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Common Child Custody Terms

Physical Custody - determines which parent has the actual, physical right to be with the child.

Sole Legal Custody - when one parent is awarded sole legal custody, that parent makes all decisions regarding the health, education and welfare of the child (and the other parent has no input on these decisions)

Sole Physical Custody - when one parent is given sole physical custody, the child remains with him/her and the other parent is excluded from having physical custody of the child (typically when the other parent has abused or neglected the child)

Joint Legal Custody - both parents participate in reaching decisions regarding the health, education and welfare of the child.

Joint Physical Custody - both parents have the ability to be with the child, typically joint physical custody is coupled with a parenting plan to determine who will be with the child at what particular time.

Shared Custody - both parents equally share the legal and physical custody of the child. Typically found only where both parents are able to resolve their personal differences and keep them in check for the sake of raising the child in a caring, nurturing environment.

Plaintiff - The party bringing the cause of action to the court.

Defendant - The party against whom the cause of action is being brought.

Number of Children - The number of children under the age of eighteen years for whom support payments are being sought. ONLY INCLUDE MINOR CHILDREN. Indicate the number of children, their legal names, and their birth dates.

Custody Types (Shared, Sole)

Shared Custody - Shared custody is generally where one of the parents has the child(ren) more than 128 nights per year, but less than 236 nights. You can change the number of nights and the SASI-CALC will calculate the appropriate support number.

Sole Custody - Sole custody is where one has been granted primary custody of the minor child(ren) and the other party has less than 128 nights visitation.

Monthly Income - The gross amount of money earned, before taxes, including regular over-time and part-time pay, per month. If the pay period is not a monthly pay period, press the “Calc” button adjacent to the field to pop up the monthly calculator, which will convert various common pay periods to a monthly amount.

Pre-existing child support - If child support payments are already being made by one or both parties, the amount should be entered in these fields.

Health Insurance - This is the amount that one or both of the parties pays in health insurance premiums for the child(ren). Usually it is the difference between the total monthly premium payment for a family and the total monthly premium for a single person.

Alimony Paid - Enter the amount of money that one or both parties is paying in alimony to a person from a prior marriage.

Alimony Paid In This Case - Enter the amount of money the Court has ordered that one of the parties in this cause of action pay the other in alimony.

Child Care - Enter the amount of money paid to provide daycare or similar custodial care to provide supervision of a minor child(ren). This can also include live-in care under certain circumstances. In shared custody cases insert each parties contribution. There may also be circumstances where the non-custodial parent is paying for child care and SASI-CALC will take this into consideration when entered.

Extraordinary Medical expenses - This is where the child(ren) has unusual physical, psychiatric, dental or similar extraordinary medical expenses. This should be broken down into a monthly figure.

Additional expenses - Enter monthly amount paid for a special tutoring, private instruction (i.e. dance or music lessons), private schooling, etc. Information about additional expenses should be explained in the comments field.

Recommended payment - This field displays the payment calculation performed by the SASI-CALC program. This field will display the correct payment recommendation after the calculate button is clicked on the main form. This field is not a user modifiable field.

Non-Statutory Computation - If you have entered income greater than $10,000 combined income per month the current statute does not address the required level of child support and is subject to the discretion of the court. The program has extrapolated at the same percentages of child support applied to the highest level of income covered by the statute and applied this percentage to the income in excess of $10,000.00. There are numerous alternatives for calculating child support on income in excess of the guidelines. This program has adopted one of the most commonly accepted methods. You should consider all options or variations in the light most favorable to your position.