The sharing, by both parents, of the right to make important decisions about a child’s welfare.
Joint custody is a form of child custody pursuant to which custody rights are awarded to both parents. Joint custody may refer to joint physical custody, joint legal custody, or both combined.
In joint legal custody, both parents of a child share major decision making regarding for example education, medical care and religious upbringing. In joint physical custody, also called shared parenting or shared residency, the child spends equal or close to equal amount of time with both parents.
After a divorce or separation, parents may have joint physical custody as well as joint legal custody of their children, or commonly, they may have joint legal custody while one parent has sole physical custody, or rarely, they may have joint physical custody while one parent have sole legal custody.
The opposite of joint physical custody is sole custody, where the child primarily lives with one parent while the other parent may have visitation rights to regularly see his or her child. Joint physical custody is different from split custody, where some siblings live with one parent while other siblings live with the other parent.
