Child custody, conservatorship and guardianship are legal terms that are sometimes used to describe the legal and practical relationship between a parent and the parent's child, such as the right of the parent to make decisions for the child, and the parent's duty to care for the child.
A step family, blended family, bonus family, or instafamily is a family where at least one parent has children that are not biologically or adoptive related to the other spouse or partner. Either parent, or both, may have children from previous relationships. Children in a stepfamily may live with one biological or adoptive parent, or they may live with each biological or adoptive parent for a period of time. In addition, visitation rights mean that children in stepfamilies often have contact with both biological parents, even if they permanently live with only one.
Shared parenting, shared residence, joint residence, shared custody or joint physical custody is a child custody arrangement after divorce or separation, in which both parents share the responsibility of raising their child(ren), with equal or close to equal parenting time. A regime of shared parenting is based on the idea that children have the right to and benefit from a close relationship with both their parents, and that no child should be separated from a parent.
The fathers' rights movement is a movement whose members are primarily interested in issues related to family law, including child custody and child support, that affect fathers and their children. Many of its members are fathers who desire to share the parenting of their children equally with their children's mothers—either after divorce or as unwed fathers—and the children of the terminated marriage. The movement includes men as well as women, often the second wives of divorced fathers or other family members of men who have had some engagement with family law.
Shared residence, joint residence, or shared parenting refers to the situation where a child of parents who have divorced or separated live with each parent at different times, such as every other week. With shared residency, both parents have parental responsibility. Shared residency does not mean that the time the child spends with each parent must be equal.
Joint custody is a court order whereby custody of a child is awarded to both parties. In the United States, there are two forms of joint custody, joint physical custody and joint legal custody. In joint physical custody, the lodging and care of the child is shared according to a court-ordered parenting schedule with equal or close to equal parenting time. In joint legal custody, both parents share the ability to make decisions about the child, regarding e.g. education, medical care and religion, and both can access their children's educational and health records.
Child custody is a legal term regarding guardianship which is used to describe the legal and practical relationship between a parent or guardian and a child in that person's care. Child custody consists of legal custody, which is the right to make decisions about the child, and physical custody, which is the right and duty to house, provide and care for the child. Married parents normally have joint legal and physical custody of their children. Decisions about child custody typically arise in proceedings involving divorce, annulment, separation, adoption or parental death. In most jurisdictions child custody is determined in accordance with the best interests of the child standard.
In family law, contact, visitation and access are synonym terms that denotes the time that a child spends with the noncustodial parent, according to an agreed or court specified parenting schedule. The visitation term is not used in a shared parenting arrangement where the mother and father have joint physical custody.
The National Parents Organization (NPO) is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit charitable and educational organization in the United States that promotes shared parenting. The organization focuses on family court reform, research and public education with the goal to make shared parenting the general norm in every state. The stated mission of the organization is to improves the lives of children and strengthen society by protecting every child's right to the love and care of both parents after separation or divorce and to seek better lives for children through family court reform that establishes equal rights and responsibilities for fathers and mothers.
Co-parenting is an enterprise undertaken by parents who together take on the socialization, care, and upbringing of children for whom they share equal responsibility. The co-parent relationship differs from an intimate relationship between adults in that it focuses solely on the child. The equivalent term in evolutionary biology is bi-parental care, where parental investment is provided by both the mother and father.
The fathers' rights movement has simultaneously evolved in many countries, advocating for shared parenting after divorce or separation, and the right of children and fathers to have close and meaningful relationships. This article provides details about the fathers' rights movement in specific countries.
Family law in Canada concerns the body of Canadian law dealing with domestic partnerships, marriage, and divorce.
A noncustodial parent is a parent who does not have physical custody of his or her minor child as the result of a court order. When the child only lives with one parent, in a sole custody arrangement, then the parent with which the child lives is the custodial parent while the other parent is the non-custodial parent. The non-custodial parent may have contact or visitation rights. In a shared parenting arrangement, where the child lives an equal or approximately equal amount of time with the mother and father, both are custodial parents and neither is a non-custodial parent.
Sole custody is a child custody arrangement whereby only one parent has custody of a child. In the most common use of the term, sole custody refers to a context in which one parent has sole physical custody of a child.
Joint custody is a form of child custody pursuant to which custody rights are awarded to both parents. Joint custody may refer to joint physical custody, joint legal custody, or both combined.
Malin Bergström is a child psychologist and scientist at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. She is a specialist in studies concerning the effect on children with different child custody arrangements after divorce or separation. Using cross-sectional and longitudinal study designs, her research group has shown that children have better physical, mental and social outcomes if they live in a shared parenting arrangement compared to primarily living with only one parent.
Linda Nielsen is a professor of adolescent and educational psychology in the Department of Education at Wake Forest University. She has conducted research on the effects of shared parenting and on father–daughter relationships.
Edward Kruk is a Canadian sociologist and social worker. He has conducted internationally recognized research on child custody, shared parenting, family mediation, divorced fathers, parental alienation, parental addiction, child protection, and grandparent access to their grandchildren. Kruk is an associate professor of social work at the University of British Columbia. He is the founding president of the International Council on Shared Parenting.
Emma Fransson is a child psychologist and epidemiologist at Stockholm University and the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. Her expertise is in the health and social implication of shared parenting arrangements on children after their parents are divorced. She has also studied the effects of stress during pregnancy.
