Determining a child’s best interests in custody cases is vital for the child’s wellbeing. Here’s how to determine a child’s best interests.
During the process, parents should be aware of the types of custody orders and what each type entails. Considering custody options and the child’s needs may help determine their best interests in custody cases.
Types of Custody Orders
There are two types of custody orders:
- Legal custody: which parent makes important decisions for the child (such as education, healthcare, etc.)
- Joint legal custody: both parents make the important decisions
- Sole legal custody: only one parent makes the important decisions.
- Physical custody: which parent the child lives with
- Joint physical custody: the child lives with both parents
- Sole physical custody: the child lives with one parent, with visitation rights to see the other parent
Related: Child Custody FAQs in California
Legal Custody
Parents with legal custody make important decisions for their children, including:
- Schooling and education
- Child care
- Healthcare (including–but not limited to–mental health counseling or therapy needs, doctor, dentist, orthodontist, or other health professionals, etc.)
- Sports and extracurricular activities
- Travel (such as vacation, summer camps, etc.)
- Residence (where the child will live)
Parents who share legal custody may disagree over important decisions. However, to avoid any issues (or even going back to court), both parents should be communicative and cooperative with each other.
Physical Custody
A common misconception is joint physical custody means the child must spend exactly half the time with each parent. The child realistically spends more time with one parent than the other because it can be too difficult to split the time exactly in half, especially when considering factors such as distance, transportation, and schooling.
The “primary custodial parent” is the parent with whom the child spends more than half the time.
A judge may give parents joint legal custody but not joint physical custody. Both parents share the responsibility for making important decisions in the child’s life, but the child lives with one parent most of the time. The parent who does not have physical custody may have visitation rights with their child.
How the Law Determines a Child’s Best Interest
The law states judges must give custody according to the child’s “ best interest.” To decide what is best for a child, the court will consider:
- The child’s age
- The child’s health
- The emotional bond (i.e., relationship) between the parents and the child
- The ability of the parents to care for the child
- History of family violence or substance abuse
- The child’s ties to their school, home, and community
Related: How the Child’s Best Interests are Determined in California
Visitation Orders
Visitation is the formal plan for how parents will split time with their children. A parent who has the children less than half of the time has visitation rights with the children. The non-custodial parent maintains the right to see and visit the child (excluding unusual circumstances).
Visitation orders can vary depending on the best interests of the children, the situation of the parents, and other factors. Popular forms of visitation orders include:
Scheduled visitation
Scheduled visitation may entail a detailed visitation plan to prevent conflicts and confusion. Parents and courts often come up with a visitation schedule detailing the specific dates and times.
Reasonable visitation
Reasonable visitation may not detail when the children are with each parent; it can be open-ended and allow parents to resolve visitation themselves.
Reasonable visitation works if parents are amicable with each other, communicative, and flexible. However, when disagreements or misunderstandings arise, an open schedule can cause issues between the parents, and the children may suffer.
Supervised visitation
Supervised visitation Is used when the child’s safety and well-being require visits with the other parent to be supervised (either by the custodial parent, another adult, or a professional agency).
Supervised visitation may be used in cases where a child and a parent need time to become more familiar with each other. For example, if a parent has not seen the child in a long time, they need to re-familiarize with each other.
No visitation
No visitation applies when visiting with the parent, even with supervision, would be physically or emotionally harmful to the children.
Child Support
Along with custody orders, the judge may make child support orders. Child support and custody are related because the amount of time each parent spends with their child can affect the court orders’ amount of child support.
Since a child support order is separate from child custody and visitation, a parent cannot refuse another parent (who does not pay child support) from seeing their child.
Likewise, a parent cannot refuse to pay child support just because the other parent is not letting you see your children.
Related: Child Support FAQs in California
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If you or a loved one would like to know more about determining a child’s best interests in custody cases, get your free consultation with one of our child support attorneys today!