Custody can be divided into two categories: legal custody and physical custody. In nearly all instances, both types of custody are held jointly by the parents. So what is the difference between legal custody vs. physical custody?
Legal custody means decision making ability about the child’s life and physical custody means day-to-day caretaking of the child. Continue reading for more information on the various types of custody and what they mean.
What Is Legal Custody?
Legal custody is the authority to make decisions regarding the child. A parent who is legally custodial of a child has the authority to make decisions regarding the child’s medical care, schooling and education, and religious upbringing.
What Is Joint Legal Custody?
Parents are usually granted joint legal custody, requiring that the parents share in the decisions affecting the children and giving the parents equal right to access the child’s medical records and school records.
Legal custody, in contrast to physical custody, does not have to do with where the children reside. The importance of regularly granting joint legal custody is that the nonprimary residential or visiting parent cannot be excluded from the decisions about any of the major issues concerning the children.
What Is Physical Custody?
Physical custody means that the parent has the right and duty to care for the child on a day-to-day basis. Physical custody designates the parent who has the right for the child to reside with him or her.
One parent is usually the primary physical custodian and the other parent is granted secondary physical custody.
What Is Primary Physical Custody?
Custody is litigated in the courts according to a number of considerations, different in every state, though amongst these, most states highly value the child(ren)’s primary caretaker role during the marriage.
Finally, one parent will be granted final authority decision-making in the event that there joint legal custody and the parents are not able to mutually agree on a decision. The custodial parent generally has the ultimate decision. (Shared physical custody is also the norm, except in some cases).
50-50 physical custody is not something the court typically mandates. It has become a common argument in child custody litigation that joint physical custody reflects negatively on the children and, therefore, primary physical custody and not secondary physical custody is awarded.
Most judges are of the opinion that children need a single home, one normative environment, one place to prevent excessive back- and- forth.
