This chapter defines family-law terms such as adult, child, court, custodial responsibility, deployment, and service member.
In this chapter: “Adult” means an individual who has attained eighteen (18) years of age or is an emancipated minor; “Caretaking authority” means the right to live with and care for a child on a day-to-day basis. “Caretaking authority” includes physical custody, parenting time, right to access, and visitation; “Child” means: An unemancipated individual who has not attained eighteen (18) years of age; or An adult son or daughter by birth or adoption, or under law of this state other than this chapter, who is the subject of a court order concerning custodial responsibility; “Court” means a tribunal, including an administrative agency, authorized under law of this state other than this chapter to make, enforce, or modify a decision regarding custodial responsibility; “Custodial responsibility” includes all powers and duties relating to caretaking authority and decision-making authority for a child. “Custodial responsibility” includes physical custody, legal custody, parenting time, right to access, visitation, and authority to grant limited contact with a child; “Decision-making authority” means the power to make important decisions regarding a child, including decisions regarding the child's education, religious training, health care, extracurricular activities, and travel; “Decision-making authority” does not include the power to make decisions that necessarily accompany a grant of caretaking authority; “Deploying parent” means a service member who is deployed or has been notified of impending deployment and is: A parent of a child under law of this state other than this chapter; or An individual who has custodial responsibility for a child under law of this state other than this chapter; “Deployment” means the movement or mobilization of a service member for more than thirty (30) days pursuant to uniformed service orders that: Are designated as unaccompanied; Do not authorize dependent travel; or Otherwise do not permit the movement of family members to the location to which the service member is deployed; “Family member” means a sibling, aunt, uncle, cousin, stepparent, or grandparent of a child or an individual recognized to be in a familial relationship with a child under law of this state other than this chapter; “Limited contact” means the authority of a nonparent to visit a child for a limited time. “Limited contact” includes authority to take the child to a place other than the residence of the child; “Nonparent” means an individual other than a deploying parent or other parent; “Other parent” means an individual who, in common with a deploying parent, is: A parent of a child under law of this state other than this chapter; or An individual who has custodial responsibility for a child under law of this state other than this chapter; “Record” means information that is inscribed on a tangible medium or that is stored in an electronic or other medium and is retrievable in perceivable form; “Return from deployment” means the conclusion of a service member's deployment as specified in uniformed service orders; “Service member” means a member of a uniformed service; “Sign” means with present intent to authenticate or adopt a record: To execute or adopt a tangible symbol; or To attach to or logically associate with the record an electronic symbol, sound, or process; “State” means a state of the United States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the United States Virgin Islands, or any territory or insular possession subject to the jurisdiction of the United States; and “Uniformed service” means: Active and reserve components of the army, navy, air force, marine corps, or coast guard of the United States; The United States merchant marine; The commissioned corps of the United States public health service; The commissioned corps of the national oceanic and atmospheric administration of the United States; or The national guard of a state.