Texas Conservatorship: Types, Rights, and Possession Orders

In Texas, what other states call child custody is called conservatorship, and the Texas Family Code uses it to describe the entire legal relationship between a parent and a child: who decides where the child lives, who consents to medical care, who directs education, and how parenting time is divided. The law starts with a rebuttable presumption that both parents should share these responsibilities as joint managing conservators, and it shifts that balance only when the evidence calls for it.¹ The stated policy behind the whole chapter is to keep children in frequent contact with parents who act in the child’s best interest, in a safe and stable home.²

The Three Types of Conservators

Chapter 153 sorts parents (and sometimes non-parents) into one of three roles. The role you receive controls what decisions you can make, how much time you get with the child, and what legal obligations you carry.

Joint Managing Conservator

This is the default outcome in most Texas cases. The Family Code presumes that appointing both parents as joint managing conservators serves the child’s best interest.¹ The label is easy to misread. Joint managing conservatorship does not mean equal parenting time, and it does not mean 50/50 anything. It means both parents share decision-making authority over the big questions in the child’s life, while the court typically designates one parent as the one with the exclusive right to determine where the child primarily lives. The other parent receives a possession schedule and keeps a voice on major decisions like education, medical care, and psychological treatment. The court divides those exclusive rights based on what fits the child, not on a formula.³

Sole Managing Conservator

When a joint arrangement would put the child at risk, the court names one parent as the sole managing conservator. That parent holds exclusive authority over major decisions: where the child lives, what medical treatment the child receives, and where the child attends school. Courts get here when credible evidence shows that joint conservatorship would significantly harm the child’s physical health or emotional development.¹ Family violence is the most common reason. Substance abuse, neglect, and incarceration can also push a case in that direction.

Possessory Conservator

When one parent becomes sole managing conservator, the other is usually named possessory conservator. This role grants the right to spend time with the child on a court-ordered schedule but not the authority to make major life decisions. A possessory conservator still has real rights during their parenting time, including providing day-to-day care and directing the child’s moral and religious upbringing during visits.⁴ Courts restrict or deny even this limited access only when clear evidence shows the parent is a danger to the child.

How Family Violence Changes the Default

Section 153.004 is where the presumption of joint conservatorship breaks. If credible evidence shows a history or pattern of physical abuse, sexual abuse, or child neglect by one parent directed against the other parent, a spouse, or a child, the court cannot appoint joint managing conservators at all.⁵

The statute goes further. If the same evidence exists against a parent who is seeking sole managing conservatorship, there is a rebuttable presumption that giving that parent the role is not in the child’s best interest. In practice, a parent with a documented history of abuse faces a hard climb toward any managing conservator role, and this section will shape everything the court does with the case.

What Rights and Duties Come With Each Role

Conservatorship is really a bundle of specific rights and duties. Some apply to every conservator at all times. Others apply only while the child is physically with you. Others are exclusive to whichever parent the court assigns them.

Rights That Apply at All Times

Whether you are a joint managing, sole managing, or possessory conservator, you hold certain baseline rights unless a court order specifically strips them. You can receive information from the other conservator about the child’s health, education, and welfare. You can talk to the child’s doctors and teachers directly. You have access to the child’s medical, dental, psychological, and educational records.¹ These rights exist so a parent with limited possession can still stay involved in the child’s life.

Duties During Your Parenting Time

When the child is physically with you, Section 153.074 takes over. You have the duty to provide care, supervision, food, clothing, shelter, and non-invasive medical and dental treatment. You have the right to consent to routine medical care (anything short of an invasive procedure) and to guide the child’s moral and religious upbringing during your time together.⁴ These apply equally to joint managing conservators and possessory conservators during their respective possession periods.

Notification Duties

Section 153.076 requires every conservator to share significant information about the child’s health, education, and welfare with the other conservator, promptly and without being asked. The section also imposes specific notice requirements if you begin living with someone who is a registered sex offender, is charged with an offense requiring sex offender registration, or is the subject of a protective order. That notice must be given within 30 to 40 days depending on the circumstance and must describe the underlying offense.⁶

Exclusive Rights the Court Assigns

In a joint managing conservatorship, the court has to decide which parent gets which exclusive rights. The most consequential is the exclusive right to determine the child’s primary residence. The court also allocates rights like consenting to invasive medical procedures, making educational decisions, consenting to psychological treatment, and representing the child in legal proceedings. Those exclusive rights are spelled out in the order, and exercising a right assigned to the other parent can land you in contempt.³

The Standard Possession Order

The Standard Possession Order is the default visitation schedule Texas courts apply unless the parties agree to something different or the court finds it inappropriate. It governs how the possessory conservator, or the joint managing conservator who does not have the exclusive right to determine primary residence, spends time with the child. The schedule depends on how far apart the parents live.

Parents Living Within 100 Miles of Each Other

If you live within 100 miles of the child’s primary residence, the standard schedule gives you:

Weekends on the first, third, and fifth Friday of each month, from 6 p.m. Friday through 6 p.m. Sunday.
A weekday visit every Thursday during the school year from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Spring break in alternating years, with the possessory conservator having possession in even-numbered years.
Thirty days of summer possession, which can be split into two periods of at least seven consecutive days each if you give written notice by April 1. Without timely notice, the default runs July 1 through July 31.

Thanksgiving alternates between odd and even years. Christmas is split into two halves, with the rotation flipping each year. The holiday schedule overrides any conflicting weekend or Thursday period.⁷

Parents Living More Than 100 Miles Apart

When the parents live more than 100 miles apart, the Thursday visit drops off, and the weekend schedule switches to either the first, third, and fifth weekends or one weekend per month. Summer possession increases to 42 days. Spring break goes to the possessory conservator every year instead of alternating. Longer stretches replace the frequent short visits that distance makes impractical.

Deadlines That Catch Parents Off Guard

The Standard Possession Order builds in notice deadlines that quietly matter. If you want to pick your own 30-day summer window instead of accepting July 1 through 31, you must give written notice by April 1. The managing conservator who wants a weekend during the other parent’s summer possession must give written notice by April 15. Miss either deadline and you are locked into the default for that year.⁷

Geographic Restrictions on Where the Child Lives

When it appoints joint managing conservators, the court must either establish a geographic area where the child’s primary residence has to stay or state explicitly that there is no geographic restriction.³ In practice, most orders restrict the primary residence to the county where the family currently lives and any contiguous counties. A restriction to a specific school district is also common.

If your circumstances change and you need to move outside the restricted area, you cannot simply relocate. You have to file a modification suit and prove the move serves the child’s best interest. The court can reallocate transportation and visitation costs in a fair way when a relocation is approved. Violating a geographic restriction without court approval is one of the fastest ways to lose credibility with a judge, and it can result in a change of primary conservatorship.

Modifying a Conservatorship Order

Life changes, and Texas law allows conservatorship orders to be modified. The bar is intentionally high, so parents cannot relitigate every disagreement. To modify an existing order, you must show the change is in the child’s best interest and meet at least one of three statutory grounds:

Material and substantial change. The circumstances of the child, a conservator, or another affected party have materially and substantially changed since the order was signed or since the date of any mediated settlement agreement the order is based on.
The child’s preference. The child is at least 12 years old and has told the judge in chambers which parent the child prefers to have the exclusive right to determine primary residence.
Voluntary relinquishment. The conservator with the exclusive right to determine primary residence has voluntarily given up primary care and possession of the child for at least six months. A military deployment does not count.

A short change in work hours or a temporary financial setback usually will not qualify as material and substantial. Courts look for significant, lasting developments. A modification is filed in the same district court where the original order was entered, and the filing fee for a modification motion inside an existing SAPCR case is $80.⁸⁹

Mediation Before Trial

Texas courts can send a conservatorship dispute to mediation either at the parties’ request or on the court’s own initiative, and many courts strongly encourage or effectively require it before setting a case for trial. A mediated settlement agreement becomes binding on both parties if it includes a prominently displayed statement that it cannot be revoked and is signed by both parties and their attorneys, if present.¹⁰

Once signed, a qualifying mediated settlement agreement is nearly impossible to unwind. A party is entitled to judgment on the agreement regardless of other procedural rules. One significant exception applies: if you have experienced family violence from the other party, you can file a written objection to mediation at any time before the final order. If the court still refers the case to mediation over a violence objection, it must ensure the parties stay in separate rooms with no face-to-face contact.¹⁰

Enforcing a Conservatorship Order

A court order only works if both parents follow it. When one parent refuses to hand over the child for scheduled possession, denies access to records, or ignores another provision of the order, Chapter 157 of the Family Code provides the enforcement tools. The main remedy is a motion to enforce, which asks the court to hold the violating parent in contempt.

Contempt in this context can result in fines, makeup possession time, or jail. If you want a contempt finding, you have to follow the rules precisely. You need to show that you actually appeared at the designated pickup location at the correct date and time in the order, even if the other parent already told you they would not be there. Courts require this because contempt is a quasi-criminal remedy and the proof has to be specific. If the other parent is served with a motion to enforce and an order to appear but does not show up at the hearing, the court can issue a capias directing law enforcement to arrest them.

1
State of Texas. Texas Family Code – Chapter 153
2
State of Texas. Texas Family Code Section 153.001 – Public Policy
3
State of Texas. Texas Family Code FAM 153.134
4
State of Texas. Texas Family Code FAM 153.074
5
State of Texas. Texas Family Code Section 153.004 – History of Domestic Violence
6
Texas Public Law. Texas Family Code Section 153.076 – Duty to Provide Information
7
State of Texas. Texas Family Code Section 153.312 – Parents Who Reside 100 Miles or Less Apart
8
State of Texas. Texas Family Code Section 156.101 – Grounds for Modification of Order Establishing Conservatorship or Possession and Access
9
Texas Judicial Branch. District Court Civil Filing Fees
10
State of Texas. Texas Family Code Section 6.602 – Mediation Procedures