Continuum of Living Arrangements
There are legal options for long-term connections with children – return to parent, surrender or termination of parental rights followed by adoption, and kinship care, to name three.
There are also life options. Life options are not legal decisions, but instead the ways parents live their lives in terms of their connectedness to their children:
- Full-time parent caring for all children
- Full-time parent caring for some, but not all children
- Co-parenting with another adult living in one home (such as when a mom and her children live with grandma, or auntie)
- Co-parenting with another adult, with the children living in two or more residences (such as when divorced parents share custody)
- Not living with the children, but having regular visits and contacts, so that the relationship is maintained and continues to develop
- Not living with the children, and limiting contact to phone and mail. This is often the option when birth parents live far away from a child
- No contact between parent and children
