When you and your co-parent live apart, everyday questions about your children can become more complicated. Where will they spend weekends? Who will make decisions about school or medical care? What happens during holidays and vacations?
Maryland provides Form CC-DR-109 to help you develop a parenting plan that addresses important issues involving your child. A detailed plan can give you and your co-parent clearer expectations about how you will share parenting responsibilities while keeping your child’s best interests at the center of custody decisions.
Consider these five areas:
1. Decision-making responsibilities
Your plan can explain how you will make major decisions about your child’s education, healthcare and religious upbringing, including whether you will share these responsibilities or divide them between you.
2. Parenting time schedule
Outline where your child will stay during the week and on weekends, including regular overnight stays and when each parent’s scheduled parenting time begins and ends.
3. Holidays, vacations and travel
Because your regular schedule may change during holidays and school breaks, your plan can explain how you will divide these periods and handle vacations or travel with your child.
4. Transportation and communication
Consider who will provide transportation between homes, where exchanges will take place and how you and your child will communicate when you are apart.
5. Plans for resolving disagreements
Your plan can identify how you will handle future disagreements about parenting decisions and communicate about changes that affect your child.
What if you cannot agree on a plan?
You and your co-parent may resolve some parenting issues while remaining divided on others. If you do not reach a comprehensive agreement, Maryland’s parenting plan process uses Form CC-DR-110 to identify the unresolved issues for the court.
If you are unsure how to address a particular issue or you disagree on important terms, legal guidance can help you understand your child custody options and how Maryland’s parenting plan process applies to your circumstances.