Utah Minimum Parent-Time: Why the Minimum Should Be the Floor, Not the Goal
By Jeff D. Rifleman, Rifleman Law & Mediation
When parents separate or divorce, one of the most important questions a Utah court must answer is deceptively simple: how much time should the children spend with each parent?
Utah law provides several statutory parent-time schedules. Unfortunately, the phrase “minimum parent-time” is sometimes treated in practice as though it describes a recommended parenting arrangement. It does not. Minimum means minimum.
A minimum is a floor. It is not an optimum. It is not necessarily a preferred schedule. And it certainly does not mean that a child benefits from having only the minimum possible relationship with an otherwise loving, capable and involved parent.
Think about the concept in another context. We have minimum nutritional requirements. Those requirements describe an amount necessary to avoid deficiency; nobody would suggest that the healthiest diet for a growing child is to provide only the minimum nutrients necessary to survive. Building codes establish minimum safety requirements, but few people shopping for a family home ask for one constructed to the absolute lowest acceptable standard. Minimum wage establishes a legal floor; it does not establish an ideal household income.
Utah’s minimum parent-time schedule should be understood the same way. It establishes a baseline below which parent-time ordinarily should not fall. It should not become the default destination when the facts demonstrate that a child can safely and meaningfully maintain substantially greater relationships with both parents.
This is particularly important because Utah’s own statutes increasingly recognize something family courts, parents and researchers have been discussing for years: children generally benefit from meaningful relationships with both fit parents.
What Does “Minimum Parent-Time” Actually Mean Under Utah Law?
For children between five and eighteen, Utah Code § 81-9-302 establishes Utah’s traditional minimum parent-time schedule. In general terms, that schedule includes an alternating-weekend arrangement, a weekday period, holidays and extended summer parent-time.
For younger children, Utah Code § 81-9-304 establishes age-specific minimum schedules that gradually increase parent-time as the child gets older.
But the more important statute for understanding what “minimum” actually means is Utah Code § 81-9-206. It provides that the statutory advisory guidelines and parent-time schedules are presumed to constitute the minimum parent-time to which the noncustodial parent and the minor child are entitled.
That wording deserves attention. Parent-time is not framed exclusively as a privilege belonging to a parent. The statute expressly recognizes the child’s interest as well.
In other words, when a parent receives substantially less than statutory minimum parent-time without a legally sufficient reason, it is not merely that parent’s relationship that is being restricted. The child is also losing access to that parent.
That is why I believe we should stop treating minimum parent-time as a routine solution and instead ask the more important question: How much meaningful time with each fit parent can reasonably be provided while serving this particular child’s best interests?
Parents facing these questions can read more about how Utah courts analyze these issues on our Utah child custody and parent-time lawyer page and our discussion of how Utah courts decide child custody and parent-time.
Utah Law Already Recognizes That More Parent-Time Can Be Appropriate
The traditional minimum schedule does not stand alone. Utah law now expressly provides alternatives involving substantially more parenting time.
Utah Code § 81-9-303 provides an optional increased parent-time schedule involving 145 overnights. The statute allows that increased schedule to be considered when, among other considerations, the noncustodial parent has been actively involved in the child’s life, can facilitate the increased schedule, and increased parent-time would be in the child’s best interest.
Utah goes further still.
Utah Code § 81-9-305 expressly authorizes an equal parent-time schedule resulting in 182 overnights for one parent and 183 for the other when the statutory requirements are satisfied. The court considers whether equal parent-time is in the child’s best interest, whether each parent has been actively involved in the child’s life, and whether each parent can effectively facilitate the schedule.
The existence of these statutes is significant. Utah law does not present parents with a binary choice between sole custody and the traditional alternating-weekend schedule. The Legislature has expressly created a continuum extending from minimum parent-time through 145 overnights and ultimately to essentially equal parenting time.
I have previously written about this development in Rethinking 50/50 Custody as a Default in Custody Actions.
None of this means that 50/50 custody is appropriate in every case. It isn’t. Domestic violence, abuse, neglect, serious instability, geographical distance, developmental considerations and numerous other circumstances can make equal parenting impractical or contrary to a particular child’s welfare.
But neither should we make the opposite mistake of assuming that minimum parent-time is inherently preferable merely because it appears in a statute.
Utah’s Best-Interest Statute Points Toward Meaningful Involvement by Both Parents
Perhaps the strongest argument comes directly from Utah’s statement of public policy.
Under Utah Code § 81-9-204, absent a showing by a preponderance of the evidence of real harm or substantiated potential harm to the child, Utah law recognizes that frequent, meaningful and continuing access to each parent following separation or divorce is in the child’s best interest. The statute likewise recognizes that both parents’ active involvement in parenting the child is in the child’s best interest.
Those concepts—frequent, meaningful, continuing and actively involved—should matter.
They describe relationships, not merely visitation.
A parent-child relationship is built through ordinary life. It develops while making breakfast, driving to school, helping with homework, attending soccer practice, dealing with a sick child, enforcing bedtime, talking after a difficult day, attending medical appointments, going grocery shopping and simply being present.
Three hours on a Wednesday evening is contact. It is not necessarily shared parenting.
An alternating weekend can preserve a relationship. But it does not necessarily allow a parent to participate fully in the ordinary rhythm of a child’s life.
Five Reasons Utah Should Move Beyond Minimum Parent-Time When the Facts Permit It
1. Children Need Relationships With Parents, Not Merely Visits With Them
The first reason is the most fundamental. Relationships require time.
Imagine two parents who were both deeply involved before separation. Both prepared meals. Both attended school activities. Both helped with homework. Both handled bedtime. Both knew the children’s friends, teachers, doctors, fears, interests and routines.
Then the parents divorce.
If one parent suddenly becomes an alternating-weekend parent, the legal proceeding has not simply divided a calendar. It has fundamentally altered an existing parent-child relationship.
The difference between approximately four days per month and fourteen or fifteen days per month is not merely mathematical. It determines whether a parent participates in ordinary childhood or primarily receives scheduled blocks of recreational time.
This distinction is particularly important because Utah’s equal-parent-time statute itself looks at precisely these forms of parental involvement. Section 81-9-305 directs courts to consider responsibility for caring for the child, involvement in childcare, participation in school and extracurricular activities, homework assistance, preparation of meals, bath time, bedtime and the parent’s bond with the child.
Those are not accidental factors. They describe parenting.
If those activities demonstrate that a parent is sufficiently involved to justify equal parent-time, it follows that continuing those activities can help preserve the relationship the child already knows.
Research generally supports the proposition that substantial relationships with both parents can be beneficial. A 2023 systematic review published in PLOS ONE examined 39 studies published between 2010 and 2022 comparing children’s living arrangements after separation. Across the literature reviewed, children in shared physical custody generally experienced outcomes at least comparable to other favorable arrangements, while children living primarily with one parent tended to show poorer outcomes across a number of measures. The researchers specifically discussed the importance of preserving relational and economic resources available through both parents.
That does not prove that equal custody causes better outcomes in every family. Custody research is heavily affected by selection effects, parental conflict, socioeconomic differences and family circumstances. But the research provides little justification for assuming that dramatically reducing a fit and involved parent’s time automatically benefits children.
2. More Time Allows Both Parents to Actually Parent
There is a qualitative difference between visiting a child and raising a child.
Weekend parenting can unintentionally create a Disneyland-parent dynamic. The parent has limited time and may understandably want to make that time special. The child arrives Friday evening, activities occur Saturday, and Sunday is already consumed with preparing for another transition.
What may be missing is ordinary responsibility.
Shared parenting means getting a child out of bed when she does not want to go to school. It means making sure homework is finished. It means saying no. It means chores, dentist appointments, discipline, laundry, forgotten backpacks and Tuesday-night boredom.
These ordinary experiences create attachment and trust because the child learns that both parents are dependable participants in daily life.
They also keep both parents informed. A parent who regularly takes a child to school is more likely to know the teacher. A parent who supervises homework sees academic problems developing. A parent who handles bedtime notices anxiety, sleep problems and changes in behavior.
More meaningful parent-time can therefore produce something that cannot be created by a court order alone: two parents who remain knowledgeable about their child’s actual life.
For families involved in custody litigation, our Utah child custody attorney resource discusses the evidence courts consider when evaluating parental involvement and workable parenting schedules.
3. Children Can Retain the Emotional and Economic Resources of Both Parents
Divorce divides a household, but it should not unnecessarily divide a child from the resources of either parent.
Those resources are not exclusively financial. They include extended family, grandparents, cousins, traditions, community connections, emotional support, knowledge, mentoring and opportunities.
A child who meaningfully lives in both households may have continuing access to both family systems rather than experiencing one as home and the other as somewhere the child periodically visits.
There can also be an important financial dimension.
Research concerning post-separation families has long recognized connections among parental involvement, resources and financial support. The relationship is complicated, and it would be inaccurate to claim that increasing parent-time automatically increases child-support compliance. Ability to pay remains a major determinant of formal support compliance.
But human behavior matters. A parent who remains actively engaged in a child’s daily life often has opportunities and incentives to provide resources directly: school clothes, sports fees, meals, transportation, electronics, medical expenses, activities and countless incidental costs that arise while actually raising a child.
This is one reason discussions about custody and child support should not assume that time and money are completely unrelated aspects of parenting.
Utah law itself recognizes the relationship. Section 81-9-303 expressly identifies the increased schedule as 145 overnights for purposes of calculating child support, and Section 81-9-305 likewise addresses child support in an equal parent-time arrangement.
For more information about how parenting schedules interact with support calculations, see our Utah child support attorney page.
4. More Balanced Parenting Can Reduce the “Winner and Loser” Structure of Custody
Traditional custody litigation can create a destructive incentive: one parent wins time by taking time from the other.
There are only 365 nights in a year. If litigation begins from an assumption that one parent should receive most of them, parents can quickly find themselves arguing over who deserves to be designated the primary parent.
That structure can reward gatekeeping.
A parent may begin documenting every mistake by the other parent, objecting to schedule flexibility or treating ordinary parenting differences as evidence of unfitness. Conflict that might otherwise be manageable becomes evidence in a custody contest.
A more balanced starting point changes the question.
Instead of asking, “Which parent should lose time?” the question becomes, “Is there a child-centered reason this child should not continue having substantial time with both parents?”
That is much closer to the policy expressed in Utah Code § 81-9-204: frequent, meaningful and continuing access to each parent and active involvement by both parents, absent evidence of real harm or substantiated potential harm.
Equal parent-time will not eliminate parental conflict. In some cases, substantial conflict itself may make particular schedules difficult. But courts should distinguish genuine inability to co-parent from conflict generated by the custody litigation itself.
Parents do not have to like each other to remain important to their children.
5. Minimum Parent-Time Was Designed as a Safety Net, Not an Ideal Family Structure
The fifth reason may be the most important policy issue.
Utah’s traditional minimum schedule reflects an older model of post-divorce parenting in which one household was generally treated as the child’s primary home and the other parent exercised “visitation.”
Modern families frequently operate differently.
Both parents often work. Both transport children. Both attend school functions. Both provide meals. Both participate in medical care. Fathers are commonly involved in daily childcare in ways that were less typical when many traditional visitation concepts developed, while mothers participate in the workforce at far higher rates than generations ago.
The law itself has evolved in response.
Utah now has a statutory 145-overnight increased schedule. It has a statutory equal-parent-time schedule. It expressly examines whether both parents were actively involved in childcare. And its best-interest statute expressly favors frequent, meaningful and continuing access to both parents in the absence of demonstrated harm.
Those developments should affect how we think about the old minimum.
The minimum should be viewed like a minimum daily nutritional requirement: the amount below which we become concerned about deficiency—not the amount we affirmatively prescribe as optimal.
If a child can safely maintain a healthy, substantial relationship with two capable parents, deliberately limiting one relationship to the minimum requires a child-focused justification.
What About Cases Where Equal Parent-Time Is Not Appropriate?
Advocating for greater parent-time does not mean ignoring safety.
Utah law appropriately requires courts to consider domestic violence, physical abuse, sexual abuse and circumstances in which parent-time could endanger a child’s physical or psychological safety. These considerations must take priority.
There are also practical circumstances where equal time may not work. Parents may live several hours apart. A parent’s employment may make a particular rotation impossible. A child may have medical or developmental needs requiring a different arrangement. A parent may have had little historical involvement and need a graduated schedule. An infant’s developmental circumstances may require different considerations than those applicable to a fourteen-year-old.
That is precisely why custody decisions should remain child-specific.
The argument is not “50/50 regardless of the facts.”
The argument is that an otherwise fit, safe and involved parent should not be reduced to minimum parent-time simply because minimum parent-time is easy, familiar or traditional.
Less Than Minimum Parent-Time Should Require Particular Scrutiny
The same reasoning becomes even stronger when a parent receives less than Utah’s minimum schedule.
Remember what § 81-9-206 says: the minimum schedule is presumptively the minimum entitlement of both the noncustodial parent and the child.
If an order reduces a safe parent’s relationship below that level, the practical consequence falls on the child as well.
A child loses breakfasts with that parent. The child loses school transportation, homework assistance, bedtime conversations, relationships with extended family and ordinary unstructured time.
Over months and years, reduced contact can change the nature of the relationship itself.
A ten-year-old who sees a parent only sporadically may eventually stop treating that parent as someone involved in everyday problems. The parent knows less about school. The child’s friends become unfamiliar. Communication becomes more formal. Eventually someone may point to the weakened relationship as evidence that the child is “closer” to the other parent.
That can become circular reasoning: reduce the relationship, observe that the relationship became weaker, and then use the weakened relationship to justify continuing the reduced contact.
Courts should be cautious about that result.
Parent-Time Should Be About the Child’s Relationship, Not a Parent’s Reward
One persistent mistake in custody disputes is treating parent-time as a reward for adults.
It isn’t.
A father does not receive additional overnights because he “deserves” them. A mother does not receive primary custody because she has “earned” it. The central legal question is the child’s best interest.
Likewise, reducing parent-time should not be used to punish a parent for conduct unrelated to parenting ability or the child’s welfare.
The focus should remain on the relationship between the child and each parent.
Does this parent provide a safe home? Is the parent involved? Does the child have a meaningful bond with the parent? Can the parent meet the child’s daily needs? Can the schedule function geographically? Can the parent get the child to school? Does the parent support the child’s relationship with the other parent?
Those are child-centered questions.
The Better Question: Why Not More?
When both parents are safe, capable, geographically close and historically involved, Utah custody discussions should increasingly ask a different question.
Instead of asking why a parent needs more than minimum parent-time, perhaps we should ask why the child should receive less than substantial access to that parent.
That does not reverse the best-interest standard. It takes the standard seriously.
Utah’s Legislature has already told us that frequent, meaningful and continuing access to each parent ordinarily serves a child’s best interests. It has created a 145-overnight schedule. It has created an equal-parent-time schedule. And it continues to describe the traditional schedule as a minimum.
Those statutes should be read together.
The logical result is not that every family receives 50/50 custody. The logical result is that minimum parent-time should be treated as the floor from which an individualized analysis begins—not as a ceiling that a parent must somehow earn the right to exceed.
Utah Families Should Build Parenting Plans Around Children, Not Labels
The best parenting plan is not necessarily the one with the neatest label.
Some children thrive on a week-on/week-off arrangement. Others benefit from shorter rotations. Some parents need a 2-2-5-5 structure because of employment schedules. Other families need customized exchanges around school so that transitions occur naturally. Younger children may require more frequent contact and shorter separations.
That flexibility is precisely why negotiated parenting plans can often produce better practical results than rigid litigation positions.
Utah’s advisory guidelines recognize that parents’ mutually agreed schedules are preferable to court-imposed solutions. Parents who can focus on their children’s actual needs rather than the labels “custodial” and “noncustodial” often have considerably more flexibility in designing an arrangement that works.
For parents already operating under an outdated custody order, changing parent-time may require a formal modification. Our Utah child custody and parent-time modification lawyer page explains some of the issues involved in modifying an existing decree.
Minimum Should Mean Minimum
Utah’s minimum parent-time statutes serve an important purpose. They establish a floor and provide predictability when parents cannot agree.
But we should be careful not to transform a statutory minimum into a judicial ideal.
Children do not experience custody in percentages. They experience it in relationships.
They know who helps with homework. Who attends their games. Who makes breakfast. Who listens when they are worried. Who takes them to the doctor. Who knows their teachers. Who enforces rules. Who shows up.
When two parents are capable of doing those things, the legal system should hesitate before unnecessarily converting one of them into an occasional visitor.
Utah law already recognizes that frequent, meaningful and continuing relationships with both parents are generally beneficial. The Legislature has also created increasingly substantial parent-time alternatives culminating in equal parent-time.
The next step is conceptual: stop treating minimum parent-time as the normal amount a parent should receive and start treating it for what the Legislature calls it—a minimum.
For a healthy child with two safe, capable and involved parents, the goal should not be the minimum amount of parenting necessary to preserve a relationship. The goal should be the parenting arrangement that gives that child the greatest reasonable opportunity to maintain strong, meaningful and continuing relationships with both parents.
Minimum nutrition may keep someone alive. Minimum construction standards may keep a building standing. But when we are talking about the lifelong relationship between a child and a parent, merely meeting the minimum should not be confused with achieving the child’s best interest.
Speak With a Utah Child Custody Attorney About Parent-Time
Every custody case is fact-specific. Parent-time depends upon the child’s age and needs, each parent’s historical involvement, geographical distance, school schedules, safety considerations and numerous other factors. A statutory schedule should therefore be evaluated in the context of the particular child rather than applied mechanically.
Rifleman Law & Mediation represents parents in divorce, custody, parent-time and modification matters throughout Utah County and surrounding communities. Learn more about our Utah child custody and parent-time representation, our Utah divorce lawyer services, or our Saratoga Springs divorce and child custody attorney services.
This article is intended for general educational purposes and does not constitute legal advice. Custody and parent-time determinations depend upon the facts of each case and the law in effect when the issue is decided.
