The standard schedule is a starting point written for an average family. Yours may not be average — and a schedule set when your child was four rarely fits at fourteen.
Texas Family Code §153.252 creates a rebuttable presumption that the standard possession order is in the best interest of a child three years of age or older. “Rebuttable” is the operative word. It is the default the court reaches for when nobody presents a reason to do otherwise — and in a great many cases nobody does, which is how a schedule designed for an average family ends up governing a family it does not fit.
For parents residing 100 miles or less apart, §153.312 sets the familiar framework: the first, third and fifth weekends of each month, a Thursday evening period during the school term, alternating holidays, and an extended summer period. Parents more than 100 miles apart fall under §153.313 instead, with monthly weekends and a longer summer.
If your work, your child’s needs, or the distance between households makes that framework impractical, say so before the order is entered rather than after. Changing a schedule later requires proving a material and substantial change; getting it right the first time requires only asking.
Texas Family Code §153.317 allows a possessory conservator to elect alternate beginning and ending times — picking the child up when school is dismissed rather than at 6:00 p.m., and returning the child to school the following morning rather than at 6:00 p.m. on Sunday. Elected in full, this converts a standard weekend into something close to three full days and materially increases a parent’s time without changing the underlying schedule.
Two things parents routinely get wrong about it. First, the election generally must be made at or before the time the order is rendered — it is not something you switch on later by preference. Second, the expanded times are frequently better for the child as well as the parent, because exchanges happen at school rather than in a driveway, which removes the single most common flashpoint in a high-conflict case.
The standard possession order does not presumptively apply to a child under three. Texas Family Code §153.254 directs the court to render an order appropriate to that child, considering factors including the caregiving each parent has provided, the child’s physical and emotional needs, the availability of each parent, and the physical and emotional danger, if any, to the child.
In practice this usually means shorter, more frequent periods rather than long weekends — the aim being consistent contact rather than extended separations from the primary caregiver. Well-drafted orders for infants include a step-up provision: an automatic transition to a fuller schedule at a stated age, so the parents are not back in court on the child’s third birthday relitigating what everyone already anticipated.
The standard order assumes two parents on ordinary weekday schedules. Many parents in Collin County are not. Courts here will approve tailored schedules where there is a coherent reason for them, and it is entirely appropriate to ask.
A caution worth stating: equal-time schedules require functional communication. Where conflict is high, a 50/50 schedule multiplies exchanges and multiplies opportunities for disputes. More time is not automatically better time.
Under Texas Family Code §156.101 a court may modify conservatorship or possession where the circumstances of a child or a party have materially and substantially changed since the earlier order, and modification is in the child’s best interest.
What is generally not sufficient on its own: disliking the schedule, ordinary friction between households, or a new partner’s preferences. Bring evidence of the change and of the effect on the child, not of the annoyance to you.
An order that is ignored is worth exactly as much as the enforcement behind it. Chapter 157 provides the mechanism — a motion for enforcement, which can seek contempt, make-up possession time, and attorney’s fees. Enforcement succeeds or fails on specificity, so the practical work begins long before the filing.
Date, scheduled time, what actually happened, who was present. Written at the time, not reconstructed months later.
A co-parenting app or email produces a clean record. Verbal arrangements become disputes about memory.
Withholding the child or the support payment in response destroys the moral force of your position and can expose you to enforcement.
Terms such as “reasonable and liberal” possession are frequently held too vague to enforce by contempt. If your order reads that way, clarification comes first.
A handful of documented denials is a case. Two years of tolerated denials invites the question of why you waited.
No. Possession and child support are independent obligations in Texas. Withholding the child is itself a violation and will hurt you far more than the unpaid support hurts the other parent. Enforce the support through the proper route.
You are obliged to make the child available and to make reasonable efforts to see the order followed. Courts distinguish a parent who genuinely cannot compel a 16-year-old from one who quietly encourages the refusal — and they are experienced at telling the difference.
No. Parents are free to agree to any schedule that serves the child, and agreed orders are approved routinely. The standard order applies when you cannot agree.
Not automatically. Guideline support under Texas Family Code §154.125 is calculated on net resources and the number of children, not on nights. A genuinely equal schedule can support a departure from guidelines, but it is argued, not assumed.
An agreed modification can be finalised in a matter of weeks. A contested one commonly runs several months, though temporary orders can adjust the schedule in the meantime.
Whether you need a first order, a schedule built around shift work or distance, or a modification of one that no longer works, Lisa G. Garza can tell you what is realistic before you file.