Why You Should Never Use a Courtā€™s Parenting Plan Template (Do This Instead)
May 21, 2026Court parenting plan templates are a f*cking scam.
These things get handed out like candy by overworked judges and lazy attorneys, and you're expected to live by them for the next 18 years of your kid's life. Make that make sense.
In this episode, I'm giving you the five reasons you should never walk into court without your own plan. You know your kids. You know your ex. You know your schedule. You know where the fights are going to land. And you sure as hell know what you want your future to look like. A judge knows none of that. A judge sees you for minutes compared to your lifetime, and somehow we're letting them write the playbook.
I lived this nightmare. My plan stopped at preschool. So when my kids hit kindergarten, sports, medical, summer? Every single milestone turned into a war because the lazy template I got handed didn't bother to address any of it. And here's the part nobody tells you. The vague language in those templates isn't an accident. It's a billing strategy. Every "parents will cooperate" and "parents will discuss" is a future court date with your name on it. The family court system is a 10, 15 billion dollar industry for a reason, and that reason is you keep coming back.
Don't be me. Write your own plan, or grab my masterclass and I'll walk you through it. My team can build it for you if you don't have the time. But please, do not walk into mediation empty-handed and let a stranger decide your kid's future.
Listen up. Save it. Send it to the parent who needs it.
Here’s What You Can Actually Take Away:
- You Know Your Kids Best - No court template can capture your child's needs, schedule, or family situation the way you can.
- You Know Your Ex Best - You were married to this person, so you already know exactly where they're going to fail and where the fights are going to land.
- You Know Your Schedule - A judge has zero clue about your work, your kids' activities, or your summer plans, so why are you letting them dictate any of it?
- You Know Where the Fights Will Happen - Holidays, vacations, school, and medical decisions are predictable conflict zones that your plan needs to spell out in detail.
- You Know What You Want Your Future to Look Like - Only you can plan for the traditions, the financial growth, and the life you want as a single parent.
- Vague Plans Are a Billing Strategy - Court templates are written with gray, wishy-washy language on purpose because it keeps you coming back to attorneys.
- Your Plan Has to Age Up With Your Kids - If your plan stops at preschool or skips the next 15 years, every milestone after that becomes a war.
- Decision Making Matters As Much As Visitation - Most parents obsess over the schedule and forget the part that's actually going to run their daily lives.
The Truth Bombs
- "If you don't bring a plan yourself, you are accepting some stranger's version of what your kid's future should look like. That's terrifying."
- "A judge sees you for minutes compared to your lifetime, and yet we hand them the pen to write our kids' future. Make it make sense."
- "Court templates are vague on purpose. It's not lazy lawyering, it's a billing strategy."
- "Parents will cooperate? Get real. Parents will fight, argue, and bitch about each other. That's what actually happens, and your plan better account for it."
- "The family court system is a $15 billion dollar industry for a reason. They keep handing out garbage plans and you keep coming back."
- "My parenting plan stopped at preschool. So every milestone after that turned into a damn war."
- "You and your ex don't have to like each other to write your own future. You just have to refuse to let a stranger do it for you."
- "There's more to a parenting plan than a visitation schedule, and if you don't get that, your high conflict ex is about to run your life."
- "The second your kid turns 18, nobody in that courtroom gives a sh*t anymore. They're not worth money to the system. Plan accordingly."
PURCHASE your own custom plan here:
About to sign something you don't understand? Walking into mediation empty-handed? I can help.
Custom Parenting Plan — I'll write your plan. Built for your kids, your schedule, your high-conflict ex. Not a template. A plan that protects your time for the next 18 years.
The Parenting Plan Masterclass — Learn what strong parenting plans actually look like before you sign anything. I'll walk you through decision making, parenting time, holidays, communication boundaries, and how to prepare for mediation so you know exactly what to ask for and what garbage language to avoid.
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Samantha Boss: All right. Most parents walk into court thinking that a judge will hand them a really good parenting plan. They won't. And then the templates that they have designed for us to use are ineffective. They're not for life. They're not for the gravity and grati- and, and longevity of our child aging up. So if you don't bring a plan yourself, you are accepting someone else's version of what your future should look like.
And to me, that screams scary. And I've seen it for the decade that I've been helping people, parenting plan after parenting plan that comes across my desk and somebody says, "Sam, can you look at this? This is from a judge. This is from an attorney." They are awful and not awful like, "Oh, let me sit here and fix a couple things for you.
I can't even come close to polishing that into anything fancy enough to use. It's garbage. It's not even ... Sometimes I look at the plans that I get and I think, "How did this person graduate law school?" Like I know somewhere in teaching them family law, templates and parenting plan building was probably a class.
Who is teaching that class in law school? Who is saying, "Hey guys, you as lawyers, future lawyers, you are going to be building a contract that two parents that don't like each other anymore are going to have to use and abide by for probably 10, 15, 18 years at, at most. Make it as shitty as possible. Make it as vague as possible.
Make it, make it so word jargony that you can't understand it. Use all the big words that you can to where they have to have a thesaurus the whole time they're reading it. Make sure they have to call you back to ask what things mean. Make sure they leave it vague enough that they have to hire you again in a few years because you didn't put in that section about the future.
These are garbage, you guys. So today we're gonna go through the five reasons why you should be bringing a plan.
You Know Your Kids Better Than Any Court Ever Will
And these are obvious reasons. First and foremost, you know your kids, right? Correct me if I'm wrong. You're the one that created them, you're the one that had them, you're the one that brought them into the world, and you're the one that's been spending the most time with them.
A court isn't doing that. So why are we taking a template from a court system that doesn't even know our children? And by know our children, I mean no, do they have special needs? Do they have transition issues? Do they have a schedule that's so freaking busy? Do they have family all over the world that we need to consider for the holidays?
These templates are too generic about our children. They presume every child to be the same and every child to just follow in line and do the exact same protocol. And we all know that's not true. Your kids are different than your neighbor's kids. Your kids are different than your sister's kids. Your parenting plan should reflect your children specifically because that is who the parenting plan is for.
It's for two adults to follow a playbook in raising their children. This parenting plan should be written by the parents of those children, not a court system that is extremely overwhelmed and outdated.
You Know Your Ex Better Than Anyone in That Courtroom
Number two, you know your ex the best and your ex knows you. So why shouldn't you two be getting together and/or at least sending over a parenting plan to each other because you know work habits, work history, personalities, dos and don'ts, wants and desires, communication issues, failures in communication, and also good things that you know how to communicate.
You know everything about your ex, or you should because you are just married to them. So this whole concept that you're gonna have a court system tell you how to engage with your ex in your parenting plan seems a little faulty, don't you think? So in review, we have our kids, we know best, we know our ex the best.
The court system doesn't know either one of those things.
Your Schedule, Your Future, Your Call
Now, as we move into the third, you know your schedule. You know what you guys do. You know your work, you know what you're gonna be doing in the future for summer. You know what your kids are in. You know where it's going. You know all the things about schedules.
The court system doesn't. So how are they to pick what time drop off and pickup should be? And that's, you're fortunate if it includes that. How is the court system gonna be the one that picks when you start daycare and when you pull your kids out of daycare, after school care or before school care? Why are we letting a court system determine what we do for summer?
Is your kid staying at home, alone, or is your kid going to a camp? Shouldn't that be the parents or one parent telling the other parent what they wish and those two parents edit that out? Versus walking into a court system and letting a court tell you what your schedule, not just visitation, but holiday schedule and vacation schedule and all the things in the future.
You're gonna let a court determine that ... And let's just go sidebar here real quick. Is the court system that you're using well equipped with high conflict resolution? Do they even understand high conflict or recognize high conflict? Do they even recognize that parenting plan should grow with the children?
Do they recognize that things are gonna happen between you and your ex that aren't gonna be pretty, so there needs to be modification or mediation built in to your parenting plan so that things, if they do go haywire or something is forgotten about, there's a strategy or a way to figure out how to resolve that issue?
No. Most of the court systems out there are not recognizing that parents don't get along and they're putting together these very vague parenting plans. So this is just another reason why you should be the one building your own parenting plan and bringing it to the courts.
You Already Know Where the Fights Are Coming
Number four is you know where the conflict is gonna happen. You know around every holiday things get rough and every vacation that you throw out there, things happen. You know around school activities it gets a little wonky and a little weird. So you're gonna make sure your parenting plan has structures around those things, details around, and all the ins and outs of who's responsible, who's accountable, who's bringing this, who's not bringing that.
Because this whole idea that's put into about every single parenting plan that I've seen over the past decade is it'll say something completely vague about parents cooperating or parents will work together or parents will discuss. That's not happening. Parents will fight, parents will argue, parents will bitch and moan on each other.
That's happening because the parenting plan doesn't say what you should be doing. So yet another reason why you should be the one building it, those of you that are listening and you're like, "Well, how do I do this?" Well, my name is Sam. Thanks for joining us. I will help you build your parenting plan. But if you're in discussions right now with your attorney about this divorce, I would be knocking, calling, emailing, and saying, "Hey, said attorney who I've probably paid thousands, if not 10 thousands of dollars to already, what's your parenting plan look like?
Can I see it?" I, I'd like to look at it. I wanna know what's in there. I wanna make sure that, uh, that I understand that you're gonna cover details really well, that you're gonna have times wrote in, that you're gonna talk about decision making more than just one or two sentences. I wanna know if I'm allowed to put my kids in sports or not down the road.
I wanna see that said parenting plan, because again, I'm gonna, I'm gonna tell you this, you guys, this is our little intermission here. For those of you listening, every single one of you that's divorcing with children will end up with a parenting plan. Now, it might be called six different things where you're from, but at the end of the day, you will get a packet of paper telling you how you are allowed to parent your own children.
How you will parent your children. Why in the world would we take that from a court system who's never met our children, who's never been in, in, in a room with our children? And that pad of paper from a court system is gonna tell us what to do with our children. Make that make sense. It should be coming from parents.
There needs to be more classes out there. I mean, I teach a class, I'm just gonna toot my own horn here, on how to build this. My masterclass literally walks you through what should be included, how to have these conversations, and what should be picked for your future in this parenting plan. It is the playbook you will be following.
Why are we letting judges and court systems give us our own playbook about our children? And here's the really effed up part, I think, is that the second year children turn 18, no one gives a shit anymore. No one cares what you're doing with them. Nobody cares if you help them through college. If you give them a, a meal after the day they ch- nobody cares what you're doing with your children after the age of 18.
Even though they're still children, I know this, I have adult, many adult children, 21 and 19. They're still children. They're still needing guidance. They're still needing help. But nobody gives a shit about them now because they're over 18 because why? Sadly, and they're not worth any money to the court system anymore.
But this parenting plan should have been built when I got divorced when they were one and three, all the way up and at least until 18. And our parenting plan was only built for preschool. That's it. So when kindergarten came and we wanted to argue about that, it wasn't in our parenting plan. And then when we wanted to argue about elementary school that wasn't in and we wanted to argue about putting them in sports, it wasn't in there.
We wanted to talk about medical appointments, who was taking them. It wasn't in there. None of the details were in there to where what did we have to do? We had to fight and argue because our parenting plan that we got from the court system didn't include actual practical things that were actually happening in our lives.
So why are you here? To get your own parenting plan put together. At least the brains behind what it should include. So be asking that attorney, "What's your parenting plan look like?" And when they say, "Oh, you know, well, it depends on what you want." Okay, well give me your knowing my case so well since you've charged me enough enough, you should know my case real well.
Let me see what, what you put together. What do you have? 'Cause I'm gonna tell you, they're just gonna go back and pull out a template and hand it to you. They're gonna go back to their template that says, uh, three kids local and they're gonna give it to you. And you gotta be able to look at it using all the podcast episodes you've listened to and really pick this thing apart and make it work better for you.
But we can't presume that a court system or a judge knows our kids, knows our ex, knows our future, knows our si- they don't.
Only You Know What Future You Want
And that's the last one. Only you know what you want your future to look like as a single parent. What traditions are gonna be important to you? Are you always gonna be poor? No. So you wanna build a parenting plan that says, "You know what?
If I'm flexible later and I have money later, I want to be able to do three weeks of vacation. I want to be able to make more decisions. I want to be able to invest. I want to be able to help my kids more." These parenting plans that are built by judges and court systems don't allow any of that. They don't even talk about those things.
And you want that parenting plan to age up because if it doesn't, and it's a lot like mine that stops at preschool what did I have to do? Well, I went to my ex first and said, "Hey, can't we figure this out on our own? What do you think the answer was?" No way in hell. I, I want you to spend money back in court, so where do we have to go?
Back into court. And that's the problem for a lot of you is that you're being sold on this idea that you can't bring your own plan, that a judge won't sign off on it. That's your job and your attorney's job to talk that judge into, "Hey, my attorney, my client knows what the hell she's talking about. My client knows her children.
She knows her ex. He knows what he wants for his future. He knows the conflicts that are gonna come up and he wrote a plan. I don't care if it's mom or dad or both. I'd prefer both." Somebody needs to be writing down a really good plan for what a realistic future looks like because I'm here to tell you those templates that are being passed out by judges and court system are not realistic to what the problems you're gonna have in your future, the conflicts that you're gonna have, and they're all written with gray vague language that requires you to have to keep calling your attorney years and years and years down the road, or if you can't afford that, you're constantly giving in to your high conflict ex who's running the show because they know you're broken, you won't go to your attorney.
That's the life that a lot of you will end up living. If you do not build this parenting plan from your perspective, knowing that you're the smart parent, you're the capable parent, you will be equal, you'll be fair, you'll be reasonable with your circumstance. Now, when I say that, I did not say fifty fifty.
If that works for you, great. But you giving the realistic expectation of what the other parent can give, that's what you'll put into the parenting plan. And I hate to burst everybody's bubble, but there's more to a parenting plan than a visitation schedule. And so many people get amped up, "Well, I'm not gonna write a parenting plan for fifty fifty because they'll never sign it.
Okay, that's one component. There are so many other components to be including in your parenting plan. And a lot of you forget all about it because you're so honed into the visitation. And decision making, I think, just to give you a little bit of tea right there is the second one that you should be focused on.
Write the Plan or Pay for It Forever
So again, we have all these reasons why we don't want a court system or a judge being the one that does our case. A judge sees you for minutes in comparison to your lifetime. And these templates that they're using are handed out to hundreds upon thousands of families and they're not working. I see them.
They suck. They are horrible, but yet you are the one that will have to live this for years, not the judges, not the attorneys, but you. All because someone told you for five seconds, "Oh, you can't bring your own plan. Oh, let me do that. Oh, the court will give you one. Oh, the judges will award that." No, you push back and you say, "No, I think I know my kids best.
I think him and I, even though we don't like each other, we should be the authors to our future, not a court system and not a judge." So stop thinking that this family court system is out to protect you because it's not. It's a billion dollar industry. When I say billion, we're talking 10, 15 billion dollar industry for a reason.
You keep coming back because they keep handing out shitty parenting plans. So start thinking about how to protect your future by writing it and preparing it, not controlling, but writing it yourself to where you know you have something that can stick and work for years to come, not just for five seconds.
So be smart about it. If you're walking into mediation or court without a parenting plan, you are essentially handing over money and you are essentially handing over future litigation as a possibility. If you want a parenting plan that actually reflects your kids, your future, all the things, you have to create it yourself.
So if you're too intimidated by writing it yourself, let my team. If you just wanna learn a little bit more about what does go into a parenting plan, then grab the masterclass. But either way, you're set. Either way, you're ahead of many parents who just go, "Well, I hired an attorney and they said they'd take care of it.
They said I can't bring a plan. They said a judge will only sign their own." Don't buy into that. Find an attorney that will support you. Find an attorney that wants you to be the author to your own future with your children, and don't settle until you do.
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