Being there for your child, watching them grow and succeed, it's your parental right. Read this guide to learn more about establishing your parental rights now!

Being There For Your Child, It’s Your Parental Right | Learn More!

Children need their parents to grow and develop as human beings. Parents have the responsibility to be there for their children, ensuring that they grow and succeed in life. 

In such situations, establishing parental rights helps fulfill this desire and obligation.

The process offers benefits to both children and parents. Today, we look at some of the details regarding your parental right and how you can step up to that task. Read on and learn more:

Contents

Defining Parental Right

Parental right is the ability to make important decisions for their child. It allows them to act on behalf of the child or children. In general, it applies to the child’s biological parents.

Parental rights also apply to adoptive parents and foster parents. However, there are some cases where legal guardians gain this particular right.

By establishing parental rights, you can do certain things. One of these is the capability to assume legal and physical custody of the child. It includes rights regarding visitation and contact with the children.

Parental rights also govern other important developmental responsibilities. These include the child’s education, religion, and medical treatments. 

Passing property to the children through inheritance is within those parental rights. The same applies to entering contracts on behalf of a child.

Parental rights aim to protect and nurture the child. Each state has a different interpretation of the laws. Even so, the court puts the child’s best interest at the foremost.

Defining Paternity and the Paternity Test

One important aspect in establishing one’s parental right is to establish paternity. In this case, the identity of the child’s father. 

By doing this, it allows access to important information. One such detail is the family’s medical history.

The paternity test is a way for a child’s father to gain and establish his parental right. Without it, he can’t assert authority on the child’s important decisions. To see if the man is the child’s father, he needs to take a DNA test.

The paternity test requires both the child and the potential father’s DNA samples for testing. It comes from either blood or interior cheek swab samples. Here, comparative splicing occurs. 

During this process, they check if the child and the potential father share 23 chromosomes. When these chromosomes match, it confirms the paternity at a 99.9% probability.

How Parental Rights Connects with Child Custody

In some territories, parental rights have a bearing on the process of child custody. For instance, unmarried fathers don’t have automatic parental rights. They need to establish their paternity before they could gain any rights.

A good example is how Washington approaches this matter. In that area, unmarried fathers must establish paternity first. After that, the state will recognize them as a parent. 

Once established, details about child visitation and child custody come to play. Both parents must take a parenting plan or agreement to see important details. The most notable ones involve primary custody and visitations. 

In most states, the provisions of the father’s and mother’s rights are within equal grounds in court. 

The situation is different when you look at Florida Law. One of the notable differences there is the absence of primary custody. The term “custody” is also out of the picture. 

Instead, both parents have time-sharing with their child. The time-sharing order comes from the court. It aims to provide a schedule that considers the children’s best interests. 

Children will spend time equally between the two parents. However, the part about paying child support falls under a different situation.

Methods of Establishing Paternal Rights

For a father to establish his parental right, he needs to establish his paternity first. There are a few ways of achieving this. 

Paternity is usually automatic for married couples at the time of the child’s birth. It assumes that the father’s name also goes into the birth certificate. If the child comes to the world with unmarried parents, there are ways for parents to establish their parental rights.

Signing Acknowledgement of Paternity

This method involves signing an acknowledgment of paternity. It must have signatures of both the child’s mother and the unmarried father. This method establishes the paternity of the father and enables him to have the rights as a parent.

Requesting for a DNA Test

In some cases, the mother would not sign the acknowledgment. When this happens, the father can file a petition to establish parentage through court. This brings the DNA test to play, noting that its accuracy can help with confirming the man’s paternity.

Through Marriage or Birth Certificate

The common assumption is that the people who signed the child’s birth certificates are the parents. For married couples, it works well if there are no questions on the legitimacy.

However, this might not be enough to establish paternity in certain situations. For example, someone else comes up and claims to be the child’s father. At this point, they will opt to establish their parental rights.

When in Doubt, Seek Legal Help

In such situations, asking for legal advice is your best help. You have lawyers that specialize in this child custody. In case you find yourself at a dead-end, consider hiring them to help you.

Once you hire an attorney, they will review your case. After that, they will determine the best way to move forward. It helps a lot when they discover ways to settle things outside of court.

Establish Your Parental Right Now!

A person’s parental right enables them to enact their responsibilities to the child. If you’re a father, it’s best to get a child custody lawyer to help. It’s especially when you have special circumstances that prevent the law from recognizing you as the child’s parent.

Did you find this useful? We also have other articles that you can check out today. We have a wide selection of helpful guides to help with other legal matters.

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