Child Custody Lawyers King City

Child Custody Lawyers King City

If you are facing a divorce that involves shared children, your child custody arrangements are naturally a key concern. Child custody modifications and child custody cases between parents who were never married are also common. When your parental rights are involved, it is a critical matter, which makes having an experienced child custody lawyer in King City in your corner an important advantage. 

Legal and Physical Custody

The State of California determines child custody in terms of both legal custody, which refers to the authority to make major decisions for the child, and physical custody, which refers to where the child will be living. Parents may choose to share both legal and physical custody by continuing to make primary parenting decisions between themselves and splitting their time with the children down the middle, but there are additional options. A skilled child custody lawyer serving King City can explain the options in more detail.

Legal Custody

Legal custody addresses the important matter of who will be making critical decisions on behalf of the children moving forward. The kinds of decisions that legal custody focuses on include:

• Where children go to school or attend daycare
• Mental and physical health care
• Religious upbringing
• Decisions about your children’s participation in extracurricular activities, summer camps, sports, vacations, and travel

Parents can make these decisions together (known as joint legal custody), or one parent can be awarded sole legal custody, which means having sole discretion in these matters. Other options include making the decisions together, but one parent has the authority to break a tie when necessary, or dividing these decisions between the parents according to category. 

Physical Custody

Physical custody refers to where a child or children will live. Like legal custody, it can be sole or joint, and many variations in schedules are possible. Working with qualified child custody lawyers near King City can help couples explore the right options for their circumstances.

Parenting Time

Parenting time, previously known as visitation, references the schedule by which parents will divide their time with the kids. Most parents find that having a set schedule is the best way to address the matter of parenting time, and the state has a range of standard schedules that it generally turns to. If you and your children’s other parent can reach a scheduling agreement on your own, however, you can implement virtually any parenting time schedule that works for you, as long as it serves the child’s best interests. 

Reasonable Parenting Time Orders

When parents who share children get along well and are both invested in co-parenting, having reasonable parenting time orders that allow them open-ended scheduling can work well. This is great for parents who are both flexible and committed to making things work, but it is unlikely to work well for parents who have a difficult time keeping the lines of communication open.   

Consult an Experienced Child Custody Lawyer in King City

The compassionate child custody lawyers at Miranda, Magden & Miranda, LLP, serving King City, California, have helped a wide range of valued clients like you obtain child custody terms that work for them and their children, and we are here for you, too. To learn more about what we can do to help, please reach out and contact us today.