# Draft Parenting Plan > Drafting a comprehensive parenting plan requires translating mediator recommendations and case-specific child-care, medical, therapeutic, and school-related information into a legally complete residential schedule and decision-making framework, with a companion cover memo addressing risks and open issues. - Skill: `finchipaiorg/draft-parenting-plan` (Agent Skill) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add finchipaiorg/draft-parenting-plan` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/finchipaiorg/draft-parenting-plan/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Coding & Dev Tools - Author: FinchipAIOrg (https://skillmd.com/u/finchipaiorg) - Updated: 2026-09-22 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/finchipaiorg/draft-parenting-plan --- # Skill: Draft Comprehensive Parenting Plan Under Washington State Law (RCW 26.09) ## 1. Subject-matter triage - Treat the parenting plan as the primary deliverable and the cover memo as secondary. - Extract the existing family-court posture first: any temporary plan, interim orders, mediator recommendations, agreed terms, and points of disagreement. - Identify each child’s age, schooling, medical or therapeutic needs, extracurricular commitments, transportation constraints, and any safety or communication issues that affect drafting. - If more than one child, parent, household arrangement, or schedule variant is in play, enumerate each separately before synthesizing the plan. ## 2. Failure modes the skill is correcting - Drafting a generic residential schedule without integrating child-specific school, medical, therapeutic, or activity constraints. - Failing to make the decision-making framework operational, including routine authority, major decisions, and an escalation path for deadlock. - Omitting a dispute-resolution sequence that requires the parties to attempt resolution before returning to court. - Ignoring the statutory modification framework, relocation notice concept, or other forward-looking provisions that should be reflected in the plan. - Overlooking how the final plan relates to any temporary plan or interim arrangement, including when a departure needs justification. - Producing a cover memo that lists concerns without ranking risk, identifying open issues, or giving concrete next steps. - Naming a legal conclusion without grounding it in the governing Washington authority. ## 3. Legal frameworks / domain conventions that apply - Use Washington parenting-plan law as the controlling framework, centered on RCW 26.09.187 for residential provisions and decision-making, RCW 26.09.191 for limiting factors where applicable, RCW 26.09.260 for modification standards, and RCW 26.09.405-.560 where relocation notice or related provisions are implicated. - Structure the plan around best interests of the child, continuity of caregiving, stability, developmental needs, sibling relationships, and each parent’s ability to support the child’s relationship with the other parent. - Distinguish residential schedule from decision-making authority: regular parenting time, holiday and vacation time, transportation, exchanges, and authority over education, non-emergency health care, and other major decisions. - Include a practical dispute-resolution ladder before court intervention, typically beginning with parent-to-parent discussion, then a structured third-party process if available, then litigation only if unresolved. - Reflect that temporary orders may function as the operative baseline; any material change in the final plan should be tied to a concrete child-centered reason. - Where the record suggests safety, instability, alienation, substance, mental-health, or domestic-violence concerns, test whether statutory limiting factors or supervised/conditional provisions may be needed under RCW 26.09.191. - Use the plan to make future administration workable: define handoff timing, communication channels, holiday precedence, and the handling of missed time, make-up time, and schedule conflicts. ## 4. Analytical scaffolds 1. Build the source map. - Separate controlling documents from background materials. - Identify the mediator’s proposals, client objectives, opposing positions, and any court-imposed defaults. - If the materials conflict, prioritize the most recent operative order unless the task materials indicate otherwise. 2. Triage the child-centered facts. - Pull out each concrete constraint affecting care or scheduling. - Note whether the constraint is recurring, event-driven, or contingent on a future condition. - Flag anything that requires client confirmation before final drafting. 3. Draft the residential architecture. - Select the residential framework that best fits the record: primary residential placement, alternating schedule, blended schedule, or other workable structure. - Draft weekdays, weekends, holidays, school breaks, vacations, transportation, and exchange logistics. - Align the schedule with recurring appointments and school routines rather than forcing the child to conform to an abstract rotation. 4. Draft decision-making provisions. - Separate day-to-day authority from major decision categories. - State who decides education, non-emergency medical and therapeutic care, extracurriculars, and communication issues. - If joint decision-making is intended but deadlock is possible, specify the tie-break or escalation mechanism. 5. Draft protections and contingency terms. - Address missed time, illness, travel, right of first refusal if supported by the record, notice obligations, communication expectations, and methods for handling schedule changes. - Where the facts raise safety concerns, tailor restrictions narrowly and only to the extent supported by the materials. 6. Draft the dispute-resolution sequence. - Use a clear sequence that escalates in steps before court. - Keep timing anchors practical and enforceable. - Make the process specific enough that future readers can tell what happens first, next, and last. 7. Draft the future-modification and relocation language. - Reflect the governing statutory standard for later changes. - If relocation is implicated, include the notice concept and align it with Washington law rather than inventing custom timing. 8. Prepare the cover memo. - Rank the risks and unresolved issues. - Identify provisions likely to draw objection. - Note any departure from the temporary plan and explain why the draft takes that position. - End with concrete next steps, assigned to the appropriate internal role and tied to the drafting timeline. ## 5. Vertical / structural / temporal relationships - Use the temporary plan or existing arrangement as the baseline and explain any deviation in terms of the child’s best interests and administrative feasibility. - When a child’s medical, therapy, or school schedule is fixed in time, let those commitments drive the residential design rather than treating them as afterthoughts. - Treat holidays, vacations, special events, and school breaks as overlays that may supersede the regular schedule if the plan so provides. - Distinguish current custody/placement facts from future modification standards so the plan remains usable both now and later. - If multiple children or multiple schedules are involved, keep each child’s provisions separate enough that the plan can be implemented without guesswork. ## 6. Output structure conventions - Produce the parenting plan as a complete, operative document with the standard Washington components: residential schedule, decision-making, dispute resolution, relocation language if needed, modification language, and any child-specific provisions supported by the record. - Produce the cover memo as a separate internal advisory note with a risk-ranked list of open issues, points of likely contest, and recommended next steps. - Draft the parenting plan first, then the cover memo. - Use statutory and rule-based citations for every legal proposition relied on; do not state a legal conclusion without naming the authority supporting it. - Keep the drafting concrete, implementable, and internally consistent; avoid generic filler or placeholders unless the source record truly leaves an issue open.