Child custody and guardianship are legal terms which are sometimes used to describe
the legal and practical relationship between a parent and his or her child,
such as the right of the parent to make decisions for the child, and the parent's
duty to care for the child. Following ratification of the United Nations Convention
on the Rights of the Child in most countries, terms such as "custody" and
"access" (known as "visitation" in the United States) have been superseded by
the concepts of "residence" and "contact". Instead of a parent having "custody"
of or "access" to a child, a child is now said to "reside" or have "contact"
with a parent. For a discussion of the new international standards, see parental
responsibility.
Residence and contact issues typically arise in proceedings
involving dissolution of marriage, annulment and other legal proceedings
where children may be involved. In most jurisdictions the issue of which parent
the child will reside with is determined in accordance with the best interests
of the child standard.
Family law proceedings which involve issues
of residence and contact often generate the most acrimonious disputes. It
is not uncommon for one parent to accuse the other of trying to "turn" the child(ren)
against him or her, allege some form of emotional, physical, or even sexual
abuse by the other parent, or for the "residence" parent to disrupt the other
parent's contact or communication with the child(ren). Cases of parents removing
children from the jurisdiction in violation of court orders, so as to frustrate
the other parent's contact with the children, are not unusual.
Courts
and legal professionals are beginning to use the term parenting schedule
instead of custody and visitation. |
