No Summer Plan Means Your Ex Wins. Every. Damn. Time.
Apr 23, 2026Your ex is already planning to ruin your summer. Is your parenting plan ready?
I'm not being dramatic. Summer break is the number one gap I see in parenting plans and it blows up every single year like clockwork. You think your ex will just go along with the summer camp plan. They won't. You think the school year schedule carries over. It doesn't. You think common sense will prevail. Oh honey, it absolutely will not.
In this episode I'm breaking down the five worst examples of summer parenting plan language I've seen and let me tell you, some of this shit will make your jaw drop. We're talking attorneys getting paid good money to write sentences like "parents will cooperate regarding summer camps" and calling it a day. That's not a plan. That's a disaster waiting to happen with a legal header on it.
Because here's the truth: high conflict people don't plan. They never did. And a parenting plan with no summer section is their favorite playground. Your kid could have been going to the same summer camp for seven years and the second you're divorced, suddenly your ex has a problem with it. No alternative. No suggestion. Just a hard no and zero accountability. That's what no structure gets you.
Summer camp spots fill up in January and February. Not June. Your ex doesn't know that because you were always the one handling it. So when you bring it up in March you look like the controlling one. You're not. You're the parent who actually has their shit together and there is a massive difference.
Stop letting a missing paragraph ruin your entire summer. Get it in writing. Get it in the plan. And stop letting Larry the lawyer convince you that common sense is enough, because it is absolutely not.
Here’s What You Can Actually Take Away:
- Summer Is Not Covered — Most parenting plans say nothing specific about summer, which means you're walking into a fight every single June.
- Vague Language Is Useless — Phrases like "parents will cooperate" and "summer will be shared" are not enforceable and mean absolutely nothing in a high conflict situation.
- Plan in Writing, Plan in Advance — Summer camp spots fill up months early, and your parenting plan should require summer planning to happen by a specific date every year.
- Details Save You Money — Every gap in your parenting plan is a future attorney fee waiting to happen. Get specific now so you're not paying for it later.
- Your Kids Deserve Consistency — Shuffling kids between two different camps or daycares because parents can't agree is not a logistical problem. It's a parenting failure that your plan should prevent.
- High Conflict People Don't Plan — They rely on chaos, and a vague parenting plan gives them all the ammunition they need to blow up your summer. Take that power away from them with clear, specific language.
The Truth Bombs
- "Your ex will disagree with everything you're talking about unless it's included in your parenting plan. Everything."
- "Parents will cooperate. Cool. Can you just go ahead and tell us what we're actually doing? Because we will never cooperate on our own."
- "High conflict people live for finding a detail that wasn't included. They turn it into a 65-text screaming match and it ends up costing you money with your attorney."
- "You are not being a controlling freak for bringing up summer camp in March. You're being a parent. There's a difference."
- "Your kid could have been going to the same summer camp for seven years but the second you're divorced, suddenly your ex has never liked that camp. Meanwhile they have zero alternative plan."
- "Put summer in its own section of your parenting plan. Not as an afterthought. Not as a single sentence. Its own section with real details."
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Samantha Boss: Summer break is one of the biggest gaps not put into parenting plans, and it breaks my heart. Because you're supposed to be excited about the summer and going into it, and you think you have these great ideas where you're like, obviously our kids are not at school. Obviously they have to go to a summer camp or a day camp, because we both work, obviously my ex will know that, right.
No, they will disagree with everything that you're talking about unless it's included into your parenting plan. So we have to make sure that your parenting plan not only has a school schedule, but also a summertime schedule and or what will happen during the summertime.
The Parenting Plan Fails I See Every Single Year
Here are just some really quick examples of wording that I have seen, and I hope it's not in your parenting plan, but it could be of parenting plan fails.
Fail number one: "The parties shall follow the regular parenting schedule throughout the year." Now that sounds logical and if I read that and I don't know anything about divorce and co-parenting and I read that, okay. This parenting schedule two five will play out for the whole school year and summer I'm thinking awesome. But this assumes that that school schedule will work in the summertime. But let's not forget, we're not dropping off at school anymore. So while I go to work early and drop off to school early, that might not work with where we're taking our kids for the summer program or the day camp that they're signed up for and or even my ex's house.
Fail number two: "The parents will share summer break." Problem. What the hell does share mean? Does that mean week off, week off? Does that mean two week blocks? Does that mean extended vacation time? Nothing is defined by a sentence that simply says you will share summer break. Does that mean we're keeping with the same schedule as the school year? Does that mean we're doing a different schedule? And these attorneys just write this like, oh yeah, we mentioned summer break in the schedule. Yeah, but you didn't say anything. You said nothing with that sentence.
Fail number three: "Parents will cooperate regarding summer camps and activities." Again, I laugh because that sounds nice, but a cooperation clause fails in high conflict. Parents will cooperate. Okay, cool. Can you just go ahead and tell us what it is we're doing because we will never cooperate. We will argue about camp, we'll argue about daycare, we'll argue about who pays for it. We'll argue about anything that you put in front of us. Did you not pay attention and take notes during our divorce? You have to make sure that it's crystal clear of what camp and activities are we doing. You can't say parents will cooperate. That is not measurable. That is not defined. My level of cooperation is I didn't cuss at you and I said, hmm, I'll think about it. That's me cooperating. That's as best as I'll get.
Fail number four: Summer break is not mentioned at all. Yeah. Again, look at your parenting plan. Is summer break mentioned? Probably not because your attorney assumed that you're just gonna stick with the same schedule you were doing. You can still do a two five, that's fine. You can do a two five year round. You can do week on and week off, year round. But I'm talking about the more finer details. We both work as parents. Where are these kids going? Because school is not in session.
How High Conflict Exes Turn Summer Into a War Zone
Parents will argue. Not a little bit. A lot. And I've never seen anything like it. Your kid could be in the same summer camp for years, been going since they were in kindergarten and they're now in seventh grade. They've gone to the same summer program, but all of a sudden now because you're going through a divorce, your high conflict ex will say no. I've never liked that camp before. You could respond back with, perfect, what do you recommend? Well, anything but that. Okay. So you're saying no to the program they've been in for seven years, but you have no other plan for where we're gonna put these kids all summer while we both have a job. Yeah. That's what high conflict people will do.
When One Parent Goes Rogue and Plans Everything
If you don't put it in your parenting plan, one parent will sign the kid up for all these camps. Maybe you don't have a daycare day camp situation, but maybe you have a parent that just keeps, well, I'm gonna put them in this camp, and then this camp, and then this camp. They're gonna go to volleyball, then they're gonna go to a track camp, and then they're gonna go to a NASA camp. That's fine. But is this an overnight thing? Am I missing visitation because of these camps? Am I able to pick them up?
So we have one parent that's planning the whole summer out. They haven't even stopped to think of, does this work with the other parent's schedule? Is this other parent going to pay for these camps? The other parent assumes that the other parent will just be okay with it. So they just sign the kid up. And maybe it's because they have done them before, but now you're divorced. So if your parenting plan doesn't say you have to agree, we could have one parent going rogue here over the summertime.
And not to mention, if you're doing a two five schedule in the school year and you switch to a two five for the summer, we still have to talk about where are we dropping these kids off at because we're no longer taking them to school. Are we taking them to the other parent's home? Are we taking them to the daycare that we can't agree on? Are we taking them to the camp that we can't agree on?
Why You Need to Plan Summer in February, Not June
Every season around now when I'm recording this in March is when the questions start coming in. Sam, I can't get my ex to make a summer plan. Here's the caveat that all of you need to hear real quick. High conflict people, they don't plan ahead. They're not planners. They are moment by moment chaos ridden people and they have never known in all the years that you've been married, that summer camp was determined in February, March, April at best. It's not June.
When we pick a summer camp, we pick them back in January, February, March. They don't know that because they've never had their pulse on it when you were married, so they think you're being crazy controlling by bringing up summer in March. But you're not, because you and I both know as the planners that shit fills up really fast and we have to reserve our spot.
So that's the first thing you have to tackle, getting the high conflict person to understand that no, we have to plan this way in advance. Spots fill up and we can't wait till the last minute. That should be in your parenting plan.
And here is fail number five, and before I say this, just know, do not sign something that says this. Each parent can enroll their child where they wish on their visitation day. Okay, Larry, let me break this down for you because Larry probably doesn't have kids. Your lawyer has no clue how daycares and summer camps work. There's no box on the application that says, hey, my child will be here two days out of the week this week and then be here four days out of the week next week. That's not how this works. I can't put my kid in something on Monday and Tuesday and then have him go to something on Wednesdays and Thursdays.
What about your kids? Why would your kids want to be shuffled around because their parents can't get their shit together and figure out where they need to go to camp all summer. So I'm advocating for all of you right now, make a plan for what your kids do in the summertime. And I'm talking details. What camp are they going to? What daycare are they going to? No daycare is going to take your kid like that. And if they do, they are going to make you pay for a full week. They're not going to say you can only pay for two days. They're gonna say yeah, you can bring your kid for two days but I'm charging you for all five days because you're holding the spot.
What Your Parenting Plan Needs to Say About Summer
Your parenting plan needs to clarify the following.
Whether the summer schedule is different than the school year. When does the summer schedule start and end? And there's a real easy solution here. Whatever district your kids go to school, go print out their summer calendar and say, we will start our summer schedule the Monday following the end of school dismissal. We will go back to our school schedule the first Monday school begins. Just doing that is going to save you a lawyer conversation down the road.
Where do we exchange when school's not in session? And this should be in your parenting plan regardless, because what are you gonna do on a sick day? What are you gonna do on a holiday?
And again, for those of you like, Sam, this is just way too much detail. Okay, cool. Thanks for stopping in. You're not divorcing someone of high conflict. Or guess what, you're not there yet. Just wait. This is the kind of stuff that high conflict people live for. They live for finding a detail that wasn't included and they make it into this big ordeal and they make it into a huge 65 text exchange and it costs you money with your attorney because they threaten you and you panic.
We also need to include where the exchanges happen when school is not in session, how summer camps and day camps are chosen. I don't care if you get even years, I get odd years. I would rather have that detail in there than argue every March and April before every single summer. I'm not doing it. I'm not spending the rest of my life in co-parenting arguing with you every March and April about summer plans.
Also the vacation time, which we're gonna drop a podcast about, because summer should be fun for you. You have to remove the yearly arguments. Summer break exposes one of the biggest weaknesses in parenting plans. So if you're building one right now with your attorney, I hope you took notes during this episode and I want you to go back and say, hey, what are we doing here?
Make sure the rules and regulations and guidelines are written in that parenting plan under its own section. Summer break.
A Team Dklutr Production
