The terms the legislation uses to describe the plans that are made by parents and judges make about children are a bit of a mess. Under the provincial ''[[Family Law Act]]'', "parenting arrangements" are arrangements about parental responsibilities and parenting time made after separation, whether those arrangements are in an agreement or in an order. "Parenting arrangements" doesn't include agreements and orders about contact. I suppose those would be called ''contact agreements'' and ''contact orders'', although the legislation doesn't say so. Under the federal ''[[Divorce Act]]'', a "parenting order" is an order about decision-making responsibility and parenting time, and a "contact order" is an order about contact just like you'd expect. A "parenting plan," on the other hand, is the part of a written agreement about decision-making responsibility, parenting time, or contact. "Parenting plan" doesn't include arbitrators' awards or judges' orders.

In this section, we'll use ''parenting schedules'' to talk about the allocation of parenting time between parentsguardians, and ''parenting arrangements'' to talk about the distribution of both parental responsibilities and parenting time between parentsguardians, following the approach taken in the ''Family Law Act''.

<blockquote>"The argument that a presumption would render the law more predictable in a way which would do justice in the majority of cases and reduce conflict damaging to the child between the former spouses also founders on the rock of the ''Divorce Act''. The Act contemplates individual justice. The judge is obliged to consider the best interests of the particular child in the particular circumstances of the case. Had Parliament wished to impose general rules at the expense of individual justice, it could have done so. It did not. The manner in which Parliament has chosen to resolve situations which may not be in the child's best interests should not be lightly abjured. Even if it could be shown that a presumption in favour of the custodial parent would reduce litigation , that would not imply a reduction in conflict. The short-term pain of litigation may be preferable to the long-term pain of unresolved conflict. Foreclosing an avenue of legal redress exacts a price; it may, in extreme cases, even impel desperate parents to desperate measures in contravention of the law. A presumption would do little to reduce the underlying conflict endemic in custody disputes."</blockquote>

*the views and preferences of the child, especially for children who are old enough to have an opinion and understand how their parents' separation , and their own preferences , might impact their lives,

Parenting schedule templates will offer additional variants based on the age of the children. There are many good reasons for this too. A child who is being breastfed won't be able to be away from their mother for very long, and the sort of parenting time the other parent will have will usually need to be short but frequent. A toddler is better able to handle being away from a parent for an extended period of time, say one or two days, but will need to see both parents frequently. A child who is starting school suddenly has a schedule that's got nothing to do with their parents, and a child who is leaving elementary school will not only have homework and extracurricular activities that need to be taken into account, but the beginnings of a social life that is going to become increasingly important to them as they get older. A teenager's social life will be in full bloom and it may be more important to teenagers that they spend time with their friends and in their extracurricular activities than with their parents. The reality is that parenting schedules ''have'' to change based on the age of the child and, eventually as teenagers, on their preferenceswishes as well. The schedule that works for a toddler won't work for a kid in Grade Two, and the schedule that works for a kid in Grade Two won't work for a kid in Grade Eight. That's just how it is.