A parenting plan is more than a calendar showing when children will stay with each parent. Done well, it provides a practical framework for raising children across two households and answers many of the questions that could otherwise become sources of repeated conflict.
Who makes major medical or educational decisions? Where will the children spend holidays? Who handles transportation? How will parents communicate about schedule changes? What happens when one parent wants to move? How will the children communicate with the other parent while away?
Illinois law requires parenting plans to address these and other important issues when parental responsibilities are being allocated.
Keller Legal Services helps parents in Naperville, DuPage County, Kane County, Will County, and surrounding Illinois communities develop parenting plans that comply with Illinois law while addressing the practical needs of their families.
Illinois law defines a parenting plan as a written agreement that allocates significant decision-making responsibilities, parenting time, or both.
Section 602.10 of the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act establishes the requirements governing parenting plans and identifies provisions that must be included.
A parenting plan can address two related but distinct parts of raising a child after parents separate:
Those subjects have their own legal considerations. Keller’s information about allocating parental responsibilities addresses significant decision-making in greater depth, while parenting time arrangements focus specifically on schedules and time with the children.
The parenting plan is where those pieces come together into a practical written arrangement.
A parenting plan should not simply say that parents will “share custody” or exercise “reasonable parenting time.”
Illinois law requires considerably more detail.
Under Section 602.10, a parenting plan must contain specified provisions governing the parents’ rights, responsibilities, schedules, communication, and procedures for handling future issues.
Among other requirements, the plan must address:
This level of detail serves an important purpose.
A vague parenting agreement can appear workable when parents are getting along. Problems often emerge later when the parents disagree about what the agreement was supposed to mean.
The regular schedule is one of the most visible parts of a parenting plan, but it should be designed around the child’s actual life rather than an abstract division of days.
Illinois courts allocate parenting time according to the child’s best interests under 750 ILCS 5/602.7. Relevant considerations include the child’s needs, prior caretaking arrangements, school and community adjustment, parents’ schedules, distance between their homes, transportation issues, and their ability to cooperate.
A useful schedule should make ordinary weeks predictable.
For example, parents may need to specify:
There is no Illinois rule requiring every parenting plan to use a 50/50 schedule. The appropriate arrangement depends on the child’s best interests and the family’s circumstances.
The broader factors affecting how parenting time is determined deserve separate consideration when the amount or division of parenting time is disputed.
A regular parenting schedule usually cannot address holidays adequately on its own.
Parents should consider which holidays matter to their family and what should happen when the holiday schedule conflicts with the ordinary weekly rotation.
A plan might address:
Some families alternate holidays annually. Others divide particular holidays or maintain traditions that are especially important to the children.
The details matter.
If the plan says the parents alternate Thanksgiving, for example, it can be helpful to specify when Thanksgiving parenting time begins and ends and whether it overrides the regular schedule.
Otherwise, a provision intended to prevent disagreement can create a new one.
Summer often requires additional planning because the structure of the school year disappears.
Children may attend camps, participate in sports, travel with family, or spend extended periods with each parent.
A parenting plan can establish how vacation periods will work, including:
Parents should think beyond what works this year. A schedule created for a young child may eventually need to accommodate sports, camps, summer employment, or other activities as the child gets older.
A parenting plan must allocate significant decision-making responsibilities.
Under 750 ILCS 5/602.5, significant decisions include matters involving education, health care, religion, and extracurricular activities. Responsibility for a particular category may be allocated to one or both parents.
Parents might share all significant decision-making responsibilities, or responsibility may be divided differently depending on the circumstances.
For example, a plan could provide for shared educational and medical decisions while allocating another category to one parent.
The decision-making arrangement does not necessarily have to mirror the parenting-time schedule. A parent having more overnights does not automatically mean that parent has sole authority over major decisions.
That distinction is central to understanding the broader allocation of parental responsibilities in Illinois.
Parenting plans do not need to require a conference between parents over every ordinary decision.
Illinois law provides that while exercising parenting time, a parent has responsibility for routine decisions concerning the child as well as emergency decisions affecting the child’s health and safety.
That generally allows each household to function without constant consultation over meals, ordinary activities, bedtime, and other routine matters.
Major decisions are different.
The plan should make clear which decisions require involvement from both parents and which parent has authority when responsibility has been allocated individually.
Clear boundaries can reduce unnecessary conflict.
Transportation may seem like a minor detail when a parenting plan is being negotiated. In practice, repeated exchanges can become one of the most common points of friction.
Parents should consider:
School can sometimes provide a natural transition point. One parent takes the child to school and the other parent begins parenting time at dismissal, reducing direct exchanges between parents.
What works depends on the family’s circumstances.
The objective should be a procedure clear enough that parents do not need to renegotiate transportation every few days.
Children benefit when important information can move between households.
A parenting plan can establish expectations for communicating about matters such as:
Some parents communicate effectively by phone. Others function better with email, text messages, or a parenting communication application that keeps child-related information organized.
The method matters less than having a workable process.
Parents should also consider what requires immediate communication and what can reasonably wait. Not every routine development needs an emergency phone call, while an injury or urgent medical issue obviously may.
A child does not stop having a relationship with one parent simply because the child is spending time at the other parent’s home.
Section 602.10 requires parenting plans to address each parent’s right to reasonable electronic communication with the child during the other parent’s parenting time.
Depending on the child’s age and family circumstances, this could involve phone calls, video calls, text messages, or another appropriate form of communication.
A practical plan can establish reasonable expectations without turning communication into an intrusion on the other parent’s parenting time.
For younger children, parents may need to facilitate calls. Older children with their own devices may require less structure.
Parents can sometimes confuse decision-making authority with access to information.
Those are not necessarily the same thing.
Illinois law generally provides parents access to information concerning their children, including medical, dental, child care, and school records, subject to statutory exceptions and certain court orders.
A parenting plan should identify how parents will receive and exchange important information.
Practical steps can include placing both parents on school email lists, giving both parents access to online school portals when appropriate, and ensuring health care providers have current contact information.
Avoiding information bottlenecks can reduce conflict and allow both parents to remain appropriately informed.
Some parenting plans address what happens when a parent needs child care during that parent’s scheduled parenting time.
Illinois law permits courts to consider a right of first refusal, meaning that before arranging certain alternative child care, a parent may be required to give the other parent an opportunity to care for the child.
If a right of first refusal is included, the details matter.
Parents may need to define:
Without clear terms, a right intended to give children additional time with a parent can instead become another source of disagreement.
A parenting plan should contemplate the possibility that one parent may eventually change residences.
Some moves are relatively minor. Others may qualify as a legal relocation and require compliance with specific Illinois procedures.
This is particularly relevant to Keller Legal Services clients in DuPage, Kane, and Will Counties because Illinois’ statutory definition of relocation includes specific distance rules that apply to a child’s primary residence in those counties.
Rather than trying to cover those rules fully within a parenting-plan page, parents considering a significant move should evaluate the requirements governing parental relocation in Illinois before assuming an existing parenting plan can simply be adjusted informally.
A parenting plan should also contain the relocation provisions required by Illinois law.
Parents can develop a parenting plan together.
When parents agree, Section 602.10 allows them to submit a joint parenting plan for court approval. The court generally approves an agreed plan unless it determines that the agreement is not in the child’s best interests.
Agreement can offer an important advantage: parents retain more control over the details of their children’s lives.
A judge can decide disputed issues, but parents usually know much more about their children’s schedules, personalities, school commitments, family traditions, and everyday needs.
That does not mean parents should agree to vague terms simply to avoid conflict.
A strong agreed parenting plan should be specific enough to function when the parents are not getting along as well as they are on the day they sign it.
Illinois law also establishes procedures for situations in which parents cannot reach an agreement.
When an agreed plan is not submitted, Section 602.10 generally requires each parent to file a written, signed proposed parenting plan within 120 days after filing an appearance, subject to the exceptions and extensions provided by the statute.
The court can then consider the proposed plans when determining parental responsibilities and parenting time.
Mediation may also be part of the process.
If the dispute continues, the court can ultimately determine the unresolved issues according to the child’s best interests.
Parents preparing competing proposals should therefore do more than describe what they personally want. A proposed plan should show how the arrangement would actually work for the child.
Legal compliance is essential, but a useful parenting plan should also anticipate ordinary life.
Before finalizing a proposal, consider whether it answers questions such as:
What happens when school is canceled unexpectedly?
The plan should not require an emergency negotiation every time the school calendar changes.
What if a child has an activity during the other parent’s time?
Parents should understand expectations concerning activities, transportation, and attendance.
What happens if a parent is running late?
Clear communication expectations can prevent an ordinary delay from becoming a larger dispute.
How will schedule changes be handled?
Parents may want flexibility, but there should be a way to distinguish an agreed temporary change from a permanent modification.
Does the plan still make sense as the child gets older?
Children’s schedules and needs evolve. A plan should provide stability without ignoring that reality.
The best parenting plan is not necessarily the longest. It is one that provides enough clarity to reduce predictable conflict without trying to regulate every minute of family life.
Yes, but an existing court-approved parenting plan should not simply be disregarded because one parent believes a different arrangement would work better.
Illinois has specific legal standards for modifying parenting plans, parenting time, and significant decision-making responsibilities after an order has been entered.
The requirements can depend on what is being changed and when the request is made.
Changes in school, work schedules, children’s needs, parental cooperation, or other circumstances may eventually make an existing arrangement impractical. Parents facing those issues should evaluate the standards governing modifications of custody and parental responsibilities rather than relying indefinitely on an informal arrangement that conflicts with the existing order.
A parenting plan is not limited to divorcing parents. Parenting plans can be relevant in proceedings involving allocation of parental responsibilities even when the parents were never married.
No. Illinois does not require every parenting plan to divide parenting time equally. Parenting time is based on the child’s best interests and the circumstances of the family.
Yes. Parents may submit an agreed written parenting plan for court approval. Illinois Courts also provides an approved statewide Parenting Plan form among its family and divorce forms.
Vague provisions can make an order more difficult to follow and may create disagreements over what each parent is required to do. Illinois law requires the parenting schedule or method for establishing it to contain sufficient detail to be enforceable.
A parenting plan should not exist only to finish a court case. Parents and children may rely on it for years as they navigate school weeks, holidays, medical decisions, activities, vacations, and life in two households.
Taking the time to address those details now can provide clearer expectations for both parents and a more predictable routine for the children.
Keller Legal Services helps parents in Naperville, DuPage County, Kane County, Will County, and surrounding Illinois communities develop, negotiate, and address disputes involving Illinois parenting plans.
If you are creating a parenting plan as part of a divorce, parentage case, or allocation proceeding, call 630-505-1515 to schedule a free consultation and discuss how the proposed terms will work for your family.
