Child custody rights are a source of great concern and worry to separating or divorcing parents of a child or children. Even grandparents become increasingly concerned and wonder if there are child custody rights for grandparents.
Child custody rights are generally awarded to parents, grandparents or other adults who may be legal guardians by a Judge in a family law court. There are many forms of child custody including legal custody, physical custody and joint or shared custody.

Judges in family law cases are faced with difficult decisions in any dispute concerning the custody of a child, particularly where the parents have not come to a child parenting or custody agreement themselves.

When faced with this decision, after the failure of mediation perhaps, the court must make it’s decision according to the prevailing laws of the state in which he/she sits.

Generally the laws between different states will not differ a great deal as state law is determined to a great extent by federal law.

So the Judge must decide the custody dispute on the basis of what is in the best interests of the child.

Shared or joint custody may be awarded or the court may determine that one parent will be the primary custodian of the child and various forms of shared custody may be ordered such as shared physical or legal custody.

Both fathers and mothers have equal rights when it comes to being awarded sole or primary custody in the eyes of the law. But in practice the mother of the child is awarded primary custody in around 70% of disputed custody cases.

Joint custody tends to be awarded in around 20% of cases and the father of the child will win primary custody in around 10% of cases.

Please note that these are general average figures and the statistics will vary slightly from state to state.

Always remember that the parents can decide on custody arrangements between them through the use of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms such as mediation. If this good outcome is arrived at both parents would be well advised to go to the family law court and have their agreement made an order of the court which makes it legally binding on both parents.

Any subsequent disputes arising out of the failure of the agreement can be referred back to court for resolution.

Courts in family law cases will nearly always make it’s decision after hearing from a child psychologist or expert who will give a report to the court based on his/her professional judgement.

This report will look at the situation on the ground, who has been the primary care giver to the child, the child’s preference (depending on the age of the child and in which state the case is being heard), financial factors, how much item each parent can devote to nurturing the child, how settled the child is in the community and school and many other factors.

All of these factors will be weighed up by the court before making a decision.

Regardless of how the court decides on the breakdown of it’s custody order, the non custodial parent will still have visitation rights which will form part of the court order granting full custody or shared custody to both parents.

Child support obligations will also remain in being and will form part of the order also.

Different states will take different views as to the visitation rights of the non custodial parent if he/she does not make his/her child support payments.

Some states take  a very dim view of the withholding of visitation rights for the non payment of child support and may order the arrest and trial of the custodial parent.

Other states don’t take such a dim view and do little or nothing to uphold the visitation rights of the non custodial parent.

For this reason you need to consult a child custody lawyer in your state who will fill you in with more detail if this happens to you.

In conclusion it is important to recognize that while federal child custody laws provide a broad framework within which the individual states operate, individual states will have their own particular interpretation of the overall global legal position.

For this reason engaging the services of a family law lawyer in your own state is a smart move.

Grandparents Custody Rights

Some states will allow grandparents to look for custody of their grandchildren; some other states will only allow them visitation rights. Grandparent’s custody rights may be awarded where the parents of the child are dead, there is a substance abuse issue or the parents are simply incapable of caring for their children.

Grandparents custody rights will be determined by the local state’s laws because there is an ongoing debate about the granting of grandparents custody rights being an infringement of the parents custody rights.

To win custody grandparents will have to prove to the court that the parents are unfit parents and it is in the best interests of the child that custody be awarded to the grandparents.

The Supreme Court decision in Troxel v Granville in 2000 put the brakes on grandparents custody rights to a great extent when it held that to do so was unconstitutional as it would be in breach of the parents rights.

So it is vitally important to check the laws of your state and see that none have been enacted which put into effect the decision in Troxel v Granville if you are a grandparent seeking custody. This is another area where a local family  law attorney should be of enormous benefit.