South Dakota Parenting Plan: What to Include and How to File It

What the Court Requires

Every custody case involving minor children in South Dakota requires a parenting plan — whether the parents agree or the court imposes one. The plan must spell out in detail how you'll divide both decision-making authority and physical time with your children. Vague language like "reasonable visitation" doesn't cut it. Judges want specifics.

At a minimum, your parenting plan needs to address:

• Legal custody allocation — who makes major decisions about education, healthcare, religious instruction, and extracurricular activities (joint or sole)
• Physical custody schedule — exactly where the child sleeps each night, including a regular weekly rotation
• Holiday and vacation rotations — which parent has the child for each major holiday, and how you alternate year to year
• Exchange logistics — where, when, and how transitions happen (school pickup, a neutral parking lot, a specific time at a specific address)
• Communication protocols — how co-parents communicate about scheduling changes, medical issues, and school matters; plus the child's phone/video access to each parent
• Dispute resolution — how you'll handle disagreements before going back to court (mediation first is standard)

The UJS-185 Stipulation Form

When both parents agree on a plan, they file Form UJS-185 — the Stipulation, Custody, Parenting Time, and Support Agreement — in a standalone custody action. In a divorce with children, they use Form UJS-325. The judge reviews the stipulation and signs it into a court order.

UJS-185 walks you through the required elements section by section, but it's a blank form, not a guide. It won't tell you whether your proposed schedule makes sense for a toddler vs. a teenager, or whether your holiday rotation creates scheduling conflicts. That's the strategic work you do before you sit down with the form.

Building the Weekly Schedule

Your residential schedule is the backbone of the parenting plan. The schedule needs to account for school days, work schedules, and the child's activities while clearly designating which parent has the child each night.

Common schedule models in South Dakota:

Alternating weeks work well for school-age children with low parental conflict. Parent A has the child for a full week, then Parent B has the next week. Clean 50/50 split, minimal exchanges.

2-2-3 rotation suits younger children (ages 2-5) who need frequent contact with both parents. Two days with one parent, two with the other, then a three-day weekend — the pattern flips each week so both parents get alternating weekends.

2-2-5-5 rotation offers weekday predictability: Parent A always has Monday/Tuesday, Parent B always has Wednesday/Thursday, and the weekend (Friday through Sunday) alternates. This is popular with school-age children because it anchors specific weekdays to a specific home.

The UJS-302 default provides alternating weekends plus a midweek overnight — less than 40% of overnights for the noncustodial parent. If you don't file a custom plan and neither parent objects to the guidelines, this becomes your schedule automatically.

Holiday and Vacation Provisions

The standard approach is to alternate holidays on an odd-year/even-year basis. Your plan should explicitly name each holiday and specify the times. Common provisions in South Dakota plans:

• Thanksgiving — Wednesday after school through Sunday evening
• Christmas — split into Christmas Eve/Day and New Year's, alternating blocks each year
• Spring break — alternating years
• Summer — the noncustodial parent typically receives an extended block; under the standard guidelines, this is the entire summer minus 10 days for the custodial parent
• Each parent's birthday — a specified block of time regardless of the regular schedule
• The child's birthday — alternating years, or a shared arrangement

Holiday provisions override the regular schedule. If it's your Thanksgiving week but the other parent has the child per the holiday schedule, the holiday schedule controls.

Right of First Refusal

A common provision — though not required — is the right of first refusal. This means that if the parent who has the child needs childcare for a specified period (usually 4+ hours), they must first offer that time to the other parent before calling a babysitter or family member.

This provision works best when both parents live nearby and have flexible schedules. It can become a source of conflict if one parent uses it to micromanage the other's social life, so keep the threshold reasonable and the notification method clear (text message with a 2-hour response window is typical).

Making It Enforceable

A parenting plan that's too vague is unenforceable. "Every other weekend" doesn't specify which weekends, what time exchanges happen, or who picks up and who drops off. Write it so that a stranger could read the plan and know exactly where the child should be at any given time.

Specific language matters because enforcement matters. If one parent violates the schedule, the other can file a Motion for Enforcement under SDCL § 25-4A-4.1. The court must schedule a hearing within 21 days. But the court can only enforce what's clearly written in the order — ambiguity benefits the person violating the plan.

The South Dakota Child Custody & Parenting Plan Guide includes schedule-planning worksheets, holiday rotation templates, and a checklist of provisions to address before you fill out the UJS-185 or UJS-325 stipulation form.

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