Many parents experience conflict in their divorce and one of the most contentious areas is often issues related to the children. Parents will often try to compete with each other to be the best parent and sometimes use the children as weapons in a sort of proxy war to “get back” at each other for the hurt they experienced in their marriage.
For other parents, however, there are legitimate concerns about the parental fitness of their former spouse and concerns about the wellbeing of the child. If you are interested in obtaining the majority of parenting time with your child or being allocated full parental responsibilities, read on.
Illinois No Longer Uses the Concept of “Custody”
Even if a child in Illinois spends all their time with one parent, that parent does not have “full custody” of the child because Illinois no longer uses the term “custody” at all. To allocate the process of childrearing more equitably between parents, Illinois law now uses the terms parenting time and parental responsibilities instead. “Parenting time” describes when a child will be with a specific parent, and “parental responsibilities” describes important decision-making responsibilities on behalf of the child for major issues.
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