Making the Right Child Custody Choice: Joint vs. Sole Custody
My name’s Palmer Johnson, I’m a family law attorney in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and today I’m going to be talking about child custody options and the different names that you hear people refer to, and what they mean from a legal standpoint. So what is joint custody? Joint custody is when both parties have essentially 50-50 time and access to their children.
They also both have equal decision-making authority about the really important areas of a child’s life, like medical decisions, educational decisions, religious decisions, and extracurricular activities. In a joint custody plan, the parties need to agree on the big important decisions. So it’s only appropriate for people who can co-parent, and that’s a really important consideration.
Types of Custody: Joint Custody vs. Sole Custody
If people have absolutely no ability to reach agreement and resolution on relatively simple matters, not because they fundamentally disagree about what’s in their child’s best interest, but because they fundamentally disagree with anything that the other side proposes to do, suggests, or otherwise, then a joint custody arrangement may simply be unworkable. And in that scenario, you would be looking for one party to receive sole custody.
Sole custody takes all that decision-making power and gives it to one party. The other party is going to be entitled to reasonable visitation with their child that will either follow a standard schedule or by agreement, the parties could have a different arrangement that would accommodate what they wanted. And when a judge is deciding who to award sole custody to, if that’s what the matters come down to, and the parties cannot be awarded joint custody, the court is going to consider which party they believe will better facilitate a healthy, positive relationship with the other parent.
Factors Considered in Custody Decisions
Meaning, the court is potentially going to reward the parent that they don’t think is going to alienate the child. And this is where, throughout the process from the beginning, all the way up until a final hearing, it’s very important that you follow the order that’s in place by the court, if it’s by agreement of the parties, and that when you’re coming up with these agreements, you are not being overly restrictive of one parent’s rights. These are mistakes that can result in a short-term gain that ultimately puts you in a worse position on the final outcome because you look like you’re trying to keep the other parent from having a relationship with their children or child. And that is not how you want to be portrayed in the eyes of the court.
Contact Us for a Low-cost Consultation
If you’ve got a child custody legal problem and you need help navigating what might be best for you and different options available and tools, you can contact a Tulsa women’s child custody attorney at 918-770-7117 or visit Moms.Law, and they will be happy to assist you with taking your specific facts and applying them to the topic we just discussed.