English
EspañolWhat are “parental responsibilities,” “parenting time,” and “significant decision-making”?
Parental responsibilities are the rights and duties you have as a parent to care for your children. Illinois uses this term instead of “custody” and “visitation.”1 When the judge decides how you and the other parent will share these rights, it is called “allocation of parental responsibilities.”2
There are two types of parental responsibilities:
- parenting time, also known as physical custody or visitation; and
- significant decision-making, sometimes called legal custody.1
Parenting time is the time when the children are with you, and you are responsible for their care. During your parenting time, you make everyday decisions, called non-significant decision-making. These decisions include things like meals and bedtime, as well as emergency health and safety decisions.3 When the children are with the other parent, that parent makes these decisions.
Significant decision-making is having the right to make bigger, long-term choices that affect your children’s future. You make important decisions about things like:
- education;
- healthcare;
- religion; and
- extracurricular activities.4
1 750 ILCS 5/600(d); 5/801
2 750 ILCS 5/600(b)
3 750 ILCS 5/600(b), (c), (e); 5/602.5(d)
4 750 ILCS 5/600(k); 5/602.5(b)
Should I start a court case to ask for supervised visits?
If you are not comfortable with the abuser being alone with your child, you might be thinking about asking the judge to order that visits with your child be supervised. If you are already in court because the abuser filed for visitation or custody, you may not have much to lose by asking that the visits be supervised if you can present a valid reason for your request, although this may depend on your situation.
However, if there is no current court case, please get legal advice before you start a court case to ask for supervised visits. We strongly recommend that you talk to an attorney who specializes in custody matters to find out what you would have to prove to get the visits supervised and how long supervised visits would last, based on the facts of your case.
In the majority of cases, supervised visits are only a temporary measure. Although the exact visitation order will vary by state, county, or judge, the judge might order a professional to observe the other parent on a certain amount of visits or the visits might be supervised by a relative for a certain amount of time – and if there are no obvious problems, the visits may likely become unsupervised. Oftentimes, at the end of a case, the other parent ends up with more frequent and/ or longer visits than s/he had before you went into court or even some form of custody.
In some cases, to protect your child from immediate danger by the abuser, starting a case to ask for custody and supervised visits is appropriate. To find out what may be best in your situation, please go to IL Finding a Lawyer to seek out legal advice.
