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Deployment Is Not a Reason to Take Your Parenting Plan Apart
The effect of a parent’s military duties potentially impacting parenting functions cannot, by itself, be a substantial change of circumstances justifying a permanent modification of a parenting plan or custody decree. The court can hand the deployed parent’s residential time to a family member for the absence, and a temporary custody order ends within ten days of the returning parent’s notice.
Verified August 23, 2026
What this benefit is
The effect of a parent’s military duties potentially impacting parenting functions cannot, by itself, be a substantial change of circumstances justifying a permanent modification of a parenting plan or custody decree. The court can hand the deployed parent’s residential time to a family member for the absence, and a temporary custody order ends within ten days of the returning parent’s notice.
What it's worth: Your parenting plan cannot be permanently modified on the strength of your deployment alone
- "Military duties potentially impacting parenting functions" is defined in RCW 26.09.004 and covers deployment, activation or mobilisation of a national guard or reserve member to extended active-duty status, and temporary duty — a transfer for a limited period to train or assist in a noncombat mission.
- The bar is on a permanent modification founded on the military duties by themselves. It does not stop a modification founded on something else, and it does not stop temporary orders for the absence.
- Time not spent with the child because of those military duties may not be counted when a court asks whether a parent has failed to exercise residential time for a year or longer.
- No dollar value is claimed. What is protected is a residential schedule.
Who is entitled to it
- You are inside the window the state civil relief act protects.
- The protection belongs to the parent whose military duties affect their parenting functions.
- Your home is in Washington.
Not sure whether that describes you?
Answer a few questions about this benefit specifically — we only ask what this one actually depends on, and we stop as soon as we know.
How to claim it
Deadline: When the orders arrive, or when a modification is filed against you- 1Put the orders in front of the court early. Temporary duty, activation, mobilisation and deployment are all named in the definition, so identify which one you have.
- 2If a permanent modification is filed against you on the strength of your absence, quote the rule: the effect of a parent’s military duties potentially impacting parenting functions shall not, by itself, be a substantial change of circumstances justifying a permanent modification.
- 3Ask about delegating your residential time instead of losing it. The court may delegate the military parent’s residential time or visitation, or part of it, to a family member including a stepparent, or to another person with a close and substantial relationship to the child, for the duration of the absence, where that is in the child’s best interest.
- 4Give notice the moment you are back. A temporary custody order made for your absence ends no later than ten days after the returning parent gives notice to the temporary custodian — and the clock starts on your notice, not on your return.
- 5Do not let the disruption be counted against you. The temporary duty, activation, mobilisation or deployment and the temporary disruption to the child’s schedule are not a factor in a determination of change of circumstances.
- 6Raise the residential-time year rule if it comes up. Periods when you could not exercise residential time because of those military duties may not be counted towards the one-year measure.
- 7Expect the court to move fast where there is an allegation of immediate danger. The section allows an expedited hearing in that situation, which cuts both ways.
- Form
- A motion in your existing family law case
- File with
- The Washington superior court holding your parenting plan
- No renewal
- Once granted it does not need renewing.
CorrectionThe protection is against a permanent modification founded on the deployment by itself. It does not freeze the parenting plan: a temporary order for the absence is expressly contemplated, and a modification argued on other grounds is untouched by this rule.
Worth knowingThe delegation provision is the practical one. Rather than the residential time simply disappearing for the deployment, a court can pass it to a stepparent, a grandparent or another adult with a close and substantial relationship to the child — which keeps the schedule and the relationships intact for the return.
Worth knowingThe ten days run from your notice to the temporary custodian, so send that notice in writing on the day you are released rather than waiting until you have settled back in.
Known gapThe full text of subsections (11) and (12) was read in summary rather than line by line this session, and family law procedure differs by county. Take the statute to a family law attorney or a court facilitator before filing.
Sources
- authority · statuteRCW 26.09.260 — modification of parenting plan or custody decree (subsection (1): the effect of a parent’s military duties potentially impacting parenting functions shall not, by itself, be a substantial change of circumstances justifying a permanent modification of a prior decree or plan; subsection (8)(b): for the purposes of determining whether the parent has failed to exercise residential time for one year or longer, the court may not count any time periods during which the parent did not exercise residential time due to the effect of the parent’s military duties potentially impacting parenting functions; subsection (11): a temporary custody order made where the parent with whom the child resides a majority of the time receives military orders shall end no later than ten days after the returning parent provides notice to the temporary custodian, an expedited hearing is available where there is an allegation of immediate danger, and the temporary duty, activation, mobilization, or deployment and the temporary disruption to the child’s schedule shall not be a factor in a determination of change of circumstances; subsection (12): the court may delegate the military parent’s residential time or visitation rights, or a portion thereof, to a child’s family member, including a stepparent, or another person other than a parent with a close and substantial relationship to the minor child, for the duration of the military parent’s absence, if delegating residential time or visitation rights is in the child’s best interest)
- operating · statuteRCW 26.09.004 — definitions ("military duties potentially impacting parenting functions" means those obligations imposed, voluntarily or involuntarily, on a parent serving in the armed forces that may interfere with that parent’s abilities to perform his or her parenting functions under a temporary or permanent parenting plan, and includes deployment — the temporary transfer of a service member to another location in support of a military operation; activation or mobilization — the call-up of a national guard or reserve service member to extended active-duty status; and temporary duty — the transfer of a service member to a different location for a limited period of time to accomplish training or assist in a noncombat mission)
This finder provides an informational match, not a government eligibility determination. The responsible agency decides your application.