Northfield Child Custody Attorneys

If you are facing a divorce that involves children, need a child custody modification, or have child custody concerns outside of marriage, your parental rights are on the line, which makes having skilled legal guidance on your side critical. Experienced Northfield child custody attorneys recognize the gravity associated with child custody cases and have both the legal skill and compassion to help.

Child Custody in Illinois

In Illinois, child custody is addressed in terms of both parental responsibilities and parenting time, which you may think of as legal and physical custody respectively. Each plays an important role in your rights and responsibilities as a parent, which makes affording each the necessary legal attention paramount.

Parental Responsibilities

Parental responsibilities determine how you and your children’s other parent will address important parenting decisions that will affect your children’s upbringing, including decisions related to all the following:

Where your children make their primary home
The medical attention your children receive
The schools your children attend
The extracurricular activities and travel your children participate in
Your children’s religious upbringing

There are a range of options when it comes to how you and your ex will address this important responsibility, including:

You can continue making these decisions together.
You can continue making these decisions between yourselves while assigning one of you the authority to break a tie.
You can divide these decisions between you according to category.
One of you can take on sole parental responsibilities.

Parenting Time

Parenting time sets the schedule that determines when you are with your children and when their other parent is. While your scheduling options are quite varied, parenting time plans all fall into one of two basic categories that include:

One parent becomes the primary custodial parent who has the children with them for the majority of overnights each year.
Both parents divide their yearly overnights with the children more evenly.

The State’s Best Interest Factors

Whenever the State of Illinois is called upon to make decisions related to child custody, its guide is always the involved children’s best interests, and toward this end, it employs best interest factors like the following:

Each parent’s preference
The preference of each child who is considered old enough and mature enough to reasonably voice their preference
Each child’s needs, including any special needs and each parent’s ability to meet these needs
Each parent’s level of involvement in raising and caring for the children to date
The advisability of maintaining the status quo in terms of the children’s home, school, and community
Each parent’s level of commitment in terms of supporting the ongoing relationship between the children and their other parent

Turn to a Northfield Child Custody Attorney for the Help You Are Looking For

Child custody concerns are pressing concerns. The accomplished Northfield child custody attorneys at Hammer Serna & Quinn have reserves of experience helping clients like you successfully navigate the challenging path forward toward advantageous case outcomes, and we’re here for you, too. Learn more by reaching out and contacting us today.

Northfield Child Custody Attorneys