Different Types of Custody And Parenting Arrangement After Separation

Different Types of Custody And Parenting Arrangement After Separation

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Do you wonder what are the different types of custody and parenting arrangement after separation?

You’ve heard of things like decision-making responsibility and the principle of the best interest of the child and wonder what it all means?

We have great news!

You are at the right place.

In this article, we go over the concept of parenting arrangement, decision-making responsibility, joint decision-making responsibility, divided decision-making responsibility, parenting time and more. You will understand what each concept means and how it may be applied to you.

This article is divided into the following sections:

Let’s get started!

What Is A Parenting Arrangement?

A parenting arrangement is the manner both parents will continue to take care of their children and split the parenting obligations between themselves.

After you separate from your spouse or get divorced, you will continue to make important decisions related to your children.

These decisions will relate to things like where the child will live, the choice of school, religious education, medical care and other things like extracurricular activities. 

Your parenting arrangement is essentially how you agree to handle these important decisions with the other parent.

When making parenting arrangements, you’ll need to make your decisions in light of what is in the best interest of your child.

This sounds easier said than done!

If you have a conflictual relationship with the other parent, you may end up in court if you cannot agree on the parenting arrangement.

If that were to happen, a family court can allocate the decision-making responsibility based on what the judge will evaluate to be the best interest of the child.

In that case, the judge may award a joint decision-making responsibility to both parents, a sole decision-making responsibility or perhaps a divided decision-making responsibility.

Best Interest of The Child

In case you are unable amicable handle the parenting arrangement amicably, you may need to go to court to have a family judge render a judgment.

You will quickly hear about the principle stating that all decisions must be made in the best interest of the child.

This means that the court will evaluate what’s a good parenting arrangement from the perspective of the child and not from the perspective of the parents.

Although a parenting arrangement may be more convenient for a parent, this does not mean that it may be in the best interest of the child.

Family laws are designed in such a way that the focus and primary attention is to protect the children in a relationship.

To decide in the best interest of the child is to decide in such a way to promote your child’s development, happiness and overall well-being. 

What’s challenging is that the best interest of one child is not the same from one child to the other.

Every family and child’s situation is different.

There are some factors you can consider in evaluating what’s in the best interest of the child such as:

  1. Your child’s age
  2. How your child has been developing so far
  3. Your child’s special needs
  4. Your child’s level of maturity
  5. Your child’s relationship with siblings
  6. Your child’s relationship with each parent
  7. Your child’s opinion and wishes
  8. The caring abilities of each parent
  9. How each parent has been handling himself of herself after separation
  10. The ability of the parents to cooperate
  11. The ability of the parents to communicate well
  12. Cultural differences
  13. Religious differences
  14. Language barriers 

The list can go on.

What’s very clear is that a judge will want to consider any variable that can affect a child in a divorce case or separation to come up with the best possible parenting arrangement. 

The judge will weigh the pros and cons of any possible parenting arrangement and will decide on an arrangement that will give the most benefit and the least adverse effects on the child.

Joint Decision-Making Responsibility

A joint decision-making responsibility is a parenting arrangement where both parents will have the right to make important decisions in the life of their child.

Each parent will need to consult with the other to make such decisions.

For example, if you have a joint decision-making responsibility, then you must consult the other parent should you want your child to go to private school.

If you both agree, that’s great.

If the other parent does not agree, then you can have the court render a decision based on what’s in the best interest of their child.

Sole Decision-Making Responsibility 

Sole decision-making responsibility is a type of parenting arrangement where one parent is allocated the sole right to make all important decisions in the life of the child.

Remember that decision-making responsibility and parenting time is not the same thing.

You can have parenting time with your child but not have decision-making responsibility.

This means that you are able to spend time with your child and see your child but you may not have the right to decide on medical treatments, religious teachings or education if you do not have decision-making responsibility.

We suspect that if the court were to award decision-making responsibility solely to one parent, it must result from a highly conflictual relationship or a situation where there is a critical concern for the best interest of the child or even the chid’s safety.

In most cases, both parents should have some form of decision-making responsibility.

A joint decision-making responsibility can be a good parenting arrangement when both parents have a good enough relationship allowing them to jointly decide on important aspects of their child’s life.

However, if the court takes that decision-making right away from one parent, probably the parents are highly incapable of jointly deciding on what’s good for their children or there is a safety concern for the child.

Divided Decision-Making Responsibility 

Divided decision-making responsibility is essentially allocating different components of the decision-making responsibility to each parent.

For example, one parent will have the right to make decisions about the health and medication treatment related to a child while the other will decide regarding school and religious education. 

Depending on what you consider to be in the best interest of the child, you may agree with the other parent to divide the decision-making responsibilities so each of you can make the best possible decision for your child.

You should be careful in how you divide the decision-making responsibility as a decision in the realm of one parent’s responsibility may affect the other.

This type of parenting arrangement should be considered with care to avoid future conflict.

For example, imagine if one parent can decide on medical treatments and health of the child while the other parent decides on school and education.

If the parents disagree on the proper administration of medication to the child, then the child may suffer at school.

This is a type of conflict that can arise if the parenting arrangement is divided as such.

It would be a good exercise to consider how such conflicts may be resolved so your child is not affected.

Parenting Schedule 

A parenting schedule is the actual parenting time of each parent with their child or children.

For example, two parents may choose to have a 50/50 parenting time.

This means that each parent will equally share half of the time in a period with a child.

A typical 50/50 parenting schedule is one week of parenting time for one parent and one week for the other in an alternating way.

The parenting schedule you will determine for your child will also need to be designed in the best interest of the child.

For example, if one parent lives very far from the child’s school, it would be difficult to have a lot of parenting time as it will force the child to wake up very early in the morning and commute for hours to reach go to school.

All the factors should be considered in devising a parenting schedule that makes sense for the child and the parents.

Terms Used Referring to Decision-Making Responsibility

There are many terms used to refer to decision-making responsibility, parenting time and contact.

The Divorce Act has been amended to modernize the terminology in the Act to better reflect the parenting roles and responsibilities and therefore new legal terms are now used.

Here is a list of the different terms you may encounter:

  1. Custody
  2. Sole custody
  3. Joint custody
  4. Shared custody
  5. Split custody
  6. Access 
  7. Access rights
  8. Visitation rights
  9. Decision-making responsibility
  10. Parenting time
  11. Contact
  12. Parenting orders
  13. Contact orders
  14. Parental responsibility
  15. Guardianship
  16. Tutorship
  17. Parental authority 

Depending on the applicable law, each of these terms may be employed.

For example, in Quebec, if the Civil Code of Quebec applies, the terms custody and access rights will be employed.

The Civil Code also refers to the parental authority to refer to the concept of decision-making responsibility under the Divorce Act.

You will need to pay close attention to the legal foundation of your family law case so you can better grasp the actual legal significance of the terms referring to the care and parenting of your child.

Takeaways

In this article, we have looked at different types of parenting arrangements possible.

The family laws in Canada are designed to protect the children and promote their overall growth and well-being.

Having said that, the parenting arrangements should be considered in light of what works best for the child as opposed to what’s more convenient for the parents.

There are different types of arrangements you can have with respect to the decision-making responsibility such as joint decision-making responsibility, sole decision-making responsibility or even a divided decision-making responsibility.

If the parents are unable to decide what’s best for their children and agree on a parenting arrangement, the courts will do it with what they have.

We hope this article was informative.

If you need any legal support and advice from our family lawyers relating to decision-making responsibilities and the parenting arrangement, be sure to contact us as needed.

Our family law firm operates in the area of family law and our family lawyers have the experience and competence to provide you practical and useful legal advice.

We wish you all the best!

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