How to File a Motion to Modify Custody in Kansas

To file a motion to modify custody in Kansas, you file a written motion with the clerk of the district court that issued your current order, explain what has materially changed since that order, serve the other parent, and appear at a hearing where you show the new arrangement is in the child’s best interests.¹ Kansas does not impose a waiting period after the original order, but the court will not revisit custody without a real change in circumstances.²

Start With a Material Change of Circumstances

Everything about your motion rides on this threshold. Kansas law uses the phrase “material change of circumstances,” and the parent asking for the change has to prove both that the change happened and that a new arrangement would better serve the child.² Being unhappy with the current schedule is not enough.

Situations that Kansas courts commonly treat as material changes include:

A parent’s move that disrupts the current parenting schedule.
Evidence of domestic abuse, substance abuse, neglect, or a parent living with someone on the sex offender registry.
Significant changes in the child’s medical, educational, or emotional needs.
One parent consistently blocking the other’s parenting time or undermining the child’s relationship with the other parent.
A major change in a parent’s health, work schedule, or living situation that affects their ability to care for the child.

Before you draft the motion, write out in plain language what has changed since the last order and how it affects the child. If you can’t answer that clearly, the motion isn’t ready to file.

Filing the Motion With the District Court

File in the district court that issued your existing custody order. Kansas Legal Services publishes pro se forms for parents without an attorney, including a motion to modify parenting time.¹

Your motion should:

Identify the existing case number and the order you want changed.
Describe what has changed since that order was entered.
State specifically what you are asking the court to modify (legal custody, residency, parenting time schedule, or all three).
Explain why the change serves the child’s best interests.

Attach whatever supporting evidence you have: school records, medical documentation, a log of missed parenting exchanges, police reports, or communications showing interference. The statute does not require any specific documents, but the judge decides based on what you put in front of them.

When you file, ask the clerk to schedule a hearing and issue a notice of hearing you can serve on the other parent along with the motion.

Serving the Other Parent

Kansas accepts several methods of service, and proof of service must be on file with the court before the hearing:¹

Regular U.S. mail, postage prepaid, to the other parent’s last known address.
Certified mail (the preferred method); file the return receipt with the clerk when it comes back.
Sheriff service, delivered in person for a fee.
Sheriff service by certified mail, where the sheriff’s office handles the mailing.

If the other parent lives outside Kansas, you can ask the sheriff’s department in that parent’s county to handle delivery.

Temporary Orders While the Case Is Pending

Modifications take time. If you need something in place before the final hearing, you can ask for temporary orders covering custody, residency, and parenting time.³ You must file a proposed temporary parenting plan when you request them. If the other parent disagrees, they file their own plan, and the court decides based on the child’s best interests. Either parent can move to amend the temporary plan later if things shift before the final hearing.

One important limit on emergency relief: the court cannot enter an ex parte order that moves a child from the parent who has been the sole day-to-day caretaker to the other parent unless sworn testimony shows extraordinary circumstances. If such an interlocutory order does issue ex parte, the court must hear a motion to vacate or modify it within 15 days of a party’s request.²

What the Judge Will Weigh

Kansas law directs the court to consider “all relevant factors” and then lists 18 specific ones.⁴ The ones that carry the most practical weight are:

Each parent’s actual role in the child’s life before and after separation.
The wishes of a child of sufficient age and maturity.
The child’s developmental, medical, and emotional needs.
How well the child has adjusted to their current home, school, and community.
Each parent’s willingness to support the child’s relationship with the other parent.
Any pattern of physical or emotional abuse, stalking, or sexual assault.
Work schedules, distance between homes, and the child’s school schedule.

Two categories draw automatic heightened scrutiny: whether a parent must register under the Kansas Offender Registration Act (or a similar law in another state), and whether a parent has been convicted of child abuse. The same scrutiny applies if the parent lives with someone who falls into either category. When domestic abuse is alleged, the court may order a batterer intervention assessment and require the parent to follow all recommendations.⁴

In contested cases the court can appoint a guardian ad litem, an attorney who independently investigates the situation and advocates for the child’s best interests.⁵ Courts can also order mediation of the contested issues on their own initiative or on a party’s motion.⁶ Mediation is not automatic; the judge decides whether your case gets sent there.

Special Situations That Change the Filing

If You Are Moving or the Other Parent Is

Any parent with legal custody, residency, or parenting time who plans to move the child’s residence or take the child out of Kansas for more than 90 days must give written notice to the other parent at least 30 days before the move, sent by restricted mail with return receipt requested.⁷ Skipping the notice is indirect civil contempt, and the court can order the parent who failed to give notice to pay the other parent’s attorney fees and expenses caused by the surprise move.

The move itself can be a material change justifying modification. When a relocation is at issue, the court considers three additional factors on top of the usual best-interest analysis: the effect on the child, the effect on any party with rights under the current order, and the added cost the move puts on the other parent exercising parenting time.

The notice requirement does not apply if the other parent has been convicted of certain crimes against the child, including offenses under Kansas’s criminal code covering crimes against persons, sex offenses, or crimes against family and dependents.

If a Parent Is on Military Deployment

Under 50 U.S.C. § 3938, no court may treat a servicemember’s absence due to deployment as the sole factor in permanently modifying custody.⁸ A temporary custody order based solely on deployment must expire no later than the period the deployment itself justifies. Deployment is defined as movement or mobilization to an unaccompanied location for more than 60 days but no longer than 540 days. If Kansas law offers stronger protections, the state standard applies.

A deployed parent can also request a stay of at least 90 days on any civil case under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act. The request must include a letter explaining why the servicemember cannot appear, a projected available date, and a letter from the commanding officer confirming that duty prevents attendance and leave is not authorized.

If the Other Parent Lives in a Different State

A Kansas court has jurisdiction to modify custody only if Kansas is the child’s “home state,” meaning the child has lived here with a parent for at least six consecutive months before the case was filed.⁹ Kansas also has jurisdiction if it was the home state within six months before filing and a parent still lives here. If no state qualifies as the home state, jurisdiction can rest on a significant connection with Kansas and substantial evidence about the child’s care being available here.

Federal law reinforces this. Under 28 U.S.C. § 1738A, every state must enforce another state’s custody determination as long as that state’s court had proper jurisdiction when it issued the order.¹⁰ A parent cannot move to a new state and relitigate custody there while the original court still has jurisdiction. Physically bringing the child into a state is neither necessary nor sufficient to establish jurisdiction.

Address Child Support and Taxes in the Same Motion

A modification that changes how many overnights each parent has will almost always change child support. Kansas calculates support with a formula that accounts for both incomes and parenting time, so a real change in the schedule reshapes the numbers. Handle support in the same motion rather than filing separately later.

Tax benefits move with residency. The child tax credit requires the child to live with you for more than half the tax year.¹¹ Head-of-household filing status uses the same residency test.¹² If your new arrangement gives you exactly half the year or less, you lose both benefits unless the other parent signs IRS Form 8332 releasing their claim.¹³ If your order is silent on which parent claims the child, the IRS defaults to whoever had more overnights that year. For roughly equal parenting time, resolve this in the modification order itself.

Enforcing the New Order

Once the modification is granted, Kansas offers an expedited enforcement track when parenting time is being denied. Under K.S.A. 23-3401, the court must schedule a hearing within 21 days of a motion.¹⁴ The process was built to work without a lawyer.

If the hearing officer finds unreasonable interference, available remedies include:

Make-up parenting time of the same type (holiday, weekend, summer) that was denied, scheduled at the convenience of the shortchanged parent.
A more detailed parenting schedule to reduce ambiguity.
A cash bond posted by the interfering parent, conditioned on future compliance.
An award of attorney fees and costs against the interfering parent.
Mandatory educational sessions on how custody disputes affect children, at the interfering parent’s expense.
Supervised parenting time for the parent causing problems.

For violations beyond parenting time interference, general contempt applies and can bring fines or jail time. Repeated violations by the other parent are themselves grounds to come back and seek another modification.

1
Kansas Legal Services. Instructions for Pro Se Motion to Modify Parenting Time
2
Justia Law. Kansas Statutes 23-3218 – Modification of Child Custody, Residency, Visitation and Parenting Time
3
Kansas Office of Revisor of Statutes. Kansas Code 23-3212 – Temporary Orders
4
Justia Law. Kansas Statutes 23-3203 – Factors Considered in Determination of Legal Custody, Residency and Parenting Time of a Child
5
Kansas Judicial Branch. Rule 110A – Standards for Guardians Ad Litem
6
FindLaw. Kansas Code 23-3502 – Mediation of Contested Issues
7
Justia Law. Kansas Statutes 23-3222 – Change in Child’s Residence; Notice; Effect; Exceptions
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 50 USC 3938 – Child Custody Protection
9
Kansas Office of Revisor of Statutes. Kansas Code 23-37,201 – Initial Child-Custody Jurisdiction (UCCJEA 201)
10
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 U.S. Code 1738A – Full Faith and Credit Given to Child Custody Determinations
11
Internal Revenue Service. Child Tax Credit
12
Internal Revenue Service. U.S. Citizens and Residents Abroad – Head of Household
13
Internal Revenue Service. About Form 8332, Release/Revocation of Release of Claim to Exemption for Child by Custodial Parent
14
Kansas Office of Revisor of Statutes. Kansas Code 23-3401 – Expedited Procedure