete the course within 45 days of filing, and the responding party within 45 days of service. Charles provides a list of approved courses; most can be completed online in a single sitting.
Is mediation safe if there is high conflict between us?
Mediation handles high conflict every day. Charles’s clinical therapy background is part of why high-conflict mediations still produce agreements at this office. That said, there is a line: where there is a history of domestic violence, coercive control, or active intimidation, mediation is not appropriate. Florida law itself excludes these cases from court-ordered mediation under Fla. Stat. § 44.102. Research has shown that mediators miss domestic violence in roughly 57% of cases that involve it (Beck, Walsh & Weston, 2005). The free 30-minute consultation is used in part to screen for this; if mediation is not appropriate, Charles refers out.
How do we handle relocation if one of us wants to move?
Florida’s relocation statute requires written agreement of both parents or court approval for a move of 50 miles or more from the principal residence, if the move would last 60 days or longer. Parenting plans should address relocation procedures explicitly. Many plans require a defined notice period, mediation as a first step if either parent wants to relocate, and specific provisions for transportation cost-sharing if a relocation does occur.
What if one parent has substantially more income than the other?
Florida’s child support guidelines account for income disparity directly. The higher-earning parent’s share of the combined obligation is proportional to their share of combined net income. Beyond the guideline number, parents can agree to additional financial provisions in the parenting plan (paying for extracurricular activities, college savings, private school tuition, etc.) as part of the overall settlement.
Related services
- Divorce Mediation. the full divorce mediation process in Florida
- Asset Division. equitable distribution under Fla. Stat. § 61.075
- Family Agreements. modifications to existing parenting plans and other family agreements
- How It Works. the step-by-step process
- Pricing. full pricing breakdown
A workable parenting plan is your children’s next decade. Book a free 30-minute Zoom consultation to talk through your family’s situation.