Getting a divorce where children are involved means that there will be custody issues to sort through. There are several types of child custody in California. The judge is the one who makes the final decision on your custody case. The judge tries to take everything into consideration when making the decision, but what are the judges’ options?
The judge has four main options when deciding custody.
1. Joint legal custody - where the parents have equal legal rights and responsibilities to make important decisions about their children’s health, education and welfare.
2. Sole legal custody - where on parent has the legal power to make key decisions on behalf of the child. These consist of choices regarding education, health care and religion.
3. Joint physical custody - where the child devotes considerable time living with both parents and both parents have equivalent accountability to physically care for the child.
4. Sole physical custody - With this kind of child custody, the child actually lives at one location. Generally, the non-custodial parent is given substantial visitation rights, comprising of sleepovers.
The judge makes his decisions based off of what he knows about each parent, the living conditions, child’s wishes (sometimes), etc., his overall decision should and usually is what is best for the child.
There are Pros and Cons to the types of child custody in California, the options listed here will need to be discussed with all parties involved. The bottom line is that both parents must first consider what is best for the child. The phrase you will constantly hear over and over again throughout the child custody procedure is, “the best interest of the child”. It is the judge’s main concern as well as your family law attorney’s mission.
For further information regarding child custody and more please contact the California Child Custody Attorneys at 714-971-8000. Call today for your free 60-minute consultation!