Illinois recognizes joint custody. However, joint custody may not be what you assume it to be.

Joint custody has nothing to do with how much time the children spend with each parent. You can have a joint custody situation in which the visitation is minimal. You can have a sole custody situation in which visitation is liberal.

To understand this more clearly, keep in mind that there are two types of custody, physical custody and legal custody. Physical custody is how much time each parent spends with the children. Legal custody involves which parent is responsible for the major decisions affecting the children's medical, educational and religious upbringing, as well as where they live.

With joint legal custody, each parent has an equal say concerning the children's schooling, their medical care and their religious training. If you and your spouse, in spite of your differences, believe that you can talk rationally about these issues, joint custody may be appropriate. If you argue about everything concerning the children, joint custody would probably not be a good idea.

One parent, even in joint custody situations, must be designated as the residential custodian, or in other words, the parent who decides where the children live. That parent is allowed to live anywhere in the State of Illinois without having to consult the other parent.

Visitation

A typical minimum visitation schedule for a child other than an infant is every other weekend, perhaps one overnight during the weekend there is no visitation, every other major holiday and 2-4 weeks in the summer. For an infant, midweek visitation and extended summers is less common. However, a judge is likely to approve of any visitation schedule to which the parents agree between themselves.

Child support

Illinois uses child support percentage guidelines. To determine the likely amount of child support, you take a percentage of "net income".

"Net income" for child support purposes is total pay minus federal and state income tax withholdings, Social Security and Medicare withholdings, health insurance premiums, mandatory pension contributions, union dues and earlier child support orders that are actually being paid.

The percentages are as follows:

The parent paying child support may also be required to contribute to day care expenses. That depends upon the overall financial circumstances of each party, the amount of child support under the percentage guidelines and how much the day care expenses are.

One party will be required to carry health insurance for the children. Often, the parents divide any expenses that the insurance does not cover.

The amount of support and the division of day care and health insurance sometimes depends upon how the judge allocates the dependency exemptions (the tax deductions for the children). If the judge does not indicate who receives the dependency exemptions, the primary custodian is entitled to claim them.

Changing custody, visitation and child support

For the first two years after a final custody order is entered, it can be changed only upon a showing of serious endangerment to the child's physical, emotional or psychological wellbeing. It is a tough standard to meet. After the first two years, the standard for changing custody is what is in the best interests of the children.

The court can change visitation if a change is shown to be in the best interests of the child. There is no minimum time limit before either parent is permitted to request a change.

Child support may be modified at any time upon a showing of a substantial change in the financial circumstances of either parent. A 3% raise is not a substantial change in circumstances. A plant closing and layoff is.