The parenting plan, clause by clause: what Colorado plans say, and what they should.

The schedules, counted in overnights.

Colorado counts parenting time in overnights out of 365. The count decides the majority-time parent, the child support credit and, for taxes, the custodial parent. The patterns are drawn and compared on Parenting-Time Schedules; here is the arithmetic.

2-2-5-5 and 5-2-2-5 are the same rotation from different starting days; 2-2-3 is not, because its weekdays rotate. Every other weekend plus a weekly midweek overnight is 104 overnights, not 156. Equal time is 182 or 183: plans alternate the extra night by year, and in 2028, a leap year, each parent can have 183. Nesting is counted by the rotation used; I know of no outcome research specific to it. Run any proposal through the Colorado parenting-time calculator before anyone signs; the rest of the worksheet is on Child Support.

Holidays: the schedule that overrides the schedule.

JDF 1113’s holiday section opens with its rule: “This schedule will take priority over Sections 10 and 11 unless a holiday is left blank” (the school-year and summer schedules). For each holiday the parents enter “Even Years,” “Odd Years” or “All Years.”

What JDF 1113 lists, and what it leaves out.

Four ways to share a holiday.

Winter break, Thanksgiving, summer, and the days that belong to one parent.

Define each holiday by the hour it starts and ends, and say what happens to the regular weekend it displaces.

Winter break. The form’s default is week one and week two, alternating by year. Many Colorado plans split at noon on December 25 or on December 26, so each parent has Christmas Eve or Christmas morning in alternate years; Indiana gives the parent without Christmas “Noon to 9:00 P.M. on Christmas Day.” Mind the weekdays: December 24 and 25 fall Thursday–Friday in 2026, Friday–Saturday in 2027, Sunday–Monday in 2028.

Thanksgiving, breaks, summer. Indiana runs Thanksgiving from 6 p.m. Wednesday to 6 p.m. Sunday, alternating; others split Thursday. Spring and fall breaks usually alternate by year. Summer blocks need a notice deadline: a common clause gives one parent first choice by April 1 in even years and the other by April 15, reversing in odd years.

Days that belong to one parent. Most plans put the children with the mother every Mother’s Day and with the father every Father’s Day; two mothers or two fathers name the days or split one. Each parent’s birthday goes to that parent; the child’s alternates or is shared. Halloween is usually an evening (6 to 9 p.m. in Indiana). Say whether Monday holidays attach to the weekend.

The lost weekend. A holiday that lands on the other parent’s weekend takes it, and JDF 1113 says nothing about what follows. Indiana does: “If a parent misses a regular weekend because it is the other parent’s holiday, it will be lost. If a parent receives two consecutive weekends because of a holiday, that parent shall have the third weekend also. Regular alternating weekends shall continue throughout the year.” Decide whether displaced time is lost or made up, and that the rotation never resets.

Religious calendars: Easter moves, and Jewish holidays begin at sundown.

Easter moves, and Orthodox Easter often falls on a different Sunday: April 5 and April 12 in 2026; March 28 and May 2 in 2027; both April 16 in 2028. Say which Easter the plan means.

Jewish holidays follow the lunisolar Hebrew calendar: the same Hebrew date each year, while the Gregorian date drifts, usually about eleven days earlier from one year to the next and later again when a leap month is added. Rosh Hashanah began September 12 in 2026, begins October 2 in 2027, and returns to September 21 in 2028. Each begins at sundown the evening before, so a plan that says only “Rosh Hashanah” invites a dispute over the first evening. Define holidays by name with times (4 p.m. the day before until 7 p.m. the last day, say), name the controlling calendar, and say one seder or two.

Common splits. Rosh Hashanah to one parent and Yom Kippur to the other, alternating; one seder each; Hanukkah’s nights divided four and four, or the regular schedule plus one designated night. Indiana’s model divides the holidays a family keeps “over a two-year period in as equal a manner as possible.” Eid al-Fitr, Eid al-Adha, Lunar New Year and Diwali drift too; define them by name, with the calendar or authority that fixes the date.

Right of first refusal: a clause, not a statute.

A right of first refusal requires a parent who cannot personally care for the child during his or her time to offer that time to the other parent before calling a sitter. Colorado has no statute on it, whatever some national websites say; it is exactly what the plan says.

A model. Indiana’s guideline is the clearest published version: before using anyone but a parent or a responsible household family member, the parent needing child care “shall first offer the other parent the opportunity for additional parenting time,” if practical; “The other parent is under no obligation to provide the child care,” and any care given “shall be done at no cost and without affecting child support.” Its commentary leaves the trigger to the parents.

The Colorado case. In 2007 the Court of Appeals read a first-refusal clause in light of the plan as a whole, and upheld an order letting a father deployed overseas leave the children with their stepmother instead of first offering the time to their mother (In re Marriage of DePalma, 176 P.3d 829 (Colo. App. 2007)). Deployment now has its own act (C.R.S. § 14-13.7-101 et seq.); the drafting lesson is to say who counts as “the parent.”

Choosing the trigger.

Non-disparagement, calls and exchanges: the clauses that run the week.

These three clauses govern most of what parents actually do to each other between hearings. Each is enforceable only if it is specific.

Calls, video and the child’s phone.

The statute expects a plan to say how each parent reaches the child during the other’s time (C.R.S. § 14-10-124(7)(d)–(e)). JDF 1113 offers “reasonable phone contact with the children during the children’s normal waking hours,” which works until it does not. Name a window (7 to 7:30 each evening, say) and bar interference and listening in. Indiana’s commentary adds: “A parent may restrict access from a telephone, tablet, or other device used to communicate with the other parent as punishment for a child, but such punishment shall not prevent communications with the other parent.” For a child’s phone: who owns and pays for it, that it travels with the child, which controls and location sharing both parents accept, and that neither uses it to monitor the other home. Between parents, metro judges routinely require a co-parenting app.

Exchanges.

The plan should set the exchange procedure, “including the location of the exchanges and the party or parties responsible for the child’s transportation” (C.R.S. § 14-10-124(7)(c)). The best exchange is one the parents never attend: one drops the child at school, the other picks up. Otherwise, a named place, a time, a grace period, the receiving parent staying in the car, no late-night handoffs, and, where needed, a third party for parents who cannot be civil to each other at the door. A police-station lobby or a supervised exchange center works where the parents need a witness; after a domestic-violence finding the court may require exchanges “in a protected setting” (C.R.S. § 14-10-124(1.6)(a)(II)). Transportation between homes, including an accompanying parent for a child under twelve, is divided in proportion to income by agreement or order (C.R.S. § 14-10-115(11)(a)(II)).

Travel, passports and relocation: notice, signatures, and the statute.

Before the decree, the automatic injunction bars either parent from removing the children from Colorado without the other’s consent or a court order (C.R.S. § 14-10-107(4)(b)(I)(C)). After it, the plan governs.

Vacations and passports.

Notice, an itinerary, a way to reach the child, and the documents: four things every travel clause needs.

JDF 1113’s travel box is one sentence: “The Parties agree to tell each other about plans for overnight and out-of-state travel with the children and to provide contact information.” A working clause adds a notice period (fourteen days domestic, thirty international, are common), an itinerary with flight numbers and times, hotels, where the child will be staying and telephone numbers, calls during the trip, who holds the passports, and, abroad, “a notarized consent to travel form.”

Passports. For a child under sixteen, federal rules require that “both parents or each of the minor’s legal guardians, if any,” sign the application, for a first passport or a renewal (22 C.F.R. § 51.28(a)(2)). One parent may apply alone with the other’s notarized consent, or with an order “specifically authorizing the applying parent or legal guardian to obtain a passport for the minor” (§ 51.28(a)(3)(ii)(D)). An order for joint legal custody, or one requiring both parents’ permission for important decisions, is read as requiring both (§ 51.28(a)(3)(ii)(F)). If one parent should be able to renew alone, the plan must say so in those terms. Non-Hague countries and safeguards: Interstate & International Custody.

Relocation notice.

The statute sets the notice for a move that changes the child’s ties to the other parent: “The party who is intending to relocate with the child to a residence that substantially changes the geographical ties between the child and the other party shall provide the other party with written notice as soon as practicable of his or her intent to relocate, the location where the party intends to reside, the reason for the relocation, and a proposed revised parenting time plan. A court hearing on any modification of parenting time due to an intent to relocate shall be given a priority on the court’s docket” (C.R.S. § 14-10-129(1)(a)(II)). JDF 1113 paraphrases it more broadly: the parties “must file a new parenting plan and get the court’s permission to move a significant distance.” A plan can add a fixed notice period (sixty or ninety days) and a trigger, such as a set distance or a change of school. The standards for the move: Relocation & Move-Away.

Decision-making, tie-breakers and disputes: who decides when you do not agree.

Decision-making is allocated jointly, to one parent, or issue by issue (C.R.S. § 14-10-124(1.5)(b)), and the parent with decision-making responsibility “may determine the child’s upbringing, including his or her education, health care, and religious training” (C.R.S. § 14-10-130(1)).

The categories. JDF 1113 lists school and education; medical, dental and mental health; religious activities; extracurricular and recreational activities; the passport; and two blank lines. It also has the box that causes more trouble than any other: “For School attendance, children’s residence is with.” Families with teenagers should add counseling, a driver’s license, jobs and elective procedures. Either parent may get emergency medical care without violating the order (C.R.S. § 14-10-124(6)), and after a domestic-violence finding mutual decision-making over the abused parent’s objection needs specific findings (C.R.S. § 14-10-124(1.5)(c)). How the court allocates it: Parental Responsibilities.

Tie-breakers. Joint decision-making with no tie-breaker sends every disagreement to court. The Court of Appeals has held that a trial court may break a deadlock between joint decision-makers, and that the parent named for school-residence purposes does not get a tie-breaking vote from that designation (In re Marriage of Thomas, 2021 COA 123). Better by agreement: final say on a subject to one parent after good-faith consultation, or a named decision-maker. The Court of Appeals has also said that a parent without religious decision-making may still share his or her own faith with the child unless substantial harm is shown in detail (In re Marriage of McSoud, 131 P.3d 1208 (Colo. App. 2006)), and it has applied the endangerment standard to a dispute over vaccination (In re Marriage of Crouch, 2021 COA 3).

When you cannot agree: four processes.

Joint decision-making without a tie-breaker is a standing appointment with the court.

The household clauses: belongings, partners, substance use, records, activities.

Small clauses, large arguments. Each is optional under the statute and routine in a plan that works.

Taxes, insurance, step-ups and make-up time: the clauses people forget.

The tax dependency: quote the statute, not the form.

JDF 1113 tells parents without an agreement to “follow Colorado law, which is based on your contributions to the children.” The statute, as rewritten effective May 31, 2025, does not say that. The court “may allocate an income tax dependency exemption and the resulting tax benefit for a child and require the party who has the child in the party’s physical custody for more than fifty percent of the calendar year to provide the other party a properly executed declaration” releasing the claim, with findings if the allocation is contested (C.R.S. § 14-10-115(12)(a)). It weighs the parents’ resources, the effect on each parent’s ability to provide for the child, whether either would actually benefit, and premium tax credits; “The filing status as head of household is not impacted by this designation” (C.R.S. § 14-10-115(12)(b)). It may condition the claim on paying ordered support for that year (C.R.S. § 14-10-115(12)(c)), and a parent wrongly denied the benefit may recover it on a motion within three years (C.R.S. § 14-10-115(12)(d)).

The federal rules. The IRS custodial parent is the one with whom the child sleeps “the greater number of nights during the calendar year”; with equal nights, “the parent with the higher adjusted gross income” (26 C.F.R. § 1.152-4(d)(1), (4)). The release, on Form 8332 or its equivalent, “must be an unconditional release,” and it is not unconditional if it requires the other parent to meet “an obligation such as the payment of support” (§ 1.152-4(e)(1)(i)); a substitute must be a document executed for that sole purpose (§ 1.152-4(e)(1)(ii)). So the plan puts the support condition on the duty to deliver a signed form each year, never in the form, and the plan itself is not the release. Per the IRS’s Publication 504, the release moves the child tax credit and the credit for other dependents, not the earned income or dependent-care credits.

Life insurance to secure support.

Support does not end when the paying parent dies: “When a parent obligated to pay support dies, the amount of support may be modified, revoked, or commuted to a lump-sum payment, to the extent just and appropriate in the circumstances” (C.R.S. § 14-10-122(3)). Insurance makes that real, and Colorado courts have approved orders requiring it. The clause names the amount (often declining as the children age), the beneficiary (usually a trust or custodian), annual proof, and what happens on a lapse; the maintenance statute’s factors for insurance orders are a sensible checklist (C.R.S. § 14-10-114(6)(b)).

Review and step-up clauses.

A schedule can be modified whenever that “would serve the best interests of the child” (C.R.S. § 14-10-129(1)(a)(I)); changing the majority-time parent or decision-making takes more, with two-year limits that run from a prior motion, not the decree (C.R.S. § 14-10-129(1.5); C.R.S. § 14-10-131(1)). The better tool is the step-up the researchers recommend, “forecast in advance” so the plan grows “without the need to return to family court” (McIntosh, Pruett & Kelly, 2014, Family Court Review). Tie each step to a date, an age or a milestone, and have the court find at entry that the sequence serves the child; a future change entered without that finding is open to attack. For what no one can forecast, add a review trigger (kindergarten, age twelve, high school) that sends the parents to mediation. See Parenting Time by Age and Modifying Custody.

Make-up time.

For denied time the court may order make-up time “of the same type and duration of parenting time as that which was denied,” within six months (a year if it cannot be made up sooner), “at the time and in the manner chosen by the aggrieved parent if it is in the best interests of the child” (C.R.S. § 14-10-129.5(2)(d)), a fine of up to $100 per incident (C.R.S. § 14-10-129.5(2)(e.5)), and, mandatorily, fees against a parent who failed to provide or exercise court-ordered time (C.R.S. § 14-10-129.5(4)). A plan can set its own procedure for time lost to illness or a delayed flight, and should say, as Indiana does, that make-up time “is not an opportunity to deny the other parent of scheduled holidays or special days.” More: Enforcement & Contempt.

Six things people get wrong.

The parenting plan questions that fill my inbox.

Related: Parenting Time by Age  ·  Parenting-Time Schedules  ·  Relocation & Move-Away  ·  Modifying Custody  ·  Parenting-Time Calculator