David, J.
The Indiana Child Support Guidelines provide both structure and flexibility for trial courts to set and modify child support obligations in ways tailored to the circumstances of the parties before them. The Guidelines obligate trial courts to follow certain processes and consider certain factors, but there remains a degree of latitude within which a court may fashion an order that best meets the needs of the child and also reflects the financial realities of the parents.
Here, the trial court modified a prior child support order in several respects and the noncustodial parent appealed. The Court of Appeals affirmed in part and reversed in part, including reversing the trial court’s determination of credits for the custodial parent’s health insurance costs and the noncustodial parent’s Social Security benefits. We grant transfer and affirm the trial court on those two issues, finding its approach to be appropriate in light of the flexibility afforded by our Guidelines, and summarily affirm the Court of Appeals in all other respects.
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In sum, while we acknowledge that other trial courts might approach this issue differently, when the Guidelines do not explicitly dictate a bright-line procedure to be followed our standard of review is flexible enough to permit the trial court judge to fashion child support orders that are tailored to the circumstances of the particular case before them and consequently reflect their best judgment. Here the trial court fashioned a solution that it believed was equitable to the parties and we are not left with a firm conviction that a mistake was made by its doing so. We therefore affirm the trial court with respect to the credit Gillian received for her health insurance premium costs.
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We do not read Thompson as setting forth the test for reviewing every determination of a credit for Social Security Retirement benefits. Rather, the case very articulately expresses two extreme approaches for that credit. On one end there are those instances where the trial court provides a dollar for dollar credit to the noncustodial parent, effectively wiping away the child support obligation. See id. at 868. And on the other end are those cases where the child support obligation is determined without any consideration of the benefits, effectively providing the child—and custodial parent—with a windfall. See id. At and beyond those two boundaries, Thompson said, generally lies the abuse of the trial court’s discretion.
The trial court here followed neither of those extreme approaches. Instead, it followed the flexible methodology set forth in Stultz, encouraged in Thompson, and reflected in the Child Support Guidelines. And it reached an amount somewhere in between the two extremes. Moreover, without needing to assess whether that determination was in and of itself clearly erroneous, Eric’s proposed alternative—a dollar for dollar credit effectively negating his child support obligation—is expressly prohibited by both Stultz and Thompson. Essentially, he is asking us to revisit Stultz and hold that the entitlement owed to his children by the government should relieve him of his financial obligation to provide support. This we will not do.
Conclusion
We therefore affirm the trial court order with respect to the calculation of Gillian’s health insurance premium credit and application of Eric’s Social Security Retirement benefits. We summarily affirm the Court of Appeals as to the remaining issues.
Dickson, C.J., Rucker, Massa, and Rush, J.J., concur.