Conservatorship

Family Law · Custody

The fight is usually about decisions, not days.

Parents arrive focused on the calendar and discover later that the important questions were elsewhere: who chooses the school, who consents to surgery or psychiatric treatment, who holds the passport, who can talk to the doctors, and who has the exclusive right to designate where the child lives. Those are conservatorship rights, and they are allocated one by one in a Texas order.

The two structures

Rights that get allocated

• The right to designate the child's primary residence, and any geographic restriction that goes with it.
• Consent to medical, dental and surgical treatment involving invasive procedures.
• Consent to psychiatric and psychological treatment — increasingly the most contested right of all.
• Decisions about education.
• Decisions about religious upbringing.
• Decisions about extra-curricular activities, and who pays for them.
• The right to consent to the child being left in the care of others.
• The right to receive and give receipt for child support.
• Consent to marriage and to enlistment in the armed forces.
• Access to medical, dental, psychological and educational records — a right both parents ordinarily keep, and one schools and clinics need to be shown.

When sole managing conservatorship is granted

Courts depart from the joint presumption where there is evidence that one parent is unfit, a history of family violence, substance misuse or neglect, significant instability in the home, or an absence long enough that shared decision-making is not realistic. It is a finding about capability and safety, not a prize for the parent who files first.

What the possession schedule usually looks like

The Texas standard order gives the parent without the primary residence the first, third and fifth weekends of each month, a weeknight period during the school year, alternating holidays including Thanksgiving and the winter break, and an extended period in the summer. Spring break and the child's birthday are addressed separately, and there are different provisions for parents living more than a set distance apart. Where there is a safety concern, possession can be supervised, limited in duration, or prohibited overnight until circumstances change.

What a court weighs

• The child's physical and emotional needs, now and going forward.
• Each parent's ability to provide a stable, safe environment.
• The child's own preferences, which a judge may hear from a child aged twelve or older.
• The willingness of each parent to co-operate and communicate with the other.
• Any history of family violence, substance misuse or neglect.

When circumstances change

Orders can be modified on a material and substantial change: a parent's lifestyle becomes unsafe, a job is gained or lost or the hours change beyond recognition, a parent develops a substance abuse or mental health problem, or the child's own needs shift as they get older. Until the order is changed it governs exactly as written, whatever the parents have been doing between themselves.

Enforcement

Withholding possession, interfering with phone or video contact, and failing to return the child on time are all enforceable. The remedies run from make-up possession time and an order for the other side's attorney's fees, through contempt findings, to jail time in the extreme and repeated cases. Enforcement works best on a documented pattern rather than a single bad exchange, so keep a record and keep communication in writing.

Geographic restrictions and relocation

Most orders restrict the child's primary residence to a county and contiguous counties, so that the possession schedule remains workable. Lifting or imposing that restriction is one of the more difficult modifications to win, and it turns on the reason for the move, the effect on the child's relationship with the other parent, and whether the schedule can survive the distance.

Common questions