When you’re one of the Lone Star State’s constituents, you might have heard the word custody, and think you already know what it really means. Most probably, you picture who the child lives with, who makes big decisions, and who gets the holidays with them.
In Texas, family law conservatorship is the legal word for what most people and other states simply call custody. In a conservatorship, a court order defines your legal rights and responsibilities toward your child or children when you’re a parent under state laws.
In everyday life, you might feel like you already know how parenting works from all angles. But when you go to court and go through litigation, Texas judges do not think or look at your controversy in terms of “mom has custody” or “dad has custody.”
They think about conservatorship as a more comprehensive plan. That doesn’t only mean one who can flood the child with the best toys, but that someone entrusted with the authority to decide the child’s education, healthcare, religion, residence, and welfare. This includes how those duties are shared or separated between all those involved.
Conservatorship is created through a “Suit Affecting the Parent-Child Relationship” (called SAPCR in Texas). Only an order, duly signed by the judge, can make these rights enforceable.
Texas conservatorship breaks down into three main roles you need to understand: joint managing conservator, sole managing conservator, and possessory conservator.
In most cases, a Texas judge will name both parents joint managing conservators (JMC). This means both of you share legal rights and duties regarding most key decisions about your child’s life. These include health care, education, and welfare questions.
A key point you must know is this: joint managing conservatorship does not automatically give each parent equal time with the child. Time schedules are separate. JMC refers to decision authority, not daily routines.
Sometimes, a judge may decide that shared decision-making is not in your child’s best interests. That might happen if there is a history of domestic violence, substance abuse, or neglect. In that case, one parent may be named sole managing conservator (SMC), one who has most or all decision-making authority about the child’s welfare.
Even if you are not the sole decision-maker, the other parent or conservator may still have possession and access rights. That means you may still see the child on a schedule the court outlines.
A possessory conservator is basically the legal word in Texas for the parent or adult who has visitation time. That means the person still gets to see the child on scheduled days and times, but does not have the authority to make big decisions on their own.
Possession and access decisions are part of a separate section of the court order. It's that portion that decides and lists down who gets to see your child, when, with specifications to conditions that need to be complied with.
Texas law recognizes that legal rights and time schedules are connected but quite different. Even if you are named a managing conservator, your possession schedule (when you see your child) is spelled out in another part of your court order. Possession and access sometimes follow a Standard Possession Order unless you agree on something else beforehand.
In many courts, like in Texas, the focus is always on what is in the best interests of your child, especially when setting both conservatorship and possession protocols. This standard guides every decision the judge makes, and it cannot be based only on what you want or what your co-parent wants.
You may need to confer with trusted legal luminaries, like those from the Tad Law family law attorneys at Friendswood. They can provide you with helpful FAQs and explanations that apply real Texas law to everyday family situations. It's with them that you can have answers to some practical questions like how to modify orders later, how conservatorship affects your rights with your child’s schooling, and how to handle changes after your major life events.
Today in Texas, conservatorship means legal authority and responsibility for raising and caring for your child under a court's order. It does more than decide where and with whom the child will live and how often you can be with them. In a nutshell, it defines who gets to make big life decisions for your little one, how those decisions are shared, and how the courts protect what's best for your kiddo at every turn.
