How is the Allocation of Parental Responsibilities Decided?

How is the Allocation of Parental Responsibilities  Decided?

By: Gordon & Perlut, LLC

When you are going through a child custody case, it is critical to understand how the allocation of parental responsibilities will be decided. Depending upon the circumstances of your case, the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act (IMDMA) allows for the parents to develop a parenting plan in which parental responsibilities are allocated, or, in cases where the parents cannot reach an agreement, for the court to allocate parental responsibilities in an allocation judgment.

Whether the parents or the court allocate parental responsibilities, decisions about the parents’ significant decision-making responsibilities and parenting time must be guided by the “best interests of the child” standard. To be clear, parental responsibilities in Illinois include both significant decision-making responsibilities and parenting time.

The IMDMA provides a variety of facts that the court can use to determine the child’s best interests for the purposes of allocation of both significant decision-making responsibilities and parenting time.

Factors for Allocating Significant Decision-Making Responsibilities

To determine the child’s best interests when it comes to the allocation of significant decision-making responsibilities, the court can consider “all relevant factors,” which can include some or all of the following:

• Child’s wishes if the child is mature enough to express a reasoned and independent preference
• Child’s current adjustment to his or her home and community
• Mental and physical health of the child
• Mental and physical health of the parents
• Parents’ ability to cooperate with one another
• Level of conflict between the parents
• Each parent’s previous participation in significant decision-making responsibilities
• Prior agreement between the parents concerning significant decision-making responsibilities
• Parents’ wishes
• Needs of the child
• Each parent’s willingness to facilitate a close parent-child relationship between the child and the other parent
• Factors that suggest one of the parents should not be allocated significant decision-making responsibilities, such as a history of physical violence or threat of physical violence, child abuse, or a sex offender conviction

Factors for Allocating Parenting Time

When courts allocate parenting time, which includes caretaking functions for the child, the court can consider many of the same factors listed above in addition to some others. Additional factors that can allow the court to allocate parenting time, according to the child’s best interests might include:

• Amount of time each of the parents has spent performing caretaking functions in the past, particularly in the two years before the child custody case
• Interactions and relationship between the child and his or her parents and siblings, as well as any other relevant parties in the household
• Terms of a parent’s military family-care plan if one of the parents is an active-duty member of the military

Courts do not consider facts about the parents that are unrelated to parenting time and caretaking functions when determining how parenting time should be allocated.

Discuss Your Case with a Chicago Child Custody Lawyer

The allocation of parental responsibilities can be complicated, and sometimes contentious, in a child custody case in Chicago and Northeast Illinois. If you have questions or concerns about the allocation of parental responsibilities and your rights as a parent, one of our experienced Chicago child custody attorneys can speak with you today about your case. Contact Gordon & Perlut, LLC to learn more about how we can help.