Legal decision-making is the right to make major decisions about your child, including education, healthcare, and religion. Some types of decisions included in the right of legal decision-making are: where your child goes to school, whether your child gets surgery, and what kind of religious training your child receives. There are two types of legal decision-making: sole or joint.

Note: In accordance with federal codes and other states, legal decision-making means “legal custody.”

What was known as physical custody is now associated with parenting time (what used to be known as visitation). The times and places of parenting time, the amount of parenting time for each parent, and which house the child resides in are determined in what is called a "parenting plan."