Across Texas, families must make legal decisions every day regarding possession and conservatorship of their children. Texas Laws on Conservatorship and Possession empower each parent with rights and duties in caring for their minor children.
Clients at any Texas family law firm may be familiar with common custodial arrangements but often fail to recognize that Conservatorship specifications (whether you are sole managing conservator, joint managing conservator, or possessory conservator) detail much more than just who has custody of a child.
Conservatorship arrangements give parents the power to make educational, medical, psychological, psychiatric and religious decisions for their child. Further, any parent granted Conservator status has a duty to care for, control, and protect the child during their respective periods of possession.
The information following will shed light on what it means to have a possessory conservatorship in Texas.
What is a Possessory Conservator?
If a parent is not named sole or joint managing conservator, the law requires the Court to name him/her a Possessory Conservator unless:
- Visitation with the parent is not in the child’s best interest; or
- Visitation would endanger the child’s emotional, mental, or physical welfare
This generally means that parents are only denied Possessory Conservatorship with a history of abuse, neglect, substance abuse, etc. If a non-parent is named Managing Conservator, often both parents become
The Rights of a Possessory Conservator
A possessory conservator has a plethora of rights to and regarding their child. Under Texas Law, these include the rights to:
- Receive information about the child’s health and education
- Access medical and educational information about the child
- Attend the child’s school and extracurricular activities
- Be listed as the child’s emergency contact
- Speak to educational or treating medical professionals involved with the child
- Consent to medical, dental, or surgical treatment during a medical emergency during periods of possession
- Direct moral and religious training of the child during periods of possession
Similarly, a parent with a possessory conservatorship maintains a duty to:
- Care for, control protect, and reasonably discipline the child during periods of possession
- Support the child by providing clothing, food, shelter, and noninvasive medical care, if necessary
It is important to mention that a court can restrict any of these rights and duties if a determination is made that it would not be in the child’s best interest for a possessory conservator to maintain any of these rights and duties.
The Difference Between Managing and Possessory Conservatorship in Texas
Recent Blog Articles
