If one has gone through a divorce, or have always been separate from their child’s parent, it is possible that their parenting rights have been downgraded or maybe they were never fully established. When a parent builds up to achieving custody, they may have to pass other benchmarks in the child custody process. One of those benchmarks may be achieving visitation rights.
The courts may order visitation between child and parent for any number of reasons. A divorce can prompt it, but the relationship with the child can exist solely outside of any marital relationship or otherwise with the other parent. Two common types of visitation are fixed and reasonable visitation plans. The two are different in a few ways.
Reasonable visitation is assigned in situations where the child’s parents are believed to have enough communication skills and are believed to have the right tools to figure out a schedule between the two for visitation. This means the visitation schedule can be more flexible. The custodial parent generally has more power in this situation as it were, but if it is found the parent is being malicious in terms of actually agreeing to visitation, the courts can step in.
Fixed visitation, on the other hand, is set by Illinois courts. There will be a specific time, date and place where visitation is to occur. These happen if it appears there is conflict between the parents, like in the case of a stressful divorce. Whatever visitation schedule is right will depend on the situation of the parents.