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Multiple Family Law Attorneys | 120+ Years Collective Experience | Three Mediators on Staff | Local Boone County Practice
Gump, Faiella & Bugalski | Columbia Office: 1000 W. Nifong, Bldg 2, Suite 220B | 573-818-2646
A parenting plan is the document you will actually live by long after your case is over. It sets who has the children on Thanksgiving, who decides which school they attend, how the Friday exchange works, and what happens when the schedule needs to bend. If you are working out a parenting plan in Columbia or Boone County, whether through a divorce, a paternity case, or a change to an order you already have, Gump, Faiella & Bugalski can help you build one that holds up.
Most parents underestimate the parenting plan and treat it as a form to fill in. A vague plan tends to become the source of the next dispute rather than the thing that prevents it. Missouri does not leave the contents to chance. RSMo § 452.310 sets out what a plan has to address, and now that Missouri law starts from a presumption of equal or approximately equal parenting time, how carefully you handle the schedule and the details carries more weight than it used to.
Our Columbia family law team drafts parenting plans as part of nearly every custody and divorce case we handle, and we build them to anticipate the practical problems that show up two and three years later, not just to get through the hearing.
A parenting plan is the written document that governs how two parents will raise a child who lives in two households. It covers legal custody, physical custody, and the schedule, and it becomes a court order once a judge adopts it. From that point forward, it is the rulebook both parents are expected to follow.
Missouri requires a parenting plan in every divorce involving minor children and in every paternity case where custody or visitation is at issue. Parents who agree submit a joint plan. Parents who do not agree each submit their own proposed plan, and the court approves one, modifies it, or writes its own. Either way, a plan is not optional, and the quality of the plan you submit shapes what the court is willing to adopt.
It helps to keep two ideas separate. Legal custody is the authority to make major decisions about the child, such as education, non-emergency medical care, and religious upbringing. Physical custody is where the child lives and how parenting time is divided. A parenting plan addresses both, along with the practical logistics that make the arrangement work day to day. For a fuller explanation of how Missouri courts decide legal and physical custody, see our child custody page. This page focuses on the plan itself: what goes in it, what makes it hold up, and how to change it.
Under RSMo § 452.310, each parent must submit a proposed parenting plan within thirty days after being served or entering an appearance in a case that involves custody or visitation. The statute is specific about what the plan has to address, and it groups the requirements into three categories.
This is the schedule, and Missouri expects it to be written out in detail rather than left to good intentions. A complete plan sets:
The plan has to say how the parents will make the major decisions in a child’s life and what happens when they disagree. That includes:
The plan also has to address who pays for what. Missouri requires it to cover:
Meeting the statutory minimum is not the same as writing a plan that works. The categories above tell you what a plan must touch. The next section is about the difference between a plan that satisfies the statute and a plan that actually keeps you out of court.
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The parenting plans that fail are rarely the ones missing a required category. They are the ones that use vague language where they needed specifics. “The parents will share holidays” is not a schedule. “Reasonable telephone contact” is not a rule anyone can enforce. When a plan leaves room for interpretation, it leaves room for the next argument, and the parent acting in good faith is usually the one who loses time.
A few details do most of the work in the plans we draft:
A plan should name the exact time and place for each exchange, not just the day. In higher-conflict cases, a neutral exchange location or a curbside handoff at school can remove the flashpoint entirely.
The strongest plans list each holiday by name, say who has it in even and odd years, and spell out how winter break, spring break, and summer are divided, including how far in advance each parent picks summer weeks.
This is a provision that requires a parent who cannot personally exercise a block of parenting time to offer that time to the other parent before arranging other child care. It can protect a parent's time, but only if the plan defines how long an absence has to be before it applies. Left vague, it becomes its own source of conflict.
Joint decision-making sounds fair until the parents reach a genuine impasse. A plan that says how a deadlock gets resolved, whether through mediation, a parenting coordinator, or final say to one parent on a specific category, prevents a stalled decision from becoming a new court filing.
Setting a channel and a cadence, including the use of a co-parenting app where appropriate, keeps the record clean and the conflict down.
Missouri's relocation statute (RSMo § 452.377) requires a parent to give advance written notice before moving the child's principal residence. A well-drafted plan reflects that requirement so both parents know the process before a move is ever on the table.
A plan built around a five-year-old will not fit a fifteen-year-old. The plans that last anticipate school transitions, activities, and a teenager's own schedule, and they include a way to adjust without starting over.
None of this is boilerplate. It is the difference between a document that ends the conflict and one that schedules the next round of it.
Missouri law contains a rebuttable presumption that equal or approximately equal parenting time is in a child’s best interest, but that presumption can be overcome when evidence shows a different arrangement better serves the child. In plain terms, the court starts from the position that a roughly even split is appropriate.
The word that matters is rebuttable. The presumption is a starting point, not a guarantee, and it can be overcome by a preponderance of the evidence under the statutory best-interest factors. What that means for your plan is practical: the parent asking for something other than an even split has to show, through a specific and well-supported plan, why a different arrangement serves the child better. And the parent who wants equal time is better off with a concrete plan that shows exactly how an even split would work in real life, down to the school-week logistics.
Either way, the presumption raises the value of specificity. A detailed, workable plan is the strongest way to support the arrangement you are asking the court to approve.
Parents who were never married to each other need a parenting plan too. The difference is timing. Before a court will enter custody, parenting time, or support orders for unmarried parents, paternity has to be legally established. Once it is, the case proceeds under the same best-interest standard and the same parenting plan requirements as any other custody matter.
If you and your child’s other parent were never married, our paternity page explains how paternity is established in Missouri and how custody and parenting time follow from it.
Absent a court order providing otherwise, parents frequently begin a case with competing claims concerning temporary custody and parenting time, which is why obtaining an agreed arrangement or temporary custody order early in the case is often important.
There are two ways to change a plan the right way.
When both parents agree on a change, they can put the new terms in writing and submit them to the court for approval. This does not require a contested hearing, but it does require the court to enter the change before it becomes the new order. Until a judge signs off, the existing plan is what controls, so a handshake modification leaves the cooperating parent exposed.
When the parents do not agree, the parent seeking the change files a motion to modify. Under RSMo § 452.410, a court may modify custody when there has been a substantial and continuing change in circumstances since the last order and the modification serves the child’s best interest. Adjustments to the parenting time schedule and visitation follow a related standard under RSMo § 452.400. The change has to be based on something that happened after the current order, and the parent asking for it carries the burden of proving both the change and the benefit to the child.
When a co-parent simply will not follow the plan, the remedy is enforcement rather than modification. A parent can file a motion for contempt or a Family Access Motion under RSMo § 452.400, and the court can order make-up time, require the noncomplying parent to pay attorney fees, and impose other consequences. Documentation is what makes enforcement work. Specific dates, specific missed exchanges, and a clear pattern carry far more weight than a general complaint that the other parent “never follows the schedule.”
The parenting plans that come back to haunt a family usually shared the same flaw at the start: they were written to get through the hearing rather than to govern the next decade. A plan that says the parents will “cooperate on holidays” feels agreeable in the moment and becomes a standoff the first November it is tested.
A pattern we see often is the informal change that was never put in front of the court. Two parents get along, they quietly adjust the schedule for a year or two, and then something shifts and one of them wants to go back to the written order. Because the change was never entered, the parent who relied on the informal arrangement has little to stand on. We would rather put an agreed change in front of the court and make it official than watch a good-faith accommodation turn into a dispute.
What tends to surprise clients most is how much of the work is in the details that feel small while you are drafting. The exact exchange time. The tie-breaker for a medical decision. The notice period for summer weeks. Those are the provisions that get tested, and they are where we spend our attention, because a plan is only as good as the clause you need on the day you need it.
Jordan focuses her practice on divorce, child custody, high-asset divorce, paternity actions, and mediation from our Columbia office. She is a certified mediator and a certified Guardian ad Litem, representing children's best interests in contested custody proceedings, and is admitted to practice in Missouri and Alabama and before the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri.
Ben focuses his practice on divorce, custody, and property division from our Columbia office. A certified family law mediator and certified Guardian ad Litem, he brings disciplined preparation and local knowledge of the Boone County court system to every case he handles. Ben is a member of the Missouri Bar.
Our Columbia-based family law team is supported by our Moberly-based team, including Cassie Bugalski, who focuses on high-asset divorces and farm and complex property division, Adrienne Spiller, and the full Gump, Faiella & Bugalski team, giving clients access to one of the largest dedicated family law groups serving the Columbia area. All of our family law attorneys take cases in Boone County.
Our Columbia office serves clients throughout Boone County and the surrounding Mid-Missouri area, including Ashland, Hallsville, Centralia, and Harrisburg.
We also maintain our primary office at 110 North Fifth Street, Moberly, MO 65270, where our managing member and additional attorneys are based. Call 660-263-3100 for our Moberly office.
Gump, Faiella & Bugalski, LLC 1000 W. Nifong, Blvd Building 2, Suite 220B Columbia, MO 65203
Phone: 573-818-2646
Toll Free: 800-264-3455
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Monday – Thursday: 9 AM – 12 PM, 1 – 5 PM
Friday: 9 AM – 12 PM, 1 – 4 PM
Under RSMo § 452.310, a parenting plan must address three areas: the custody and physical time schedule (including a regular schedule, holidays, birthdays, school breaks, exchange times and places, transportation, and telephone access), decision-making authority (education, medical care, extracurriculars, child care, communication, and dispute resolution), and financial arrangements (a suggested child support amount, health insurance, uncovered medical costs, educational and child care expenses, and transportation). Each proposed plan is due within thirty days after a parent is served or enters an appearance.
Yes, parents are encouraged to agree on a plan, and a plan the two of you build together is often better than one a judge would impose. It becomes legally binding only when the court reviews and adopts it as an order. Until a judge signs it, a private agreement between the parents is not enforceable in the way a court order is, so the final step of getting it entered matters.
Each parent submits a proposed plan, and the court decides. The judge can adopt one parent’s plan, combine elements of both, or craft its own, always under the best-interest standard in RSMo § 452.375. This is why the specificity and reasonableness of the plan you submit matters. A plan that clearly serves the child is more likely to be the one the court adopts.
Until a court enters an order, both parents generally have equal rights to the child, which is part of why disputes escalate before a case is filed. Neither parent has the legal authority to withhold the child from the other without a court order. Getting a temporary order or an agreed plan in place early is often the fastest way to create stability and stop the back-and-forth.
You can agree to a change, but to make it enforceable it still has to be approved and entered by the court. You do not necessarily need a contested hearing when both parents agree. You do need the court to enter the new terms. Until that happens, the existing order controls, so relying on an informal change is risky if the other parent later decides to enforce the original plan.
Detailed enough that a stranger could read it and know exactly what is supposed to happen on any given day. The plans that create the fewest problems name specific times, places, and dates rather than relying on words like “reasonable” or “as agreed.” Detail is not about distrust. It is about removing the ambiguity that turns into conflict later.
It is a provision requiring a parent who cannot personally care for the child during their parenting time to offer that time to the other parent before arranging other child care. It can protect a parent’s time with the child, but it works only when the plan defines how long an absence has to be before it applies. A vague right of first refusal often causes more disputes than it prevents.
You can ask the court to enforce the order through a motion for contempt or a Family Access Motion under RSMo § 452.400. The court can order make-up parenting time, require the noncomplying parent to pay your attorney fees, and impose other consequences. Careful documentation of specific dates and incidents is what makes an enforcement action succeed. A repeated pattern of noncompliance can also support a request to modify the plan.
Answer: No. Missouri begins with a rebuttable presumption favoring equal or approximately equal parenting time, but courts ultimately determine custody based upon the child’s best interests.
Answer: Yes. Parenting plans frequently address electronic communication, co-parenting applications, access to school portals, social media use, and how parents exchange important information about the child.
A parenting plan is one of the few documents from a family law case that you will use every week for years. The care that goes into it is what determines whether it protects your time with your children or becomes the reason you are back in court. Gump, Faiella & Bugalski builds parenting plans for divorce and paternity cases throughout Columbia and Boone County, with the specificity these plans require.
Call our Columbia office at (573) 818-2646 or request a consultation to discuss your situation. Family law consultations involve a fee, which goes toward a detailed review of your case and your options.
Gump, Faiella & Bugalski, LLC 1000 W. Nifong, Building 2, Suite 220B Columbia, MO 65203
This page is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Every family law case involves unique circumstances. For advice specific to your situation, contact Gump, Faiella & Bugalski at (573) 818-2646.
