Simple Divorce Papers

The term “child custody” has often been the cause of confusion by parents. “Custody” does not necessarily refer to which parent has the responsibility of physical care and control of the child. Instead it refers to whether the parent has the right to make decisions affecting the welfare of the child.

A parent with “sole custody” would normally be the only parent who is entitled to make important decisions with respect to the child and would be the parent with whom the child normally resides. The other parent would often be spoken of as the “access parent”. The children can reside with that parent during periods of access or visitation but the parent would not participate in making decisions regarding such things as where the child goes to school, how the child is raised, or in making health care decisions. Of these would be the kinds of things the sole custodial parent would decide.

Courts prefer “joint custody” arrangements over sole custody. Under joint custody both parents participate in making decisions in the best interests of the child. Naturally, so long as the parents are able to work together cooperatively on behalf of the children, it is better for the child to have the benefit of decisions made by two caring adults rather than just one. Joint custody does not say anything about the amount of time the child will spend with each parent. Therefore, it is typical to find a situation where there is a joint custody arrangement in the child spends most of his or her time in the care of one parent while the other has access or visitation periods.

“Shared custody” is a term that refers to a situation where a child spends roughly equal amounts of time with each parent. So long as the child spends at least 40% of his or her time with each parent it is considered shared custody. Obviously, for this to work for a child who is enrolled in school, the parents need to live in fairly close proximity to one another so that the child can go between the parents residences fairly regularly without undue disruption of schooling or extracurricular activities.