Your Parenting Plan: What It Is and What to Include

By Bob Manthy

Before I say a single word about parenting plans, I need to be clear about who I’m and who I’m not, because this topic sits right on a line I’m careful never to cross.

I’m a counselor and a certified Love and Logic facilitator. I’m not an attorney. Nothing in this article is legal advice, and it can’t substitute for it. Your actual, legal parenting plan, the one that gets filed with the court and governs your family, must be built with a Colorado family-law attorney or a qualified family mediator. What I can offer is the emotional and practical wisdom I’ve gathered over more than twenty years of walking alongside divorcing parents: what a parenting plan is for, what tends to go in one, and how the Love and Logic approach can shape the spirit behind the document. Take all of that to your attorney or mediator. Let them handle the law.

With that said, let me help you understand what you’re building and why it matters so much for your peace, and your kids’.

What a parenting plan actually is

A parenting plan is the written agreement between two divorced or separating parents that spells out how you’ll share the responsibilities and the time of raising your children. In Colorado, a parenting plan is part of the court process, and it addresses what the law frames as parental responsibilities, which covers both decision-making (the big choices about your kids’ lives) and parenting time (the schedule of when the children are with each parent).

But here’s what a parenting plan really is, underneath the legal language: it’s the structure that lets you stop negotiating. Without a plan, every holiday is a fresh fight, every schedule change is a new argument, every disagreement gets relitigated from scratch. With a good plan, the hard decisions were already made, calmly, in advance, and now you just follow them. I can’t overstate the emotional relief that creates. A thorough plan is a gift you give your future, exhausted self, and your kids, who get to grow up inside predictability instead of recurring conflict.

So while the document is legal, the goal is deeply human: less conflict, more stability, clearer expectations, and kids who always know what’s coming next.

The Love and Logic spirit behind a good plan

This is where my actual expertise lives, so let me lean in.

A parenting plan is mostly logistics, dates, schedules, who-decides-what. But the spirit in which you build it, and the parenting philosophy it quietly encodes, matters enormously. Love and Logic, the approach developed by Foster W. Cline, M.D., and Jim Fay that I’m certified in, describes three kinds of parents, and you can see all three show up in how people approach their plans.

The Drill Sergeant wants the plan to control everything, including what happens at the other parent’s house, down to the bedtime and the brand of cereal. The Helicopter wants the plan to protect the kids from every possible discomfort and is tempted to give the children veto power they’re not developmentally ready for. The Consultant, the Love and Logic ideal, wants something different: a plan with firm, clear limits on the things that matter (safety, schedule, the big decisions) and room for each parent to run their own home within those limits, plus age-appropriate room for the kids to have a voice as they grow.

When you build your plan in the Consultant spirit, two Love and Logic principles can quietly shape it:

• Consistency across both homes on the architecture. A plan can name the shared values both parents commit to, the same core approach to discipline, the same no-badmouthing rule, the same united front on safety and school. When both homes lead with empathy and let consequences teach, kids get one steady framework across two addresses. (More on that in Co-Parenting Life.)
• Built-in room for shared control. A thoughtful plan can leave appropriate space for kids to have small, real choices as they age (and can describe how the parents will revisit the schedule as the children grow), without handing children decisions that belong to the adults. That balance, choices within firm limits, is the heart of Love and Logic.

Your attorney or mediator will write the enforceable terms. But you can walk in knowing the kind of parent you want the plan to reflect: a calm, loving Consultant, not a Drill Sergeant or a Helicopter.

What a parenting plan typically includes

Here’s a plain-English walkthrough of the pieces most parenting plans address. Treat this as a thinking-and-discussion checklist to bring to your attorney or mediator, not as a legal template. Every family is different, and Colorado has its own requirements your professional will know.

1. The regular parenting-time schedule. The week-to-week rhythm: which nights and days the kids are with each parent. Common patterns include week-on/week-off, a 2-2-3 rotation, every-other-weekend, and many variations. The right one depends on your kids’ ages, the distance between homes, school, and work. Predictability is the goal; pick a rhythm the kids can internalize.

2. Holidays, school breaks, and special days. This is where conflict loves to hide, so spell it out in advance. Major holidays (and how they alternate or split year to year), school breaks, summer, birthdays (the child’s and each parent’s), Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, and any days that carry special meaning for your family. Deciding these once, calmly, saves you a fight every single year.

3. Decision-making (legal responsibility). Who decides the big things, and how. Education, healthcare, religious upbringing, extracurriculars. Plans often specify whether major decisions are made jointly or by one parent in certain areas, and what happens when you disagree.

4. Exchanges and transitions. Where, when, and how handoffs happen. Many plans route exchanges through school or daycare to keep things calm. Specify pickup and drop-off times and locations, and how late-arrival or no-show situations are handled.

5. Communication. How the parents will communicate (often a co-parenting app or email), how the kids will communicate with the other parent during each parent’s time (a phone call window, for instance), and expectations for response times on logistics.

6. Travel and relocation. Rules for taking the kids out of town or out of state, notice requirements, and how a future move by either parent would be handled. Relocation is legally significant in Colorado, so this is very much attorney territory.

7. Finances tied to the kids. While child support is usually handled separately under Colorado guidelines, plans often address how shared child-related costs (activities, medical co-pays, school fees) get split and reimbursed.

8. The right of first refusal (optional). Some plans say that if one parent needs childcare for a stretch of their own time, they offer that time to the other parent first before arranging a sitter. Families differ on whether they want this.

9. How you’ll handle changes and disputes. Life changes. A good plan describes how you’ll modify the schedule by agreement, and what process (often mediation) you’ll use before running to court when you disagree. Building in a calm dispute path is one of the wisest things a plan can do.

10. The spirit and ground rules. Some plans include a short statement of shared commitments: no badmouthing, supporting the kids’ relationship with both parents, keeping the children out of adult conflict. These may or may not be legally enforceable, but naming them sets the tone, and as I noted above, it’s a natural place for the Love and Logic Consultant philosophy to live.

Make the plan detailed, then let it carry you

A piece of hard-won counsel: when in doubt, make the plan more detailed, not less.

It’s tempting, especially when you and your co-parent are getting along in the early days, to keep the plan loose and “just work things out as we go.” I understand the impulse. But loose plans become battlegrounds the moment the goodwill thins, which it often does. A vague plan means every ambiguity is a fresh negotiation, and every negotiation routes through a tender relationship.

A detailed plan does the opposite. It anticipates the questions before they become arguments. Who gets the kids on a teacher-workday Monday? What happens if a flight gets cancelled on a holiday exchange? Who covers the cost of the travel team? When the plan already answers these, you’re not fighting, you’re just looking it up. That’s the whole point. The detail isn’t rigidity; it’s the structure that frees you to spend your energy on your kids instead of on logistics.

And here’s the Love and Logic connection one more time: a clear, firm plan lets you be the calm Consultant parent. When the limits are settled and written down, you don’t have to argue them, defend them, or threaten over them. You just live inside them, steady and kind. The plan holds the firm part so you get to be the warm part.

Where the cohort fits

You might wonder why a divorce-recovery counselor is writing about parenting plans at all. Here’s the honest connection.

The biggest threat to a good parenting plan isn’t a bad document. It’s two parents who haven’t grieved the marriage and so keep dragging the old wound into every conversation about the kids. The most airtight plan in the world can’t survive two people using their children’s schedule as a proxy war.

What our work does is help you grieve and rebuild, so you can come to the parenting-plan table (and to every co-parenting conversation after it) as your steady adult self instead of your wounded one. Parents in our cohort tell me their negotiations got dramatically calmer, and their plans more workable, once the grief had its own room to live in. The plan is the skeleton. Your own healing is what lets you actually live inside it with grace. There’s no pressure here, but that’s the door I’d point you toward.

Three small things you can do this week

Start your checklist. Using the ten-part list above as a thinking guide, jot down your questions, preferences, and worries for each section. Bring that to your attorney or mediator. You’ll save time and money walking in prepared, and you’ll feel far less at sea.

Decide what kind of parent you want the plan to reflect. Before you negotiate a single term, get clear that you’re aiming for the calm Love and Logic Consultant: firm limits on what matters, room for each home to run itself, and age-appropriate space for the kids’ voice. Let that spirit guide your asks.

Let’s just talk. Schedule a 15-minute video consult with me, Zoom or Google Meet, no cost, no commitment. I can’t give you legal advice, but I can help with the harder thing: getting steady enough to build and live inside a good plan without the old wound running the show. We’ll figure out together whether our in-person cohort in the Boulder, Denver, and Niwot area is right for your season. You can also take the free Fisher self-test first.

After every intro workshop, I tell the room: if you want to come to the next 10-week class, great. If not, I’m still glad you came. There’s no pressure here.

Get the plan right, get yourself steady, and the two-home life gets a whole lot more peaceful. Both pieces matter.

Frequently asked questions

What’s a parenting plan?

A parenting plan is the written agreement between divorced or separating parents that sets out how they’ll share the time and responsibilities of raising their children. In Colorado it’s part of the court process and covers both decision-making (the big choices about the kids’ lives) and parenting time (the schedule). Beneath the legal language, its real job is to let you stop renegotiating: the hard calls are made calmly in advance, so daily life runs on predictability instead of recurring conflict. Note: this is general information, not legal advice. Build your actual plan with a Colorado family-law attorney or mediator.

What should be included in a parenting plan?

Most plans address the regular parenting-time schedule; holidays, school breaks, and special days; decision-making authority (education, healthcare, religion); exchanges and transitions; communication (between parents, and between kids and the other parent); travel and relocation rules; how shared child-related costs are split; an optional right of first refusal; a process for handling changes and disputes; and sometimes a statement of shared ground rules like no badmouthing. Treat that as a discussion checklist to bring to your attorney or mediator, not a legal template, since Colorado has specific requirements your professional will know.

Can Bob Manthy help me write my legal parenting plan?

No. Bob is a counselor and a certified Love and Logic facilitator, not an attorney, so he can’t draft or advise on the legal terms of your parenting plan. Your legal plan must be built with a Colorado family-law attorney or a qualified family mediator. What Bob can help with is the emotional side: getting steady enough through grief and rebuilding to negotiate and then live inside a good plan calmly, and bringing a healthy, Love and Logic-informed parenting philosophy to the table.

How detailed should a parenting plan be?

When in doubt, more detailed. Loose plans feel friendly in the early days but become battlegrounds the moment goodwill thins, because every ambiguity turns into a fresh negotiation. A detailed plan anticipates the predictable questions (teacher workdays, cancelled holiday flights, who pays for the travel team) before they become arguments, so you look up the answer instead of fighting over it. The detail isn’t rigidity; it’s the structure that frees your energy for your kids. Your attorney or mediator can help you find the right level of specificity for your family.

How does Love and Logic apply to a parenting plan?

Love and Logic shapes the spirit behind the plan. The approach (from Foster Cline and Jim Fay) points toward the “Consultant” parent: firm, clear limits on the things that matter, room for each parent to run their own home, and age-appropriate space for kids to have a voice as they grow. A plan built in that spirit can name a consistent approach across both homes (same values, same no-badmouthing rule, same empathy-then-consequence philosophy) and leave appropriate room for shared control as kids age, without handing children adult decisions. A clear, firm plan also lets you be the calm Consultant, because the plan holds the firm part so you can be the warm part.

Can a parenting plan be changed later?

Yes. Children grow, jobs change, and families move, so plans are meant to be revisited. Most plans describe how parents can modify the schedule by agreement and what process (often mediation) to use before going to court when they disagree. Building a calm path for changes and disputes into the plan from the start is one of the wisest things you can do. For how modifications work legally in Colorado, talk to your family-law attorney or mediator.