It’s important to understand that the court’s job is to protect the best interests of children in custody disputes. Courts will use a wide variety of information to determine what constitutes the best interest of the children such as which parent is able to better financially support the children, the mental stability of each parent, whether or not the child has a stronger emotional tie with one parent, and many other items. In Georgia though, the goal of the court is to encourage strong relationships with children and both of their parents in any child custody dispute.

In Georgia, parents can be awarded joint custody or sole custody. In addition, there are two different types of custody: legal custody and physical custody. Legal custody refers to who has the right to make major decisions regarding a child’s education, extra-curricular activities, medical, and religious upbringing. Physical custody refers to which parent the child lives with on a daily basis. In many instances parents will have joint legal custody; giving them both rights to make major decisions about their children while one parent will have sole physical custody while the other is given visitation with their children. In other cases, parents will share both joint legal and physical custody in which case the children spend approximately the same amount of time with each parent.

Georgia also allows children as young as seven to have a say in which parent they would prefer to live with. When a child reaches the age of 14 the court will often allow children to make their own choice about which parent to live with. However, a judge can overrule the child’s wishes if he believes they are not in the child’s best interests.

When a parent is not awarded physical custody of their child, visitation will become very important. It used to be common for children to live with their mother and to have visitation with their father every other weekend. Today, visitation schedules are often far more flexible with the non-custodial parent getting more time to parent their children. When parents live in close proximity to one another, it is common for children to be able to spend a large amount of time with both parents.

When involved in a child custody dispute it is wise to retain the services of an attorney who is well versed in child custody laws.