How are parental rights and responsibilities divided now?
Under recent statutory changes, the new terms used for the time parents spend with their children are “parenting period” and “parenting time.” These terms apply to both shared parenting and to sole custody arrangements. Procedures for dividing parental rights and responsibilities now emphasize the rights of the child to be loved, protected and supported, while maintaining relationships with each of the parents, despite any difficulties the parents may have with each other. Every parent has certain rights and responsibilities for the care of the children by virtue of being a parent. When parents divorce, these rights and responsibilities are even more important and the court’s role is to ensure that the “best interest” of the children is protected. Therefore, the parental rights and responsibilities are expressly “allocated” to the parents. A court has two basic options in allocating parental rights and responsibilities: adopting a plan for shared parenting (formerly called joint custod
