Joint Child Custody - What is It?

Custody of a child is and should be one of the most important aspects when it comes To the separation of the parents. Joint child custody is where each of the child's parents has Equal custody of said child or children.

This type of custody is characterized by the responsibility of Both the mother and the father of the 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. Physical custody is who the child will actually be with most of the time.

Both parents can have joint custody in these two areas. One parent may have the child during the week for school. 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. Depending on the parent, the judge may rule for joint child custody. 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 account. There are states that are no fault states as is the case in Pennsylvania.

What this means is that no matter how many times you spouse has cheated on you, the courts will not take this into consideration when it comes to determining if joint child custody is warranted.

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.