Parents arrive at our office asking who will get custody. It is the right question asked in the wrong vocabulary, and the vocabulary matters, because Florida replaced “custody” with two separate concepts that are decided separately.
Parental responsibility is not time-sharing
Parental responsibility is authority — who decides about school, non-emergency medical care and religious upbringing. Florida presumes shared parental responsibility: both parents confer and decide together, unless the court finds shared responsibility would be detrimental to the child.
Time-sharing is the calendar — where the child physically is, overnight by overnight, including holidays, school breaks and summer.
A parent can have equal time-sharing and still have limited decision-making authority, or the reverse. Conflating the two leads parents to fight the wrong battle.
The 2023 change most parents have not heard about
Florida law now presumes that equal time-sharing is in the best interests of a minor child. The presumption is rebuttable — a parent can overcome it with evidence — but the starting point has moved, and it moved recently enough that a good deal of advice circulating among friends and family is out of date.
What the court actually weighs
Florida Statutes §61.13(3) lists the best-interest factors. Among them:
- Each parent’s demonstrated capacity to facilitate a close and continuing relationship with the other parent
- The division of parental responsibilities before and during the litigation
- The child’s home, school and community record, and the desirability of continuity
- The moral fitness, and the mental and physical health, of each parent
- Each parent’s demonstrated knowledge of the child’s daily routine — teachers, friends, medications, activities
- Evidence of domestic violence, abuse, neglect or abandonment
- The reasonable preference of a child the court finds sufficiently mature
Note the first one. A parent who obstructs the other’s relationship with the child is arguing against themselves under a statute that names that behavior explicitly.
There is no magic age
Parents frequently believe that at twelve, or fourteen, a child gets to choose. Florida has no such rule. A court may consider the preference of a sufficiently mature child, weighted alongside every other factor. It is never the deciding one.
Write the parenting plan tightly
Every Florida case involving a minor child requires a written parenting plan approved by the court. The single best predictor of whether parents return to court is how specific that plan is.
A vague plan says the parents will share holidays reasonably. A good one says which parent has Thanksgiving in even-numbered years, that the exchange is at 6:00 pm at a named location, who may collect the child, how much notice is required for out-of-state travel, and how quickly a parent must respond to a message about the child.
Specificity is not distrust. It is the removal of a thousand small opportunities for a bad week to become a motion.
If you are thinking about moving
Florida’s relocation statute applies to any move of more than 50 miles for 60 days or more. You need the other parent’s written agreement or a court order before you go. Relocating without one is among the fastest ways to lose time-sharing, and it is very difficult to undo.
This article is general information about Florida law, not legal advice about your situation, and it does not create an attorney–client relationship. Law changes; this was accurate when written. For advice on your own matter, call (386) 264-6937.