In Georgia, child custody is divided into two categories: legal custody (decisions regarding the child) and physical custody (possession).
In most cases, parents are awarded joint legal custody, which means that the parents share in decision-making regarding the children and that the parents have equal rights to the child’s medical and educational records. There are four areas in which the decisions are required to be made jointly:
• religious upbringing of the child(ren),
• medical care of the child(ren),
• extracurricular activities, and
• education.
Joint physical custody is where the parents share equal or nearly equal parenting time. Joint physical is a parenting arrangement that can typically only be accomplished by agreement. Judges will assign one parent as the primary physical custodial and the other as secondary.