Child custody, support, and visitation rights are decided absent any consideration for the parents. The court's only overriding concern is what is in the best interests of the child. But the closer these disputes are to the birth of the child, the harder they are to...
Finding Solutions To Complex Issues
Year: 2016
What to do if your visitation rights are being violated
Divorce can bring out the worst in people. Couples who had previously pledged to love one another forever are suddenly fighting tooth and nail over every speck of their joint assets. Sometimes, this animosity can boil over and impact decisions about child custody and...
Visitation rights and same-sex couples
While same-sex couples gained the right to marry and have that marriage recognized in all 50 states, other family-oriented laws have not yet caught with this new reality. Same-sex couples may assume that, upon divorce, they are entitled to a joint custody arrangement,...
Can you un-adopt a child to avoid child support?
Most people understand that if they adopt a child, they are undertaking full parent responsibilities for that child. That means they are required to support them, care for them, and guide them. It also means that if the adopted parent ever divorces the birth parent,...
Is a court-imposed child support order the only way?
No, it isn't. Some couple can negotiate their child support agreement. However, it is challenging and still subject to court approval. This child support agreements are often referred to as "informal agreements" because they occur outside of traditional judicial...
Do you have to wait for a court to order child support?
Child support is payments that are given by one spouse to the other for the support of their respective child. The money is meant to support the child, therefore; nominally it is given to the parent, legally it is deemed belonging to the child. You cannot obtain child...
Can you withhold support payments in a child custody dispute?
The facetious answer is, you can do anything. But the smart answer is, you should almost never, ever withhold support payments. The court takes a dim view of anyone who tries to leverage their parental obligations and paying child support is a parental obligation....
New child custody laws may lead to balanced parenting time
For decades, the courts operated under two basic premises. The first premise assumed that children benefit from a stable home more than they do with sharing equal time between parents. Second, that stable home should be the mothers because children need their mother...
Avoid parenting plans inspired by strong negative emotions
If you and your child's other parent have opted to separate or divorce, you are likely struggling with a host of challenging emotions right now. Many of those emotions may be tied to the idea of transitioning your child from a two-parent household to two households...
Some statistics on child support payments
Child support is a great idea in theory. It forces parents to share in the responsibility of raising their children. It prevents parents from skipping out on their financial duties to their children. But child support is a complicated picture. It is not always...