What Goes Into a Maryland Parenting Plan (And What Courts Actually Look For)

Most parents searching for parenting plan templates are looking in the wrong place. A generic template from a national website will not tell you what a Howard County or Anne Arundel County judge actually reads when they review your parenting plan, and the gap between a template and a court-ready parenting plan can matter more than people realize.

A parenting plan is a written document that defines how co-parents will raise their child after separation or divorce. In Maryland, it is not optional. Under Maryland Court Rules, a parenting plan is required in any case where a party asks the Court to establish or modify custody of a minor child, which means every custody case and every contested divorce involving children. Maryland Court provides a standardized tool for creating one (Form CC-DR-109), but filling out a form and building a parenting plan that actually works for your family are two different things.

This post walks through what a comprehensive Maryland parenting plan covers, what courts look for when they review one, and how mediation and parent coordination fit into the process, from the beginning and after a parenting plan is in place.

What Is a Parenting Plan in Maryland?

A parenting plan in Maryland is a written agreement between parents that addresses two core questions: where the child lives (physical custody and parenting time), and who makes major decisions for the child (legal custody and decision-making authority). The parenting plan can be general or detailed. Maryland Court acknowledges both approaches, but the more specific the parenting plan, the less ambiguity there is when disputes arise.

The Court reviews every parenting plan against one standard: the best interest of the child. If the parenting plan meets that standard and both parents agree, the Court is likely to incorporate it into a custody order. Once incorporated, it becomes legally binding. Violating it carries the same consequences as violating any court order.

If parents cannot reach full agreement, they submit a Joint Statement of the Parties Concerning Decision-Making Authority and Parenting Time (Form CC-DR-110) to the Court, identifying the areas where they agree and the issues still in dispute. A judge then resolves the open questions.

The parenting plan does not have to be created inside a courtroom. Many Maryland families build their parenting plan through mediation, before either party files anything with a court. That option is covered in detail below.

Does Maryland Require a Parenting Plan for Custody Cases?

Maryland requires a parenting plan in any case where a party asks the Court to establish or modify custody of a minor child. This requirement applies in standalone custody cases, divorce cases involving children, and custody modification proceedings. There is one exception: parenting plans are not required in Child in Need of Assistance (CINA) cases.

Parents receive the Maryland Parenting Plan Instructions (CC-DRIN-109) and the Maryland Parenting Plan Tool (CC-DR-109) at their first court appearance. The instructions walk through the factors to consider when building the parenting plan. The tool is the form used to document the agreement.

The requirement reflects a deliberate policy choice. Maryland Court designed the parenting plan process to encourage parents, rather than judges, to make decisions about their own children. When parents build the parenting plan themselves, ideally with legal or mediation support, they are more likely to follow it, and less likely to return to court over every disagreement.

What Should a Maryland Parenting Plan Include?

A complete Maryland parenting plan addresses six core areas. Parenting plans that skip any of these tend to generate the disputes they were designed to prevent.

1. Physical custody schedule. This is the day-to-day schedule: which nights the child spends with each parent, how weekdays and weekends are divided, and how transitions are handled. The schedule can follow a predictable repeating pattern (week on/week off is common) or a custom arrangement that fits the family's work schedules, the child's school location, and the child's age-related needs. Shared physical custody in Maryland requires each parent to have a minimum of 128 overnights per year.

2. Holiday and school break schedule. Standard school-year and weekend schedules rarely address Thanksgiving, winter break, spring break, summer, birthdays, Mother's Day, Father's Day, and school holidays. Every one of those occasions has generated a dispute between co-parents at some point. A well-drafted parenting plan resolves them in advance, typically by alternating holidays by year or splitting them within the year by a defined formula.

3. Legal custody and decision-making authority. Legal custody in Maryland covers the major decisions: education, healthcare, religious upbringing, and extracurricular activities. The parenting plan should specify whether legal custody is joint (shared decision-making) or sole (one parent decides), and if joint, how the parents will resolve disagreements. Tie-breaking authority, the right of one parent to make a final call when the two parents cannot agree, is a common and practical provision in joint legal custody arrangements.

4. Communication protocols. How will the parents communicate about the child? How quickly must each parent respond to a communication from the other? Are third parties involved in exchanges? What communication platform is preferred: text, email, or a co-parenting app? Written protocols remove the assumption that both parents have the same expectations about how co-parenting communication works.

5. Transportation logistics. Who provides transportation at the start of each parenting period? Who picks up from school? What happens when a parent is running late? If the parents live in different counties, one in Howard County and one in Anne Arundel County for example, transportation logistics deserve detailed attention.

6. Dispute resolution. What happens when the parents disagree about something the parenting plan does not clearly address? A dispute resolution provision, which might direct the parents to attempt direct negotiation first, then mediation, then parent coordination, then Court, can prevent minor disagreements from escalating into litigation.

What Do Maryland Courts Actually Look For in a Parenting Plan?

Maryland courts evaluate parenting plans against the best interest of the child standard. As of October 1, 2025, that standard is governed by Md. Family Law Code Ann. § 9-201, which codified the statutory factors for the first time in Maryland history. Maryland's updated custody statute represented a meaningful shift: courts had long applied a best interest standard rooted in case law, but the 2025 legislation (House Bill 1191, signed by Governor Wes Moore on May 15, 2025) put those factors in statute for the first time, giving Maryland parents a clearer picture of what a Court will consider.

The statutory factors include the child's stability and health and welfare; the importance of frequent and continuing contact with both parents; how each parent plans to share the responsibilities of raising the child; the child's relationships with each parent, siblings, and other significant people in the child's life; the child's physical and emotional safety and protection from conflict and violence; the child's developmental needs across all dimensions (physical, emotional, intellectual); the child's daily needs, including education, health, culture, and religion; how the parents will put the child's needs above their own; the child's age and, when appropriate, the child's preference; each parent's role and involvement in the child's life; the location of each parent's home relative to the child's school and activities; and the parents' ability to communicate and co-parent without disrupting the child's life.

The statute also requires courts to consider evidence of abuse and, when abuse is found, to structure any custody or visitation order to protect the child and the victim.

What courts look for in a parenting plan is alignment with these factors. A parenting plan that reflects both parents' genuine engagement with the child's needs, rather than a negotiating position designed to maximize one parent's time, reads differently than one that does not. Judges review hundreds of these. The ones that reflect real thought about the child's daily life, relationships, and development stand out.

Practically, this means the parenting plan should address the child's actual schedule and circumstances. A parenting plan for a toddler looks different from a parenting plan for a teenager. A parenting plan for a child with medical needs looks different from a parenting plan for a healthy child with no special requirements. Generic parenting plans fail to account for the specificity courts actually look for.

How Mediation Can Build a Parenting Plan Before Anyone Files

Parents do not have to be in active litigation to create a parenting plan. Many Maryland families work with a mediator to build their parenting plan before either parent files with the Court, and the resulting parenting plan, once signed and submitted as part of an uncontested filing, is just as legally binding as one a Court orders after a contested hearing.

At Zadjura Family Law, the firm's mediation practice works with both parents to negotiate a parenting plan that addresses all six areas described above. The mediator does not advocate for either parent. The mediator's role is to help both parents identify the child's needs, work through their disagreements, and reach an agreement they can both live with.

Mediation-built parenting plans tend to be more detailed and more durable than court-ordered parenting plans, for a practical reason: the parents made the decisions themselves. When parents design the parenting plan rather than having it imposed by a judge, they understand why each provision exists, and they are more invested in following it. Mediation also takes less time and costs less than litigation, significant considerations when both parents have legal fees to manage and a family to stabilize.

For parents in Howard County and Anne Arundel County who want to resolve custody without a contested court proceeding, mediation is often the most direct path to a complete, court-ready parenting plan.

Maryland family law attorney Jessica Zadjura has mediated parenting plan agreements for families across Howard and Anne Arundel Counties, and she brings the same depth of knowledge to the mediation table that she brings to the courtroom. That combination of advocacy and neutral experience shapes parenting plans that hold up over time, because they were built with a full understanding of what courts expect and what families actually need.

What Role Does a Parent Coordinator Play After a Parenting Plan Is in Place?

A parent coordinator is a neutral professional, typically an attorney or mental health professional with specialized training, who helps co-parents implement and interpret their existing parenting plan. Parent coordination in Maryland is distinct from mediation. Mediation produces an agreement. Parent coordination helps co-parents carry out an agreement that already exists.

When co-parents disagree about how to apply a provision in their parenting plan (a scheduling conflict arises, a holiday arrangement is disputed, a transportation protocol breaks down), a parent coordinator can step in and make a binding decision without either parent having to file a motion in court. In Howard County and Anne Arundel County, this process can resolve disputes in days rather than the weeks or months a court proceeding would require.

Parent coordination is particularly valuable in the period immediately after a parenting plan is put in place, when both parents are still learning how the parenting plan functions in daily life. Even well-drafted parenting plans encounter situations they did not fully anticipate: a child's schedule changes, a parent relocates, a new school year creates new transportation issues. A parent coordinator provides a structured, lower-cost mechanism for resolving those situations before they escalate.

The summer custody disputes that arise every year in Maryland are a good example: a parent coordinator engaged in May can often resolve a June conflict in a matter of days, while the same dispute filed as a Motion with a Circuit Court may not be heard until August or later.

Frequently Asked Questions

• What is a parenting plan in Maryland?

  A parenting plan in Maryland is a written document that outlines how co-parents will share custody and decision-making for their child. It covers physical custody (parenting time and schedule), legal custody (decision-making authority for education, healthcare, and other major issues), holiday and break schedules, communication protocols, transportation logistics, and a process for resolving future disputes. When approved by the Court and incorporated into a custody order, a parenting plan is legally binding.

• Does Maryland require a parenting plan for custody cases?

  Yes. In Maryland, a parenting plan is required in any case where a party asks the Court to establish or modify custody of a minor child. This includes divorce cases involving children, standalone custody cases, and custody modification proceedings. Parents receive the Maryland Parenting Plan Tool (Form CC-DR-109) at their first court appearance and must submit either a completed parenting plan or, if they cannot agree, a Joint Statement (Form CC-DR-110) outlining areas of agreement and dispute.

• What should a Maryland parenting plan include?

  A complete Maryland parenting plan should address the physical custody schedule, the holiday and school break schedule, legal custody and decision-making authority (including tie-breaking provisions if custody is joint), communication protocols between parents, transportation logistics, and a dispute resolution process. Parenting plans that omit any of these areas are more likely to generate future conflicts that require court intervention.

• Can parents create a parenting plan without going to court in Maryland?

  Yes. In Maryland, parents can work with a mediator to build a parenting plan before filing any court case. The completed parenting plan is then submitted as part of an uncontested filing and, once incorporated into a court order, carries the same legal weight as a judge-ordered parenting plan. At Zadjura Family Law, Jessica Zadjura offers mediation services specifically for co-parents who want to resolve custody without contested litigation

• What do Maryland courts look for when reviewing a parenting plan?

  Maryland courts evaluate parenting plans against the best interest of the child standard, which is now governed by the statutory factors under Md. Family Law Code Ann. § 9-201, effective October 1, 2025. Courts look for parenting plans that reflect genuine attention to the child's stability, developmental needs, relationships with both parents, safety, and daily life, not parenting plans structured around either parent's preferences. Judges must articulate their findings on each factor verbally or in writing.

• What happens if one parent violates the parenting plan in Maryland?

  When a parenting plan is incorporated into a court order, violating it is a violation of a court order. The other parent can file a motion for contempt in circuit court. Available remedies include make-up parenting time, modification of the existing schedule, fines, and in serious cases, other sanctions the Court finds appropriate. Before filing a contempt motion, many Maryland parents work with a parent coordinator to resolve the violation more quickly and at lower cost.

Start With a Parenting Plan That Holds

A parenting plan is not a formality. It is the document your family will live by, often for years. The time spent building it carefully, with proper legal and mediation support, pays off every time a scheduling conflict arises and the parenting plan resolves it before it becomes a dispute.

If you are approaching a custody case, a divorce involving children, or a modification of an existing order in Howard County or Anne Arundel County, a consultation is the right first step. Schedule a consultation with Zadjura Family Law to discuss your parenting plan and your options.

Jessica Zadjura is a Maryland family law attorney, mediator, and parent coordinator with 15 years of experience. She is the founder of Zadjura Family Law LLC, serving clients across Howard and Anne Arundel Counties.