Mom and dad are splitting up. Custody of the children is an unknown factor at this point. Do you or should you both want joint child custody? Do you both want joint child custody for the sake of the kids? Do you both want a say in the kids lives?
In this custody agreement mom and dad share the responsibility of making choices for their children. Physical and legal matters can be covered under a joint child custody agreement.
The parent with legal custody gets to make all the decisions of a child’s life including health-doctor, Education-school, Welfare of said child. The parent who had physical custody is the one where the child will be living most of the time.
Both parents can have joint custody in these two areas. Mom or dad may have the child monday through friday. The parents may split the time during the week. This has to be thought through very carefully. You do not want to make it tough for the child while in school. Staying at a parents house during part of the week that is quite a ways away from the child’s school will make it tough on the that child and can affect the school work being done.
Now if the parents have split up and are both still in the same school district this would not be a problem.
How do you about obtaining the joint child custody result? The parents may differ on this.
The easiest way is to come to an agreement between the two parents themselves. This will save each parent a significant amount of money in terms of lawyer’s fees and court costs.
Another alternative is to let a judge or master decide. Joint child custody may be granted depending on the parents. He also may rule that one parent would be better for the child to stay with. This is most certainly true in the case of mental and physical abuse to the child by one of the parents.
The state in which you reside needs to be taken into acccount. There are states that are no fault states as is the case in Pennsylvania.
No matter how many affairs your spouse has had, it won’t matter. In a no fault state you can cheat as much as you want and the courts will never take that into consideration when it comes time to determine whether or not joint child custody is viable plan.
The best thing you can do to prepare yourself and to increase your chances of joint child custody is to get as much information and some proven strategies that will work in you favor.