Child Custody Attorney Arlington Heights

When the legal matter involves your children, it is a serious matter. Child custody concerns are common in divorce, post-divorce modifications, and parenting outside of marriage. Because the stakes are high, working with an experienced child custody attorney in Arlington Heights is very well advised. 

Child Custody in Illinois

In Illinois, child custody is called parental responsibilities, which correlate with legal custody and parenting time and physical custody. Let’s take a closer look at how each works.

Parental Responsibilities

As parents, we shoulder immense responsibilities for our children, and the law addresses these via parental responsibilities, which amounts to who will be making important decisions related to your children’s upbringing, including decisions like the following:

• Decisions about where your children will go to school
• Decisions about the kind of religious education your children will receive 
• Decisions about the extracurricular activities your children will participate in
• Decisions about your children’s healthcare needs

Parental responsibilities can be shared by you and your children’s other parent. One of you can be solely responsible, or you can divide them according to the kind of decision being made. Those parenting decisions that arise on a day-to-day basis, however, are a different matter and must be made by the parent in attendance at the time.

Parenting Time

Parenting time is a major component of child custody and relates to when the children will be with you and when they will be with their other parent. While parents devise all kinds of unique schedules when it comes to parenting time, the basic two plans include:

• You and your ex split your parenting time evenly between the two of you.
• One of you becomes in charge of the allocation of significant parental decision making and has the kids the majority of the time, while the other has a parenting time schedule

Negotiating Terms

Because they directly affect your parental rights, child custody matters have the obvious potential to become quite heated. In your efforts to negotiate mutually agreeable child custody terms, you and your children’s other parent can attempt to find middle ground between yourselves, can turn to your respective child custody attorneys to negotiate on behalf of each of you, and can explore alternative conflict resolution (ACR) options, such as mediation. Regardless of how you arrive at a compromise, however, you will not require the court’s intervention in the matter if you are able to resolve the issue on your own. If there is a child custody issue that you are not able to resolve, however, you will need the court to make the determination for you. 

An Experienced Arlington Heights Child Custody Attorney Can Help

The seasoned child custody attorneys at SAM LAW OFFICE, LLC, in Arlington Heights, Illinois, understand how challenging issues related to child custody are, and in response, we dedicate our practice to avidly defending the parental rights of clients like you. We are on your side and here to help, so please don’t wait to contact us for more information today.