What are my rights as a parent during and after my divorce?

Conservatorship – Who has what rights and duties regarding a child? Who decides where the child resides primarily, where they go to school, in what activities they engage? In Texas, there are two conservatorship scenarios: Joint Managing Conservatorship, which is most common and favored by the Texas Family Code, and Sole Managing Conservatorship, which is less common but far from rare.

Joint Managing Conservatorship

With Joint Managing Conservatorship, each conservator has rights regarding decision-making about the child, to one degree or another. One conservator may have what is often loosely referred to as “primary,” but what is more accurately termed the “exclusive right to determine the primary residence” of the child.

Sole Managing Conservatorship

When you have Sole Managing Conservatorship, the other parent or conservator is called a Possessory Conservator. The Sole Managing Conservator has all the rights regarding decision-making, and the Possessory only really simply has a right of access to or possession of the child, usually under a standard possession order.