Time-Sharing and Parental Responsibility in Florida

Florida law does not use the words "custody" or "visitation." Under Florida Statutes § 61.13, parents share "parental responsibility" and the child's time is allocated through a "time-sharing schedule." Both are set out in a written parenting plan that is part of every final judgment involving minor children.

Parental Responsibility

Parental responsibility is the authority to make major decisions about the child -- education, non-emergency healthcare, religious upbringing, and similar long-term issues. The default in Florida is shared parental responsibility, which means both parents must confer and agree on major decisions. The court will only order sole parental responsibility -- giving one parent unilateral authority -- if shared parental responsibility would be detrimental to the child. Domestic violence is presumptive evidence of detriment.

The court can also order shared parental responsibility but give one parent ultimate decision-making authority on specific topics, such as education or healthcare, if shared decisions would result in chronic gridlock that harms the child.

The Equal Time-Sharing Presumption

Effective July 1, 2023, Florida Statutes § 61.13(2)(c)1 creates a rebuttable presumption that equal time-sharing -- meaning approximately 50/50 overnights -- is in the best interests of the child. The presumption can be rebutted by a preponderance of the evidence after consideration of the best-interest factors in Florida Statutes § 61.13(3).

The Best-Interest Factors

Florida Statutes § 61.13(3) lists 20 factors the court must consider in evaluating any proposed time-sharing arrangement. The most often-litigated factors include:

• The demonstrated capacity of each parent to facilitate and encourage a close and continuing relationship with the other parent
• The mental and physical health of each parent
• The home, school, and community record of the child
• The geographic viability of any proposed schedule, including travel time
• The moral fitness of the parents, as it affects the child
• The reasonable preference of the child, if of sufficient maturity
• The demonstrated knowledge of the child's friends, teachers, doctors, and daily routine
• The capacity to provide a consistent routine, including discipline and homework
• The capacity to communicate with the other parent and present a united front
• Any evidence of domestic violence, sexual violence, child abuse, or child neglect
• Any evidence of false statements made about child abuse or neglect
• Any pattern of conduct that demonstrates an unwillingness to act as a parent

No single factor is dispositive. The court weighs them together based on the actual evidence at trial.

Common Time-Sharing Schedules

• 2-2-3 schedule. Equal time-sharing on a one-week rotation: two days with Parent A, two days with Parent B, three days with Parent A, then flip. Works well for younger children.
• 2-2-5-5 schedule. Equal time-sharing with longer blocks: two days with Parent A, two with Parent B, five with Parent A, five with Parent B.
• Week-on/week-off. Equal time-sharing in seven-day blocks. Often used for school-age children.
• Every other weekend plus one midweek. A more traditional schedule that gives one parent roughly 30 to 35% of overnights, with the other parent as the primary residence.

The schedule must address holidays, school breaks, summer, birthdays, and transportation logistics. The parenting plan is enforceable by contempt, and a parent who consistently denies the other parent court-ordered time-sharing may be sanctioned, including with additional time-sharing for the parent who lost the time.

Custody Is Not a Legal Term in Florida

Florida abolished the words "custody," "primary residential parent," and "visitation" by statute in 2008. Those terms still appear in everyday speech, in out-of-state orders, and in immigration paperwork, but a Florida final judgment will not use them. The replacement vocabulary -- shared parental responsibility, time-sharing schedule, parenting plan -- reflects a deliberate policy choice that both parents remain parents after divorce, not custodians and visitors. The change is more than cosmetic. A parent with a 60/40 schedule is not a "non-custodial" parent under Florida law, and any pleading that uses the old terminology is rewritten by the court before final judgment is entered.

Rebutting the Equal-Time-Sharing Presumption

The 2023 presumption shifted the practical default. A parent who seeks anything other than approximately equal overnights now bears the burden to come forward with evidence that equal time-sharing is not in the child's best interest. Rebuttal evidence typically falls into one of several categories: a parent's work schedule that is incompatible with overnight care (offshore rotations, overnight nursing shifts, long-haul trucking); untreated substance abuse or mental-health issues; a documented history of domestic violence; a parent's geographic separation from the child's school district; or a child who is too young to be separated for long blocks from a primary attachment figure. The court does not weigh these factors by checklist; it weighs them under the 20 statutory best-interest factors in § 61.13(3) and makes specific written findings.

Proving the Best-Interest Factors With Evidence

The statute lists the factors but does not say what evidence proves each. In practice:

• Capacity to facilitate the relationship with the other parent. Proven through co-parenting app messages, text records, recordings of exchanges, third-party observation of pickups, and a party's own deposition admissions about disparaging language used in front of the child.
• Mental and physical health. Proven through Florida Statutes § 61.20 social-investigator reports, § 61.122 psychological evaluations on stipulation or motion, medical records subpoenaed under HIPAA-compliant authorizations, and prescription histories.
• Moral fitness. Florida law limits this factor to conduct that has a direct adverse impact on the child. Lifestyle choices that do not affect the child are not relevant.
• Home, school, and community record. Proven through report cards, attendance and tardy records, teacher and counselor testimony, and pediatric records.
• Reasonable preference of the child. Where the child is of sufficient age and maturity, the court may hear from the child either in open court, in an in-camera interview under Florida Family Law Rule of Procedure 12.407, or through a guardian ad litem.
• Capacity to honor the schedule. Proven through a parent's history with the temporary order, response to text requests to swap days, and treatment of holiday and birthday provisions.
• Demonstrated knowledge of the child's friends, teachers, doctors, and routine. Frequently litigated at deposition through specific questions: name the child's pediatrician, the child's three closest friends, the child's current teacher, the child's least favorite class.
• Substance abuse. Proven through DUI records, arrest history, hair-follicle and EtG/PEth testing, treatment records on stipulation, and Soberlink or SoftCup compliance data.
• Domestic violence and false reports. Proven through police reports, prior injunction filings, medical records, photographs, and the testimony of percipient witnesses. False allegations are themselves a statutory factor under § 61.13(3)(t).

Supervised Time-Sharing

When the evidence demonstrates a current safety risk -- ongoing substance abuse, a recent episode of violence in the child's presence, untreated psychiatric illness, sexual-abuse allegations supported by some corroboration -- the court may limit a parent to supervised time-sharing for a defined period. Supervision can occur through a professional service such as Family Court Services or a similar Miami-Dade provider, through a qualified family member by stipulation, or at a designated supervised-exchange center. Supervised time-sharing is a transitional measure; the order should identify the conditions for stepping down to unsupervised contact (clean tests for a specified period, completion of a treatment program, completion of an anger-management course).

Domestic Violence and Time-Sharing

A finding of domestic violence does not automatically eliminate time-sharing, but it changes the analysis. Under § 61.13(2)(c)2, a conviction for a misdemeanor of the first degree or higher involving domestic violence creates a rebuttable presumption that shared parental responsibility is detrimental to the child. The court must consider any evidence of domestic violence in evaluating each best-interest factor, and may impose supervision, no-contact except through a third party, exchanges through a police lobby, or a stay-away buffer at the child's school. A parent with an outstanding injunction for protection should expect the family court to coordinate with the injunction court so the two orders do not contradict each other.

Social Investigations and Guardians ad Litem

In contested cases, the court has two principal investigative tools. Under Florida Statutes § 61.20, the court may order a social investigation by a qualified professional who interviews the parents, observes the child with each parent, reviews collateral records, and files a written report with recommendations. Under § 61.401, the court may appoint a guardian ad litem to act as next friend of the child, conduct an independent investigation, and represent the child's best interests in the proceeding. Both tools are discretionary. Cost is usually allocated between the parties under § 61.16. A well-documented social-investigation report frequently drives settlement once the parties see the recommendations in writing.

The Child's Voice: Rule 12.407 and In-Camera Interviews

Florida Family Law Rule of Procedure 12.407 requires court approval before a minor child may be subpoenaed, deposed, brought to a hearing, or interviewed without a court order. The default rule is that children do not testify. Where the court determines the child's input is necessary, the preferred procedure is an in-camera interview in the judge's chambers, with the lawyers present, the court reporter recording, and the parents excluded. The judge then summarizes relevant content on the record. Children are not asked which parent they want to live with; they are asked open-ended questions about their daily life, their relationships, and their preferences.

Modification: The Substantial-Change Standard

A final time-sharing order may be modified only on a showing of a substantial, material, and unanticipated change in circumstances, plus a showing that modification is in the child's best interests. This standard, articulated in Wade v. Hirschman and applied in countless subsequent appellate opinions, is intentionally high. The change must not have been reasonably foreseeable at the time of the prior order; it must be material in degree, not a minor inconvenience; and it must persist, not be a temporary episode. Common qualifying changes include a parent's relocation, a parent's substance-abuse relapse, the child's documented deterioration in one household, a parent's incarceration, or a child's age-related need for a different schedule (such as a teenager who needs a primary residence near school). The 2023 amendment did not change this standard. A previously-entered final judgment with unequal time-sharing is not automatically reopened by the new presumption; the moving parent must still show a substantial change.

Tactical Realities: The Status Quo and the Temporary Order

Two practical realities should drive litigation strategy from the first filing. First, the status quo carries weight at trial. A schedule that has been in place for six months or longer -- voluntarily, by agreement, or by temporary order -- becomes the burden of proof for any party seeking to disturb it. Second, the temporary order is often more important than the final judgment. The temporary order frequently sets the routine the trial court is reluctant to break. A parent who treats the temporary-relief hearing as a procedural formality, and shows up unprepared, can find the case effectively decided before discovery is complete.

Enforcement

A time-sharing order is enforceable by contempt. Under Florida Statutes § 61.13(4)(c), when a parent refuses to honor the schedule without good cause, the court may award the wronged parent additional make-up time-sharing, require the offending parent to pay the wronged parent's reasonable attorney's fees and costs, require completion of a parenting course or community service, impose a civil-contempt purge amount, require posting of a bond, or, in severe and persistent cases, modify the plan to favor the parent who lost time. A pattern of denial backed by documentation -- preferably exchanges logged through a co-parenting app such as OurFamilyWizard or TalkingParents -- is what moves a court from a warning to a sanction.

Relocation Within Florida

A move within 50 miles of the existing principal residence is not a "relocation" under Florida Statutes § 61.13001. It is, however, frequently treated as a change of circumstance for time-sharing purposes when it materially affects the school district, commute time, or the practicality of the existing schedule. A move from Miami-Dade to Broward, for example, may not require a relocation petition but will often justify revisiting transportation, midweek dinners, and school choice in the parenting plan. Parental relocation with the child over 50 miles is governed by its own statute and requires either consent or court approval.

Call 786-522-1411 to discuss your Florida time-sharing case.