Child Custody Lawyers Rolling Meadows

Child Custody Lawyers Rolling Meadows

Child custody concerns are some of the most emotionally fraught and difficult concerns a parent can face. If you are facing a child custody matter, however, you don’t have to face it alone. In fact, an experienced child custody lawyer in Rolling Meadows is standing by to help. 

Parental Responsibilities and Parenting Time

Illinois law no longer uses the terms child custody, legal custody, physical custody, or visitation, but most parents still think of child custody concerns in these terms. Further, the meanings have not changed. Illinois uses the term parental responsibilities instead of legal custody (who will be making important life decisions for your children) and the term parenting time for physical custody and visitation (how you and your ex will split your time with your shared children).

Parental Responsibilities

An important right and responsibility every parent must accept is making big-picture decisions on behalf of their children, and Illinois refers to this as parental responsibilities. The kinds of questions addressed by parental responsibilities include:

• Questions about your children’s education
• Questions about your children’s health care
• Questions about your children’s extracurricular activities
• Questions about your children’s religious upbringing

Parental responsibilities can be either sole or joint. Alternatively, however, you and your ex may split this responsibility according to the type of question being decided. Those everyday parenting questions that continually crop up, however, remain the responsibility of the parent who has the children at the time they arise.

Parenting Time

Illinois refers to physical custody as parenting time, and it relates to how you and your ex will split your time with your shared children. Parenting time can be split right down the middle (according to whatever schedule you and your children’s other parent can agree to), or one of you can become the primary residential parent with whom the children live most of the time, while the other has a visitation schedule. 

If you need the court’s intervention regarding your parenting time schedule, it is very likely to hand down one of its standard-issue schedules. It’s important to note that physical custody can also be either sole or joint but that it’s very rare for a parent to be denied the right to have at least some visitation with his or her children (barring a serious reason for ruling otherwise). 

Modifying Parenting Agreement Terms

Even if you already have parenting terms with your children’s other parent, the need for a modification may arise. As your children grow, their needs evolve, and your post-divorce life progresses, the terms that worked when they were handed down may no longer apply, and a modification may be in order. 

You Need an Experienced Child Custody Lawyer in Rolling Meadows on Your Side

The child custody lawyers at Andrea Heckman Law in Rolling Meadows have the experience, focus, and compassion to help you obtain child custody terms that work for you and your kids – while protecting your parental rights. For more information, please don’t wait to contact us today.