Family & Safety

The legal parent of a child has the right to a relationship with that child. This includes parental responsibilities, like decision-making power and parenting time Time that a child spends with a parent. Usually, the child lives mostly with one parent and has regular contact with the other (formerly called visitation). (previously known as "visitation Time spent between a child and a person who is not the parent ").

The parent must also provide financial support until the child turns 18 (sometimes 19) and graduates from high school. This may include:

• child support payments,
• medical insurance,
• life insurance,
• day care expenses, and
• extracurricular activities.

A parent may also have to pay for the child to go to college. This is limited to the cost of in-state tuition at the University of Illinois Champaign/Urbana. It includes room and board, a standard meal plan, and transportation costs. This continues until the child gets a bachelor's degree or turns 23.

Mediation

If parentage The relationship between a parent and a child is established but the parents cannot agree on issues like child support or parenting time, the judge may send them to mediation When a neutral person, called a mediator, works to help the parties in a case reach an agreement . Mediation is when someone else (a neutral "third party A person or business involved in a court case in a role like plaintiff, petitioner, defendant, respondent, or intervenor. ") tries to get the parents to come to an agreement. If that doesn't work, the judge will decide these issues and a hearing When the parties in a case present their sides of a case to a judge or other officer or series of hearings may be necessary.

If parentage is not established

If a person is not a child's legal parent, they have no legal right to be involved in the child's life. They also do not have to provide financial support for the child.