Child custody battles are common in divorce and related family law cases. As with most legal matters, it’s never entirely black and white. It’s important to know the four types of child custody—the differences, similarities, and what each means. Knowing what options exist helps determine which type or types of custody best fits your situation.
What Are the Types Of Child Custody?
The term “child custody” is a broad, overarching term. It covers everything related to the welfare and upbringing of a child. This includes parental rights, obligations, and more.
Under this designation, however, there are four specific types of custody, each with a unique set of conditions. Even then, the court often pulls from the different categories depending on the circumstances.
Because of this, it’s key to understand the nuances and how they work in conjunction. This goes a long way to helping you understand why a custody arrangement looks like it does.
Legal Custody
According to the Superior Court of California, legal custody determines the parent “who makes important decisions for your children (like health care, education, and welfare).” In short, this type of custody gives a parent the right to make decisions about their child’s life. Even within this subset, there are other subsets.
Sole legal custody means one parent alone holds all the rights and responsibilities to make decisions regarding the children’s school, doctors, and general welfare.
Joint legal custody means both parents share the decision-making rights and responsibilities. They cooperate on all of the important choices regarding the child’s upbringing.
When you have legal custody, you decide how a child will be raised. This empowers you to make a wide breadth of decisions. For instance, you decide:
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- What schools the children attend.
- How they spend their free time.
- Extracurricular activities they participate in.
- Even what religion they practice.
Joint legal custody frequently becomes contentious when parents disagree on key topics. In situations where both parents struggle to reach a consensus, they often must turn to a judge to determine who makes the final decision.
On the other hand, sole legal custody eliminates conflicts that arise during disagreements over decision-making. It can reduce tension, though it can lead to resentment on the part of the parent who doesn’t have a say.
This type of custody most commonly occurs in situations where one parent is absent and unavailable to contribute to making decisions regarding a child’s upbringing.
Related Reading: Ways You Can Hurt Your Own Custody Case
Physical Custody
Physical custody is when a parent has the right to have the child live in his or her house. Where children live falls under the umbrella of this type of custody.
Often in these situations, the child lives primarily with one parent while the other has visitation rights.
The extent, however, depends on the circumstances. There may be unsupervised weekends or holiday overnights. Or the court may order only supervised visits for a few hours.
The implications of how courts award physical custody should not be minimized. Where a child lives and their daily routines set the standard for many future decisions made by the court.
Like legal custody, physical custody can be sole or jointly shared. In situations where a judge awards joint physical custody, it doesn’t guarantee both parties get exactly the same amount of time.
Related Reading: Is There Such a Thing As “Pet Custody” in California?
Sole Custody
Sole custody is when the child lives with one parent exclusively and that parent has both legal and physical custody of a child.
One parent maintains the power to make all the pertinent decisions regarding the child’s upbringing and welfare.
Though you can petition for this, most courts avoid it if possible. The common logic holds that having both parents in a child’s life represents their best interests.
In general, this type of custody arrangement only comes up in a handful of situations.
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- If it’s unsafe for the child.
- It’s impossible for the parents to work together.
- Or the other parent is unfit.
If you push for this, you must prove that shared custody isn’t in the child’s best interest.
As we said above, the court usually does not award sole custody unless there are extenuating circumstances. This most often occurs in situations of abuse, neglect, or when one parent poses potential harm to the child.
The most common scenario is for one parent to hold sole physical custody while both retain legal custody.
This means that the child lives with the custodial parent, though both have a voice when it comes to decision-making. A regular visitation schedule also usually plays a part in these types of child custody arrangements.
If there’s already friction between you and your ex, going after sole custody may intensify that conflict. Especially if you sue for sole custody and don’t get it. That may lead to bad feelings that manifest down the road.
Save this move for cases when it’s warranted, not just because the two of you don’t get along. This is still your child’s parent, and for the sake of the kids, try to keep things as civil as possible.
Related Reading: Vaccination Disputes and Child Custody
Joint Custody
By now you probably already have at least a fair idea of joint custody arrangements as a concept.
It’s when both parents, while not living together, participate in raising their child. Joint custody refers to either legal or physical custody, or both.
One of the most common types of child custody, this breaks down in a number of ways.
For example, even if the father has sole physical custody, the mother may share joint legal custody. This means both parents are responsible for making decisions about their child.
In most cases of joint physical custody, there’s also joint legal custody.
On the other hand, just because the parents share joint legal custody, doesn’t mean they also have joint physical custody. The court often mixes and matches types of child custody to fit the situation.
As you might imagine, joint physical custody works best when both parents live in close proximity to one another.
This makes shuttling the kids back and forth, picking them up from school, getting them to soccer games, and all the rest more practical. In these cases, it’s easier to rotate between homes. Children often wind up spending significant time at each house, with each parent.
When there’s a greater distance between the parents’ homes—say, one lives up in Carlsbad, one lives down in Chula Vista—schedules get trickier.
Perhaps the most common scenario in these cases is where the child spends most of the week in one household and splits weekends and holidays between the two. This is the typical “weekend parent” set up.
There are a variety of ways to handle joint custody. One that’s become more and more common recently is called “nesting” or “birdnesting.” This is a co-parenting strategy where the children stay in a single home all the time, but the parents rotate in and out.
Since they don’t bounce around as often, it allows for increased stability for the kids. Not feasible in every case, some people rave about this setup. It is, however, rare and certainly not for everyone.
Related Reading: Marijuana and Child Custody: Can I Still Smoke Weed?
Benefits and Drawbacks of Joint Custody
Benefits
The biggest plus of joint custody is that it keeps both parents involved in the child’s life in a big way. Staying in continual contact with both mother and father benefits the children, and their relationships continue to grow over time.
Joint custody also puts the responsibility of raising the kids on both parents instead of forcing one to do the bulk of the heavy lifting.
Drawbacks
On the negative side, regularly seeing your ex often leads to friction. Even when you divorced on relatively good terms.
If things were great, you’d probably still be married. Shuffling the kids back and forth and maintaining a schedule is time-consuming and stressful for parents and children. Maintaining two homes gets expensive. Oftentimes, one parent may feel he or she is putting in more—emotionally, time-wise, or financially—which also results in conflict.
Also, due to physical constraints, joint custody often proves difficult. Again, this tends to fit best when the parents live near one another. If the distance is too great, one parent will likely wind up with physical custody, while the other must settle for visitation.
Even in situations where joint physical custody doesn’t work well, the court does often include joint legal custody. This way both parents still have an active say in raising their kids.
The are multiple types of child custody. Which applies to your case depends on the specifics of your situation. Knowing this information may impact how you proceed with a custody case.
Related Reading: Breaking Down the California Child Support Formula
Comments 1
I am glad to see to know that sole custody is when a single parent has both the legal and physical custody of their child. My daughter and son-in-law are getting a divorce and I don’t want my grandson to go with his father. I’ll talk to my daughter and see if she can get sole custody of him so we never have to see the boy’s father again.