There is no pain than separating from your partner. And when you have kids as well, it gets legally difficult and challenging. For people who are planning to get separated, it is very important to learn about the options in terms of different types of child custody and how to go about it. Also before deciding for divorce make sure you know how the custody of your child proceeds from here on. There should not be any misunderstanding as these legal issues may impact your relationship with your child from here on.
The Different Types of Child Custody:
There are different types of custody and visitation rights available for your post divorce. And these terms being legal are implicative and must be adhered to in any circumstance. Your rights as far as custody of a child are concerned, must be thought and carefully planned before going the legal way. Some types of child custody are:
1. Legal Custody:
Legal custody is a binding legal direction, which gives the legal authority to make any decisions on behalf of your child. All these are related to the way you wish to raise your child, in which religious environment, school or non emergency medical decisions. These legal decisions are to be done by the person who gets legal custody of the child after divorce.
There are Two Kind of Legal Custody:
- Sole legal custody: Here one of the parents is given sole and full legal custody of the child. He or she is the only one who can make decisions which are related to school, education, religion and other medical facilities that must be opted for the child.
- Joint legal custody: Joint legal custody is that both the parents have the equal legal right in terms of decisions pertaining to education, religion and medical aid for the child. The parents can share joint legal custody but not have joint physical custody of their child
2. Physical Custody:
Physical custody is where the child stays for most of his time. The place where the child resides becomes his or her physical residing custody. There are two kinds of physical custody which are legal and binding, these include:
- Sole physical custody: In sole physical custody the child resides at one location only but in addition, there are general visitation rights to the noncustodial parent who also may get some sleepovers with the child.
- Joint physical custody: Joint physical custody is sharing by both the parents. This I also referred to as Shared parenting or dual residence. Here the child stays half the time with either of the parents in a week or month or year and remaining with the other. The time is equal but there are legal dimensions to it as to when and how the child is transferred from one location to the other and the child also gets a say once he or she is old enough to decide where they want to be when
- Bird’s nest custody: This one is a costly and not very specified kind though. Here a central location is fixed where the child would reside and for some days mother stays along and for the rest, the father comes and stays. Psychologically this can be better for the child since he or she does not have to move places but this is costly as a separate household are to be maintained for this kind of set up.
3. Visitation Rights:
Visitation is most common for those partners who do not have the rights of physical custody and just get some hours of visitation rights in a given time frame. These can be for parents who are not having a home and are unsettled but they get to see their child on a regular basis with visitation rights.
There are 3 different kinds of visitation rights in the child’s custody:
- Unsupervised visitation rights: Unsupervised visitation rights is the most common one where the parent is allowed to visit or take the child along with them for a few hours or entire day unless there are issues like breastfeeding or else. The child may enjoy a day outing or more with the parent who has unsupervised visitation rights and the other parent holding physical custody rights need not be there all along the time spent.
- Supervised visitation rights: In Supervised visitation rights the court directs some bindings on visitation, those can be another responsible person must be present while the visitation proceeds. It can be the non-custodial parents choice of supervisor or any social worker. Grandparents can also be given supervision rights.
- Virtual visitation: Virtual visitation is digital or video enables visitation where kids and parents may be living far off from each other but to maintain a close continuity and bond these are given to the parents who do not have physical custody of the child.
The above compilation on The different types of child custody is to help parents who are separating and about to file for divorce. The legal aspects can be tricky and it must be read carefully before going for a legal divorce. As you need to be able to see your child grow and be a strong part therein. Seek legal guidance as your financial and medical situation guides most of these issues and decisions.
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