Parenting Time Is Only for a Child’s Legal Parents

Providing stability and continuity for children after their parents get divorced is one of the highest priorities for the family courts. This is why every couple who gets divorced while their children are minors gets a court-ordered parenting plan; in most cases, the parents set the terms of the parenting plan during mediation, but if they cannot agree, the judge decides which days the children spend with which parent. If the parents have never been legally married to each other, they still have the right to court-ordered parenting time, so they can petition the court for a parenting plan. In that case, the process is the same as for parents going through a divorce; the unmarried parents attend mediation to draft the parenting plan, but if this does not work, the court sets the parenting plan for them. You are only eligible for court-ordered parenting time if you are the child’s legal parent. Every child has only two legal parents, even though other adults may also be significant in the child’s life, and it may be in the child’s interest to maintain a relationship with them. For help drafting a parenting plan that enables your children to keep a strong connection with the family members who have raised them, contact a Boca Raton child custody lawyer.
How to Become the Legal Parent of a Child
Unless she signs away her parental rights, the woman who gives birth to a child is the child’s legal parent; the birth mother might sign away her parental rights as soon as the child is born if she had decided to place the child for adoption or if she is a gestational surrogate and is not genetically related to the child. If the birth mother is married at the time of the child’s birth, her spouse automatically becomes the child’s legal parent.
If the mother is unmarried, her partner may establish legal paternity by filing a voluntary acknowledgement of paternity, which he and the mother both sign. If a DNA test later establishes another man as the child’s genetic father, this does not remove the legal father’s status.
Anyone, married or unmarried, can become a child’s legal parent by legally adopting the child. The courts often hear cases where a man who has raised his wife’s child from infancy requests court-ordered parenting time when the couple divorces. The court cannot grant him court-ordered parenting time unless he has legally adopted the child.
Can Anyone Except the Child’s Legal Parents Get Court-Ordered Parenting Time?
Parenting plans indicate the number of days of parenting time that each legal parent gets. In Florida, grandparents are not automatically entitled to parenting time, as they are in some other states. Your parenting plan can, however, indicate that your children will spend certain days of the year with certain extended family members or that certain relatives will transport the children on certain days.
Contact Schwartz | White About Establishing Paternity or Parenting Time
A South Florida family law attorney can help you legally formalize your relationship with your child. Contact Schwartz | White in Boca Raton, Florida about your case.
Source:
scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=15034829547494086473&q=divorce+music&hl=en&as_sdt=4,10&as_ylo=2014&as_yhi=2024