Child Custody

Custody issues can all be addressed by the court. The issues involving custody include both legal and physical custody.

Legal custody is a very important issue. Typically, parents hold joint legal custody of minor children. The issue related to legal custody usually involves which parent will be making important major decisions regarding the minor children. These decisions commonly involve things like, education, religious training, health decisions, disciplinary matters, and where the children will be raised.

The court generally feels that with these major issues, both parents should be involved in the decision making process. It is the exception, not the rule, when one parent is awarded sole legal custody.

Physical custody refers to where the child resides. Normally both parents are awarded physical custody. The time of one parent receiving "visitation rights" is not occurring as often. The courts seem to prefer a joint sharing arrangement at this time.

A joint physical custody arrangement can mean a division of time on a 50-50 basis where the children are with one parent half time and the other parent half time. This could mean the children are with the parents on alternating days, weeks, or months. This could be on a rotational basis, or virtually any other division that the parents decide. Whatever is going to work for your family, can be agreed upon.

Joint physical custody does not necessarily mean a 50-50 division of time. Some people will call it joint physical custody where the children are with one parent for a significantly greater time than the other parent. Often, a parent will object to having visitation rights and want to have their time with the children called physical custody. (This is usually just semantics, but it can affect important issues, like taxes.)

When one parent receives the primary physical custody of children and the other parent receives visitation rights, the visitation rights should be spelled out in detail. A standard visitation arrangement is alternating weekends from Friday at 6:00 p.m. until Sunday at 6:00 p.m., a midweek visit and a division of the holidays. Again, it can be whatever the parties agree to.

There are many types of parenting issues that can impact upon custody. Domestic violence and drug or alcohol abuse are three that immediately come to mind.