Types of Child Custody
Child custody is the rights and responsibilities that a parent carries with respect to his/her child after divorce or legal separation. The child custody term can be further broken down to define the rights and responsibilities of parents in relationship with the child. Some of the terms used to define child custody rights include:
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Legal Custody - This state that the parents with the right of legal custody has all powers to take decisions regarding the health welfare and education of the child.
Physical Custody - The parent with the physical custody right will actually posses the child or the child with physically stay with the parent with physical custody right.
Sole Legal Custody - when one parent is awarded sole legal custody that parent makes all decisions regarding the health education and welfare of the child (and the other parent has no input on these decisions).
Sole Physical Custody - when one parent is given sole physical custody the child remains with him/her and the other parent is excluded from having physical custody of the child (typically when the other parent has abused or neglected the child).
Joint Legal Custody - both parents participate in reaching decisions regarding the health education and welfare of the child.
Joint Physical Custody - both parents have the ability to be with the child typically joint physical custody is coupled with a parenting plan to determine who will be with the child at what particular time.
Shared Custody - both parents equally share the legal and physical custody of the child. Typically found only where both parents are able to resolve their personal differences and keep them in check for the sake of raising the child in a caring nurturing environment.
Custodial and Non Custodial Parents
The custodial parent is someone who legally possesses the primary physical custody of a child. The child (ren) resides with him/her.
The term non-custodial parent is used for the parent who has the child for a lesser amount of time. Typically the child does not reside with the non-custodial parent except during the time that the non-custodial parent exercises his/her visitation right with the child.
Typically the child is either with the custodial parent or with the non custodial parents but not with both. This arrangement is the outcome of legal separation of parents. The separated parents reside in separate houses. The child spends most of the time with custodial parent. However he/she can spend time with the other parent during the period of visitation. This way both parents get to spend time with the child despite having separate residences.
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