Summer Camp and Shared Parental Responsibility in Florida
Who decides on summer camp when parents share parental responsibility, who pays, and how your parenting plan should address it.
As summer approaches, co-parents often discover their parenting plan doesn’t clearly address who chooses a summer camp, who pays for it, or how it fits into the timesharing schedule. Here’s how Florida courts and parenting plans typically approach it.
Is Summer Camp a “Shared Parental Responsibility” Decision?
When a summer camp functions as necessary childcare for work — the way daycare or after-school care does during the school year — it often falls under the same shared decision-making obligations as other major childcare decisions. Both parents generally need to be consulted, even if one parent takes the lead on researching and selecting options.
What If the Parenting Plan Doesn’t Address It?
Many parenting plans don’t specifically anticipate summer camp. Where the plan is silent, parents should communicate and cooperate as best as possible — but disagreements about the choice of camp, and its effect on the other parent’s scheduled timesharing, are common. If the parents can’t agree, and the disagreement is significant, either parent may need to bring the issue back to court or to mediation for clarification.
Who Pays for Summer Camp?
When camp qualifies as necessary childcare for work, the cost is typically shared proportionately between parents based on their income share — similar to how other childcare costs are split under a child support order. Some parenting plans specify a different arrangement (for example, whichever parent selects the camp pays for it), so the exact language of your plan matters.
Special Considerations for Rotating Custody Schedules
For parents on a rotating schedule (such as alternating weeks), the parent who has the child during a given period may be responsible for that period’s camp decisions and costs — but this should ideally be spelled out explicitly rather than assumed, to avoid disputes each summer.
Building This Into Your Parenting Plan
The best way to avoid a recurring summer fight is to address it directly in the parenting plan itself: who has decision-making authority for camp selection, how costs are split, and how camp interacts with each parent’s scheduled time. If your current plan is silent on this, a modification or clarifying agreement can prevent the same disagreement from resurfacing every year.
Get Help
If summer camp decisions have become a recurring point of conflict, Family Matters Law Group, P.A. can help you build clear, enforceable language into your parenting plan — or resolve a current dispute. Schedule a consultation to discuss your situation.
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