Many courts believe that it is in a child’s best interests if their divorced parents share custody. Divorced parents who share custody frequently work together to raise their child. Co-parents often rotate days or weeks when they are responsible for providing their children with their basic needs. Whenever an issue comes up between co-parents, they are often responsible for resolving it themselves.
When a conflict between co-parents is left unresolved and begins creating issues with a custody arrangement, a parent can potentially seek legal action to modify the arrangement. Parents have a few options that they can use to resolve a custody conflict, including the following.
Turn co-parenting into a parallel parenting arrangement
Co-parenting is just one of a few options that allow each parent to stay involved in their child’s life. If a conflict between co-parents is caused by communication issues, arguments, disagreements or failed expectations, a co-parenting arrangement could be altered into a parallel parenting arrangement. Parallel parenting allows parents to regain some autonomy over how they raise their children. This is often done by limiting how frequently parents communicate with each other.
Take full custody of a child
Issues between divorced parents may still go unresolved with a parallel parenting plan. This could happen if a parent endangers their child’s life, neglects them or fails to fulfill their obligations. One parent could resolve these issues by fighting to take sole custody of their child. Sole custody could render them entirely responsible for providing for their child’s needs, with the possible exception of child support obligations that must be met by the non-custodial parent.
If you are having difficulties raising your child after a divorce because of custody issues, it may behoove you to learn about your legal options. That way, you can make informed decisions about your unique circumstances.