As a parent, you have a right to spend a certain amount of time with your minor (under age 18) children. During the school year, the schedule your parenting plan stipulates often becomes routine — allowing for you and the other parent to arrange each of your personal and parental responsibilities accordingly. But when summer vacation and other such holidays roll around, the schedule you used during the school year may not be feasible. Furthermore, if you are not the primary parent, holidays offer you an opportunity for extended time with your kids.
Under Florida law, you are allowed to include in your agreed upon parenting plan an alternate time-sharing schedule for the summer months and on select holidays. If the parties don’t agree on the parenting plan, then the Court is authorized to include special timesharing for the summer and other holidays. Often the summer and holiday timesharing in a parenting plan will include the following:
Keeping these general ideas in mind can be helpful, particularly if you cannot agree to a parenting plan, because it gives you a general idea of what a Judge might do if you can’t agree. But it is important to note that any time-sharing arrangement you and your child’s other parent can agree to without intervention from the court will likely be approved.
This post was composed by Florida family law attorney Deborah Greene with contributions from attorney Andrea Jevic. For more information on parenting plans, consult a lawyer.