When family courts talk about "legal custody," this is the section they mean. Decision-making authority defines who has the right to make major life decisions for the children — and how disagreements between coparents get resolved.
Decision-making authority is the legal-custody portion of a parenting plan. It separates the kids' time (physical custody — covered by the schedule) from the kids' big decisions (legal custody). Legal custody can be joint (both parents must agree on major decisions), sole (one parent decides), or mixed (joint for some categories, sole for others). Day-to-day decisions during a parent's time always belong to that parent — what the kids eat, what time they go to bed, whether they can have a sleepover. Major decisions are the ones that have lasting impact: which doctor, which school, which religion, which therapist.
The plan lists each category of major decision (medical, educational, religious, mental-health, extracurricular) and specifies whether it's joint or sole. For joint decisions, the plan describes how disagreements get resolved — usually escalating from direct discussion to mediation to a tiebreaker (a parenting coordinator, a designated medical professional, or court). For sole-parent decisions, the plan specifies whether the deciding parent has to consult with the other parent first ("sole decision-making with consultation") or can decide without input ("sole decision-making"). The cleanest plans address each category explicitly and write down the disagreement-resolution process — joint legal custody without a tiebreaker mechanism is the single biggest source of post-decree litigation.
When you draft this section of your parenting plan, make sure it covers each of these points. Skipping any of them is the most common reason this clause becomes a source of conflict later.
Start with the custody schedule — the foundation every other section builds on. Kidtime’s free wizard covers it in minutes.
Physical custody is about where the kids spend time — governed by the schedule. Legal custody is about who makes major decisions — medical, educational, religious. The two are independent: you can have joint legal custody with a 70/30 physical split, or sole legal custody with 50/50 physical custody. Most modern parenting plans default to joint legal custody unless one parent is unfit, abusive, or has demonstrated they can't make decisions cooperatively.
Joint legal custody means both parents have to agree on major decisions about the children's lives — medical care, school choice, religious upbringing, mental-health treatment, extracurriculars. Day-to-day decisions during each parent's time still belong to that parent. Joint legal custody is the default in most states for cases where both parents are fit and willing to cooperate.
Your parenting plan should spell out the resolution process. The standard escalation is: (1) direct discussion between the parents, (2) mediation with a neutral family-law mediator, (3) a tiebreaker — either a parenting coordinator, a designated professional in the relevant area (the kids' primary doctor for medical disputes, for example), or court. Plans without a written resolution process default to court for every disagreement, which gets expensive fast.
Yes, and this is increasingly common. A plan might give one parent sole decision-making for medical (because that parent has been the primary caregiver and knows the kids' health history) and the other parent sole decision-making for educational (because that parent has more flexibility to attend school events). Joint decision-making for everything else. Splitting by category works well when each parent has clear strengths and the other parent trusts those strengths.
It's a middle-ground arrangement: one parent has the final say, but is required to consult with the other parent first and consider their input in good faith. It's used when full joint decision-making isn't workable (because of past conflict or one parent's pattern of obstruction) but completely cutting the other parent out of decisions isn't appropriate either. The consulting parent can't veto, but their voice is on the record.
Right of first refusal (sometimes called "first right of refusal custody") is a clause that says if a parent can't be with the kids for more than X hours during their parenting time, the other parent gets the option before a babysitter, grandparent, or daycare does.
How and how often coparents communicate — and what they communicate about — is one of the most-fought-over parts of any parenting plan. Writing it down prevents 80% of those fights before they start.
The exchange section says exactly when, where, and how the kids move between households. The most common-sense thing to write down — and the most common source of fights when it isn't.
Where the kids can travel, who has to consent, and what happens when one parent wants to move — these are the highest-stakes provisions in any parenting plan because relocation can effectively end a 50/50 schedule.
Kidtime's free schedule wizard covers the most-negotiated section of any plan.