A parent who has physical custody of a child, has the right to provide daily care to the child. The key aspect in most situations, is that the child lives with the parent who has physical custody of the child. Most of the modern arrangements, give physical custody to one parent (called the parent with “custody”) and grant visitation rights and “joint legal custody” the parent without custody. Typically, the visitation rights granted to the parent without custody, time exclusive with the child every third weekend, holidays-and-fro, and for a certain number of weeks in the summer vacation.
In the past, the real arrangements of “joint physical custody” was more common, in these, the child lived with each parent half of the time. Today, such arrangements are rare, and to decrease interruptions in the routine of the child, usually one parent obtains primary physical custody of the child.
[alert-note]Example: The mother and father are divorced and share legal custody of their child, although the mother had physical custody of the child. Generally, this means that the mother and father share equally the right to make important decisions relating to the education of the child, but the child lives with the mother most of the time. As in most of the cases where a single parent gets physical custody, the other has the right to visit the child as the parent without custody. This gives you the right to spend time exclusively with your child every third weekend, alternating major holidays you will spend with the child, and to spend with your child up to four consecutive weeks during the summer holidays.[/alert-note]
