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<blockquote><tt>(6) In allocating parenting time, the court shall give effect to the principle that a child should have as much time with each spouse as is consistent with the best interests of the child.</tt></blockquote>
The list of ''Divorce Act'' best-interests factors is set out in section 16(3), and the list of additional factors to be considered when considering the impact of family violence is set out in section 16(4).
Section 37 of the ''[[Family Law Act]]'' says this:
<blockquote><tt>(4) In making an order under this Part, a court may consider a person's conduct only if it substantially affects a factor set out in subsection (2), and only to the extent that it affects that factor.</tt></blockquote>
The list of ''Family Law Act'' best-interests factors is set out in section 37(2), and the list of additional factors to be considered when considering the impact of family violence is set out in a separate section, section 38.
The courts have expanded these factors into the following general principleswhen determining how parental responsibilities and decision-making responsibility will be allocated. The court may consider:
*The each parents' ability and willingness to cooperate with the other parent most likely to have when making decisions about the children's primary residence, assuming that and the history of their parenting time is not sharedcooperation and communication with each other, is *the person who was extent to which the parents' share a common approach to parenting and a common view of the children's primary caregiver during needs and interests,*each parents' understanding of the relationship.needs of the children and their ability to make appropriate decisions that address those needs,*Each parenteach parents's character, fitness, ability to cooperate with the other parent, and overall parenting capacity to parent may be considered in determining how parental responsibilities or decision-making responsibility is allocated, depending on the circumstances of the case and as long as issues like this are genuinely important and relevant., and*The court may consider each parents' each parent's mental and physical capacity in determining how parental responsibilities or decision-making responsibility is allocated, again depending on the circumstances of the case and, again, as long as issues like this are genuinely important and relevant.*Siblings will usually be kept together, although they can be separated when it would be in their best interests to live apart.*Where the children are in a stable and satisfactory setting, the court will be reluctant to alter the status quo, unless the long-term interests of the children outweigh the benefits of disturbing their present stability. *The court will generally take into <span class="noglossary">account</span> the preferences of children who are 10 or 11 years old or older, but the court will not be bound to follow the children's wishes.
There is no guaranteed way to predict the outcome of a battle for custody. Some people believe that court proceeding about the courts will prefer giving custody allocation of children to their mothers; others believe that the courts have adopted a more modern approach which focuses on parenting rather than on genderparental responsibilities and decision-making responsibility. Either wayIn most cases, the critical factor in a custody award is the best interests of the child. The parent who is obviously the primary caregiver will usually be the person with whom it is in the child's best interests to remainseems that parental responsibilities and decision-making responsibility wind up being shared. While both the ''Divorce Act'' and the ''Family Law Act'' speak of a child's best interestsConflict between parents, section 16(10) of the ''Divorce Act'', the ''Maximum Contact Principle'', flies in the face of the ''Family Law Act's'' presumption in section 40(4) that in making including basic disagreements about parenting arrangementsphilosophy, no particular arrangement is presumed to be usually resolved by making one parent the decision-maker in the best interests of event parents cannot agree on a child. <span style="color:#D2691E">'''Important changes'''</span> <br />Under the changes to the ''Divorce Act'', "custody" is now known as ''particular decision or by dividing parental responsibilities and decision-making responsibility'', and judges have a long list about particular categories of best-interests factors to take into consideration when making decisions about decision-making responsibility. The factors include things like the history of the children's careEither way, the children's views and preferences, each spouse's plan for the care of the children, and the extent to which each spouse will support the children's relationship with the other spouse. Family violence is another critical factor, in orders about parental responsibilities and when family violence decision-making responsibility is present, the ''Divorce Act'' now includes a list of additional factors for judges to consider, including the nature and frequency best interests of the violencechild.
=====Sharing all responsibilities=====