Children Issues

If you are facing a divorce, one of your primary concerns focuses on issues related to your children. When it comes to your parental rights, having an experienced Florida divorce attorney on your side is one of the most important steps you can take.

While Florida does not specifically address child custody and instead uses the term time-sharing, the basics remain the same. In the end, things still break down into legal custody, which is called parental responsibilities, and physical custody, which is called time-sharing. There are no ground-breaking differences between the terms, and you shouldn’t let them throw you.

Parental responsibilities refer to who will be making important decisions on behalf of your children, and they can either be shared (by both of you) or sole (taken on by one of you). The kinds of important factors involved in these parental responsibilities include:

Educational decisions
Religious decisions
Medical decisions
Decisions about extracurriculars

Another way to approach these parental responsibilities is sharing with ultimate decision-making power, which means that you’ll need to address the issues together, but if you are ultimately deadlocked, one of you has the tie-breaking authority to make the decision.

Time-sharing relates to how you and your ex share your time with your children, and while the court has standard time-sharing or visitation schedules at the ready, you can make whatever arrangements work for you as long as you’re both willing to sign off on them. Ultimately, either you will split your parenting time quite evenly, or one of you will take on the primary custodial role and will have the children more often.

While there are no specific laws related to taking your child out of state in Florida, if your custody terms address the issue, you will need to follow the directions therein. If you and your ex share parental responsibilities, you must obtain permission to take your child out of the country. Ultimately, it is always a good idea to address the matter with your ex before leaving the state or the country, and if you can’t obtain the permission you seek, you can turn to the court for support.

Child support is calculated according to state guidelines that take many factors into consideration, but the primary matters are each parent’s income and the number of overnights each parent has with the kids. It’s important to note, however, that the higher earner will likely have a child support obligation, even if you share your time with children equally.

Whenever the court faces an issue that relates to children, it always bases its decisions on the best interests of those children. And when it comes to child custody and child support matters, there are specific guidelines in place, but the court has the discretion to deviate from these guidelines if the need arises.

The dedicated Florida divorce attorneys at Costa & Associates have reserves of impressive experience effectively guiding child-related issues toward favorable legal resolutions. To schedule your free consultation, please don’t hesitate to reach out and contact or call us at 305-827-0100 today.