Clauses Parents Often Forget in an Ontario Parenting Plan

Most parenting plans get the basics right: which parent has the child on which days, how holidays split, how decision-making responsibility is shared or allocated. What trips families up later usually isn't the schedule — it's everything the plan didn't think to mention.

A solid set of parenting plan clauses covers the situations that come up months or years down the road, not just the recurring weekly routine. Here's what Ontario parents commonly leave out, organized by category.

Beyond the Calendar: What a Plan Should Also Cover

A parenting plan that only states the schedule tends to generate disputes the moment something outside that schedule happens — a school trip needing a passport, a new partner being introduced, a disagreement over extracurricular activities. Building these situations into the plan upfront, rather than negotiating them from scratch when they arise, is usually far less stressful for everyone, including the child.

Checklist: Clauses Worth Adding

Communication and Information-Sharing

• [ ] How parents will communicate about the child (a specific app, email, or another method) and expected response times
• [ ] Who is responsible for relaying school and medical information to the other parent, and how often
• [ ] A process for sharing changes of address, phone numbers, or emergency contacts

Travel, Passports, and Relocation

• [ ] Consent requirements for domestic and international travel with the child
• [ ] Who holds the child's passport, and the process for obtaining or renewing it
• [ ] A reference to the written notice a parent must give before relocating with the child — currently 60 days under the Divorce Act for parents covered by it, though this figure should always be verified as current before it's relied on
• [ ] What counts as advance notice for travel that doesn't rise to the level of a relocation

Decisions Outside the Big Three

Decision-making responsibility usually addresses health, education, and religion — but plans often skip:

• [ ] Extracurricular activities: who chooses them, and who pays
• [ ] Non-emergency medical and dental decisions that fall short of major treatment
• [ ] Screen time, social media, and technology rules, and whether both households will apply them consistently
• [ ] Tattoos, piercings, or other decisions relevant as a child gets older

Life Events and New Partners

• [ ] A general approach to introducing new partners to the child (timing, notice, or simply a shared expectation of discretion)
• [ ] How significant life events — school graduations, recitals, sports finals — will be shared or attended by both parents
• [ ] Whether and how extended family (grandparents, for example) factor into scheduling

When You Disagree Later

• [ ] A defined process for resolving future disagreements — mediation, a parenting coordinator, or another agreed first step before going to court
• [ ] A review date or trigger (such as the child starting school) to revisit the plan as circumstances change
• [ ] What happens if one parent wants to move, take a new job, or otherwise change their availability

Why These Details Prevent Disputes

None of these clauses are legally required to make a parenting plan valid. What they do is remove ambiguity at the exact moments separated parents are least equipped to negotiate calmly — when a decision needs to be made quickly, or when trust is already low. A plan that already answers "who decides this" heads off a much larger argument than the clause itself would ever cost to write.

Adding Missing Clauses to an Existing Plan

If your current parenting plan or separation agreement is missing some of these, it doesn't need to be rewritten from scratch. Parents can amend an existing agreement by mutual consent, adding specific clauses without reopening every other term. Where the parents can't agree on new terms, a family lawyer can advise on whether mediation or a court application is the better path forward.

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