A Florida parenting plan is a court ordered set of rules governing how separated or divorced parents share responsibility for their children. It can address where a child stays, when each parent has time sharing, how exchanges take place, how parents communicate, school related decisions, holidays, travel, and other matters affecting the child.
Problems arise when one parent does not follow those terms.
A missed exchange may be an isolated mistake. Repeatedly refusing scheduled time sharing is a different situation. So is taking a child on a trip without complying with the parenting plan, refusing to provide required information, or interfering with the other parent’s communication with the child.
Florida law provides several ways to address these disputes. But a parent who believes a violation occurred still has to establish what the parenting plan required and what actually happened.
What Counts as a Parenting Plan Violation?
The answer depends on the language of the particular parenting plan.
Florida parenting plans can contain detailed provisions concerning time sharing, transportation, holidays, school breaks, extracurricular activities, communication, travel, and parental decision making. A parent may violate the plan by failing to follow one of those provisions.
Examples can include:
- Refusing to release a child for scheduled time sharing.
- Returning a child late without a legitimate reason.
- Failing to follow the agreed exchange location or transportation arrangements.
- Preventing scheduled telephone or electronic communication between the child and the other parent.
- Failure to provide information or notice required by the parenting plan.
- Interfering with the child’s scheduled activities when the plan requires participation.
- Denying holiday or vacation time that belongs to the other parent.
- Taking a child somewhere in violation of travel restrictions contained in the order.
- Repeatedly disregarding other specific requirements of the court ordered plan.
The details matter. A parent who arrives thirty minutes late once is not necessarily in the same legal position as a parent who repeatedly refuses to make the child available for scheduled time sharing.
How the wording of the actual order is done matters too.
Does Every Violation Amount to Contempt?
No.
A violation of a parenting plan does not automatically mean that a parent is in contempt of court. Florida courts generally require more than proof that something went wrong.
In Merlihan v. Skinner, the Fourth District Court of Appeal addressed a contempt finding involving a parenting plan. The appellate court explained that a contempt finding requires evidence that the parent had the ability to comply with the order and willfully refused to do so. The court also emphasized that the underlying order must be sufficiently clear and precise for a person to know what compliance requires.
That distinction is important in practical terms.
Suppose a parenting plan says that a child will be exchanged at a particular location at a particular time. If a parent repeatedly refuses to make the exchange despite being able to do so, the evidence may support an enforcement or contempt proceeding.
But if the order itself is ambiguous, or circumstances made compliance impossible, the analysis can be different.
A court therefore has to look at the order, the circumstances surrounding the alleged violation, and the evidence presented by both parents.
What Can a Florida Court Do When Time Sharing Is Improperly Denied?
Florida Statutes section 61.13 provides specific remedies when a parent fails to honor the time sharing schedule established in a parenting plan.
Depending on the circumstances, the court may order:
- Makeup time sharing for the parent who was improperly denied time.
- Reasonable court costs and attorney’s fees.
- A parenting course.
- Community service in circumstances authorized by the statute.
- Certain transportation related expenses.
- Other reasonable sanctions.
- Contempt proceedings.
Makeup time sharing can be particularly significant because the remedy can address the time that was actually lost.
For example, in Varner v. Varner, a parent was held in contempt after failing to comply with provisions governing exchanges. The court awarded the other parent 17 overnight visits as makeup time sharing.
That illustrates an important point about enforcement. The remedy does not necessarily stop at telling the offending parent to follow the order in the future. Depending on the circumstances, the court can attempt to restore parenting time that was improperly denied.
Attorney’s Fees Can Be Part of the Enforcement Remedy
Parenting plan disputes can also create substantial legal expenses.
Florida law allows a court to award reasonable attorney’s fees and costs in certain enforcement proceedings. The purpose is not simply to punish a parent for causing a dispute. The court considers the statutory requirements and the circumstances of the case.
A particularly concrete example appears in Lett v. Lett, a 2025 decision from Florida’s Fifth District Court of Appeal.
That case involved a long running dispute over compliance with a 50/50 parenting schedule. The record included multiple contempt proceedings concerning alleged violations of the parenting plan. The trial court ultimately found the mother in willful contempt and awarded the father makeup time sharing. It also awarded him $19,693.46 in attorney’s fees.
The appellate court affirmed the fee award.
This figure demonstrates how quickly repeated parenting plan litigation can become financially significant. It also shows why documenting individual incidents can matter when a dispute develops into a larger enforcement proceeding.
Child Support and Time Sharing Are Separate Obligations
One of the most common misconceptions in parenting disputes is that child support and time sharing can be used as bargaining tools against each other.
Generally, they cannot.
A parent who has not received child support does not ordinarily acquire the right to withhold the other parent’s court ordered time sharing. Likewise, a parent who has been denied time sharing does not ordinarily acquire the right to stop paying court ordered child support.
Florida law treats these obligations separately.
That means a parent dealing with unpaid child support should use the appropriate child support enforcement procedures rather than withholding the child’s scheduled time with the other parent.
The same principle applies in reverse. A parent whose time sharing is being denied should pursue the appropriate enforcement remedy rather than simply stopping child support payments.
A Parenting Plan Dispute in Broward County
Florida appellate decisions provide useful examples of what these disputes can look like in practice.
In Merlihan v. Skinner, the underlying case came from Broward County and the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit. The Fourth District Court of Appeal ultimately reversed a contempt ruling because the trial court had not made the necessary findings concerning the parent’s ability to comply and willful refusal to do so.
This case is useful because it shows why a parenting plan enforcement case is not simply a matter of one parent saying, “The other parent broke the rules.”
The court has to determine what the order required and whether the evidence establishes the legal requirements for contempt.
Other cases show different patterns.
For Thornton v. Thornton, the Fourth District addressed allegations involving several aspects of a parenting arrangement, including extracurricular activities, travel information, birthday time sharing, and communication between a parent and children. The case demonstrates how enforcement disputes can involve considerably more than missed weekend visits.
In Erlinger v. Federico, the First District reviewed a record involving approximately ten months without visitation and seven enforcement motions over a two year period. The record also stated that 84 days of visitation had been denied during 2016.
These numbers come from the particular court record. They are not statistics showing how frequently parenting plan violations occur throughout Florida. Florida does not appear to maintain a reliable statewide statistic measuring all parenting plan violations.
What the cases do show is that repeated interference can produce a substantial litigation record when the problem continues.
A Parenting Plan Can Be Too Vague to Enforce
Sometimes the problem is not simply that a parent refuses to follow the plan.
The plan itself may not say enough.
Florida law requires parenting plans to establish a time sharing schedule. If important provisions are too vague, parents can end up disagreeing about what the court actually ordered.
The Fifth District addressed this issue in Kiswani v. Hafza in 2025. The appellate court reversed because the parenting plan did not establish a sufficiently specific time sharing schedule as required by Florida law.
This creates an important distinction.
A parent cannot necessarily be held in contempt for violating an obligation that the order never clearly established.
As Stuart G. Reinfeld explains:
“A parenting plan should give both parents a workable understanding of what they are expected to do. When the language is vague or contradictory, disputes can become much harder to resolve because the parents may disagree about what the court actually ordered.”
For that reason, reviewing the exact wording of a parenting plan should usually be one of the first steps in an enforcement dispute.
What About Moving Away With a Child?
Relocation presents a separate legal issue.
Florida law contains specific procedures governing the relocation of a child. A parent generally cannot simply move the child a substantial distance and deal with the consequences afterward.
Florida’s relocation statute, section 61.13001, establishes requirements concerning proposed relocations and gives the other parent an opportunity to object. Depending on the circumstances, court approval may be required.
A parenting plan may also contain specific restrictions concerning travel outside Florida or outside the United States.
This is why “moving without notice” should not be treated as merely another ordinary parenting plan violation. Relocation can trigger its own statutory procedures and remedies.
In Fuentes Neira v. Cardona Acosta, the Third District considered an arrangement involving relocation between Miami and Colombia. The court concluded that the agreement did not satisfy Florida’s statutory requirements for a relocation agreement because it did not adequately establish the required time sharing schedule and transportation arrangements.
For families in South Florida, international travel and relocation can create particularly complicated questions because the practical consequences may extend beyond the ordinary exchange schedule.
What Evidence Matters in a Parenting Plan Dispute?
A parenting plan enforcement case often turns on details.
The strongest evidence is usually evidence that allows the court to compare the written order with what actually happened.
Depending on the dispute, useful records may include:
- The current parenting plan and any later court orders modifying it.
- Text messages, emails, or other communications between the parents.
- Records showing scheduled and actual exchanges.
- School or extracurricular records.
- Travel information and notices.
- Calendars documenting missed or changed time sharing.
- Receipts or other records showing transportation expenses.
- Records concerning repeated requests to exercise scheduled time sharing.
- Evidence concerning attempts to resolve the problem before filing a motion.
- Documentation showing why compliance was impossible, if that is the position of the parent accused of violating the order.
A chronological record can be particularly useful.
Instead of simply stating that the other parent “always violates the parenting plan,” it is usually more informative to identify the date, the provision involved, what was supposed to happen, what actually happened, and what communications followed.
That gives the court something concrete to evaluate.
What If the Violations Keep Happening?
Repeated violations can change the nature of the dispute.
A single incident may be resolved without extensive litigation. A continuing pattern can require formal enforcement.
Florida courts have several possible remedies available under section 61.13, including makeup time sharing, fees and costs, sanctions, and contempt where the legal requirements are satisfied.
But repeated violations do not automatically mean that the existing parenting plan should be replaced.
Sometimes enforcement is the appropriate issue.
Other times, circumstances have changed so substantially that the existing schedule no longer works for the child or the parents. In that situation, a modification proceeding may be more appropriate.
Those are different legal questions.
A parent should not simply stop following the existing order because they believe a different arrangement would be better. Until a court changes the order, the existing order generally remains the governing requirement.
What Should You Do After a Parenting Plan Violation?
The first step is to identify exactly what happened.
Review the current parenting plan and determine which provision applies. Then preserve the communications and other records relating to the incident.
It can also help to separate an isolated problem from a continuing pattern.
Consider documenting:
- What the parenting plan required.
- So – what happened instead.
- When it happened.
- Whether the other parent provided an explanation.
- Did the problem affected scheduled time sharing or another specific obligation.
- Whether similar incidents happened before.
- What steps were taken to resolve the issue.
Not every disagreement requires a court filing. Parents sometimes resolve individual scheduling problems through communication or an agreed temporary change.
But repeated violations, denied time sharing, interference with commnication, relocation disputes, or conduct that continues despite attempts to resolve the problem may require legal enforcement.
Before taking action, it is also important to determine whether the existing order is clear enough to enforce and whether the facts support enforcement, contempt, modification, or another legal remedy.
A Word From Alan J. Reinfeld
“When a parenting plan dispute reaches the point where a court may become involved, the details matter. The question is not simply whether one parent believes the other acted unfairly. The court needs to know what the order required, what actually happened, and whether the circumstances support enforcement or a change to the existing plan.”
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I withhold visitation because the other parent is not paying child support?
- Generally, no. Child support and time sharing are separate obligations. A parent should use the appropriate legal process to enforce unpaid child support rather than withholding court ordered parenting time.
Could I stop paying child support because the other parent is denying visitation?
- Mostly, no. A denied parenting schedule does not ordinarily eliminate a separate child support obligation.
A parent can be held in contempt for violating a parenting plan?
- Potentially, yes. But a violation does not automatically establish contempt. The court must consider the requirements for contempt, including whether the order was sufficiently clear and whether the parent had the ability to comply and willfully refused to do so.
Can I get makeup time if the other parent denied my scheduled time?
- Florida law allows courts to award makeup time sharing in appropriate circumstances when a parent fails to honor the established time sharing schedule.
Can I recover attorney’s fees?
- Maybe. Florida law allows attorney’s fees and costs in certain parenting plan enforcement proceedings. The amount and whether an award is appropriate depend on the circumstances and applicable statutory requirements.
What if the parenting plan is unclear?
- An unclear parenting plan can make enforcement more difficult. Florida courts have emphasized the need for sufficiently specific parenting plans and court orders, particularly when contempt is being considered.
What if the other parent repeatedly violates the parenting plan?
- Repeated violations may support a request for enforcement and, when the legal requirements are met, contempt or other remedies. If circumstances have changed, a modification proceeding may also need to be considered.
So if the other parent wants to move with our child?
- Relocation is governed by specific Florida statutes. The legal process can depend on the proposed distance, the existing parenting arrangement, the other parent’s position, and whether an agreement can be reached.
Parenting Plan Enforcement in Coral Springs and Broward County
For parents in Coral Springs, Broward County, and the surrounding South Florida area, a parenting plan dispute can involve much more than a disagreement over a particular weekend.
The appropriate response depends on the language of the existing order, the history of the dispute, the evidence available, and the legal remedy being sought.
At My Personal Attorneys, parenting and family law matters can be evaluated in the context of the specific court orders and circumstances involved. If a parenting plan is being repeatedly ignored, time sharing is being denied, or circumstances have changed and the existing arrangement may no longer work, reviewing the situation with a Florida family law attorney can help determine what legal options are available.