Parental Responsibility

“Parental responsibility” is the authority to make decisions regarding your child’s healthcare, religion, education, and other issues unique to your family.  You may have heard parental responsibility referred to as “legal custody,” though this term is no longer used in Florida.

Courts will generally order one of three possibilities for parental responsibility:

(i) shared parental responsiblity, where the parents must confer and make major decisions together;

(ii) shared parental responsibility with ultimate decision-making authority delegated to one parent, where the parents must confer on major decisions but one parent has the right to make final decisions on certain issues; or

(iii) sole parental responsibility, where one parent has the right to make major decisions regarding the child without conferring with the other parent.