Custody

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:

1. parenting time, also known as physical custody or visitation; and
2. 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)