Understanding Divorce A Little Better

Posted on: 23 May 2022

When a couple parts ways, any children that they may have will be part of the divorce. In fact, protecting the health and well-being of a child is foremost to the family court judges and other officials. Working out custody arrangements can be an emotional but extremely important task for the parents. To learn more about how to go about making a plan that works, is fair, and takes into consideration the happiness of minor children, read on.

Making Your Own Plan

In most cases, the law would rather the parents create a custody plan on their own. That is preferable to having the court do it instead. As soon as you know that a divorce will happen, sit down with your spouse and find out where you both stand as far as custody arrangements go. If you both agree, get it written down on paper to take to your lawyers. While a written plan is not necessarily legal, it does help to get things started and may end up being the parenting plan you both agree to use. Be sure to take these issues into consideration when you create your agreement:

• Both legal and physical custody should be decided. Both parents generally share legal custody while physical custody can be either shared or rest with one party. If sole physical custody rests with one party, a visitation plan is required.
• Consider issues like vacations, birthdays, holidays, illness, and more. The more detailed the agreement the fewer issues you both will have.
• Some states require that you include provisions for moving and all couples need to decide how they will handle things when one parent wants to move away from the current location by a certain distance.
• Other issues to consider for your parenting plan include provisions concerning life insurance for a parent and who will provide healthcare coverage for the child.

Child Support

This issue is not on the above list because parents have very little input into the support arrangements. The parents submit financial information such as income, and one party is obligated to pay child support. The amount ordered is based on the income of each party and the median income of the state of residence. It becomes an order with quite a bit of legal standing once the judge rules on it.

For more information about deciding on child custody, speak with a divorce attorney near you.