Dayton Child Custody Lawyers

• Where your children will live (usually within a specified geographic area)
• Where your children will attend school
• Your children’s religious upbringing
• The healthcare your children receive
• Your children’s extracurricular activities

Legal custody/parental responsibilities play an important role in your child custody arrangements.

Physical Custody

Physical custody correlates with the new term parenting time, and it refers to whom your children live with and in accordance with what visitation schedule. If you and your divorcing spouse are able to find a middle ground on this issue and are able to create a schedule that you can both live with, the court is almost certain to include it in your divorce decree. After all, every family’s needs are unique to them, and you know your best scheduling options better than the court can. There are two primary choices when it comes to physical custody, including:

• One parent can become the primary custodial parent – with whom the children live the majority of the time – while the other has a visitation schedule.
• You can split your time with the children fairly equally (or exactly equally).

An important point to make is that it is rare for one parent to be allotted no time at all with the children. Ohio courts base their decisions that affect children solely on the best interests of those children, and the courts generally believe – unless there is a compelling reason to believe otherwise – that children are better off when they continue to build relationships with both parents.  

Child Custody Modifications

The court understands that the child custody arrangements that worked for you and your children when they were small may no longer be relevant now that your children are obtaining driver’s licenses and part-time jobs of their own (for example). As your circumstances evolve, a child custody modification may become a necessity, and a child custody attorney can also help you with that.