In general, the same rules apply to adopted children and biological children during divorce. This is typically true if you adopted your spouse’s biological children, if you went through the process together while married or even if you have a more complicated situation, such as international adoption, adoption of adopted children and so forth.
As mentioned on FindLaw, parents of adopted children during divorce have the same rights and privileges as biological parents would. This is because the court views your adoptive relationship the same as it would any other parent-child relationship. By the same reasoning, you would also have the same obligations.
As a result, as long as paternity was legally established, your concerns during divorce would probably be the same as if you were biological parents. For example, you would probably want to establish a parenting plan that delineated your children’s living situations and your parental visitation schedules. You would also want to set up a child-support agreement to ensure that both parents equitably shared any expenses.
If you adopted children, it is likely that your family was highly intentional. The good news is that you probably have access to a similar range of options in divorce as you did in marriage and adoption. This is why it is so important to analyze your case from an individual perspective. General rules and regulations — those you may read about or hear about online, for example — would probably only apply to situations in which you could not reach a more specific solution for your family.
Every family is unique, and the law recognizes that fact. If you work together with your co-parent — or if you at least work in parallel in the best interest of your children — the court could be an ally rather than an obstacle. Namely, if you properly present a sensible parenting plan and child-support agreement, it is likely that you will receive court approval.
