Parenting involves constantly considering your children’s needs before anything else and keeping a long-term perspective in all matters. Your children may not recognize the long-term benefits of certain decisions, like enforcing certain grade expectations or limiting how much junk food they eat.
However, as an adult, you recognize that these actions or habits are necessary for a healthy and positive future. Often, parents make choices that they believe would be best for their children based on their own experiences and personal values.
Of course, once you divorce, you may find that your values and those of your children’s other parents no longer fully align. For example, you may both have different ideas about your children’s educational futures. Who gets to decide what school the children attend when you share custody in Arkansas?
Parents typically share responsibility
Most parents who divorce or who share custody after a breakup will share both physical custody or parenting time and also legal custody or decision-making authority for the children. When the two of you evenly split those rights and responsibilities, you may have to reach an agreement about key decisions, such as what school the children attend.
Sometimes, one parent has more parental authority than the other and can make the final decision if the two are not in agreement. Other times, families may end up back in family court at a custody modification hearing where they discuss making adjustments to their parenting plan that give one parent the authority to make decisions or that specifically outline educational standards for the family.
What if you find yourself headed to family court?
If you end up embroiled in a disagreement with your co-parent about the education that your children receive, you need to properly present your case if you hope to have any influence on the judge’s decision.
Given that an Arkansas family law judge should always make choices based on the best interests of the children, presenting your case for legal custody or your educational preferences in the context of what you believe would be best for the children will likely be a more successful approach than insisting on certain terms because you feel it is your right to do so.
Learning more about the Arkansas approach to contested child custody matters will allow you to develop a more effective strategy for resolving your disagreements with your co-parent or securing the terms you need in family court.