Custody & Access
At the time of separation or divorce, a couple has many issues to decide upon. In case there are children born of the marriage, their custody, and access rights need to be decided.
Arrangements for custody and access can have a huge emotional impact on your children. These decisions also influence property division, child support, and spousal support issues. Having an experienced divorce lawyer by your side can help to protect you and your children’s legal interests.
Custody & Access- How They Are Different
Custody and access are completely different terms that are often mixed up with each other.
Custody
Decisions made by parents about health, education, religion, and major recreational activities for their children refer to Custody. Custody has different forms including sole custody, joint custody, and parallel parenting.
A single parent is the decision maker in sole custody situations while both parents jointly take decisions in the event of joint custody. Parallel parenting has clearly defined segregated areas for which each parent is solely responsible.
Access
Access is the actual time spent by children and parents together. It has various forms like common residency schedules and shared parenting.
In common residency schedules, one child stays with one parent in the primary residence while the other parent has visitation rights weekly at scheduled times. Shared parenting has weekly segregation as both parents are sharing responsibility for the parenting of the children.