Child custody is a term that refers to the bundle of rights and responsibilities with respect to the children. The term child custody can be further broken down into terms for a greater understanding of the respective parent’s rights and obligations with respect to their common child. Here are some of the terms you may encounter when researching the child custody laws of your individual state. This list is not complete:
Legal Custody – the parent with legal custody has the right to make all decisions regarding the health, welfare and education of the child. (The other parent may have rights in decisions regarding the health and welfare of the child.)
Physical Custody – determines where the child will live and which parent has the actual, physical right to be with the child.
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 (this decision is usually made when the other parent has abused or neglected the child)
Joint Legal Custody – both parents participate in decisions about the health, education and welfare of the child. The child may live with one or both of the parents on a rotating schedule.
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.
The custodial parent is the term that is used for the parent that has primary physical custody of a child and usually the child lives with the custodial parent. The term non-custodial parent is used for the parent that has the child for a lesser amount of time, such as the weekends. 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. Both parents maintaining separate residences. The child resides with the custodial parent most of the time and the non-custodial parent spends time with the child during periods of child visitation. This way, both parents get to spend time with the child despite having separate residences. Custody and visitation are considered at the same time since the factors and circumstances taken into consideration by the court in making these determinations are essentially the same.