Author: Matt

Many fathers feel frustrated when they are trying to gain custody of their children. Due to negative experiences and struggles to successfully gain custody, proponents of father’s rights believe that the legal system is biased toward mothers.

While the movement itself is known to be controversial, the general purpose is to help fathers to be treated equally in the child custody process. If you are a father and you are worried that the courts will presume that the children will be better cared for when in the custody of their mother, you should make sure that you are aware of your rights as well as some of the issues that the father’s rights movement tries to resolve.

Shared parenting over sole custody

Over recent years, shared parenting has become more popular when the parents of a child are not in a relationship. Child custody courts tend to advocate for shared custody when neither parent poses a risk to the child. The father’s rights movement has argued that shared parenting should always be presumed to be in the best interests of the child.

False claims of abuse and child custody

Many proponents of father’s rights are concerned that family courts are too influenced by false claims of abuse. An accusation of abuse can mean that the custody rights of the alleged abuser could be taken away, but only after a thorough investigation is undertaken.

If you want to make sure that you’ll be able to maintain a relationship with your child after divorce or separation, you should be proactive in your approach to gaining custody of your child.

Divorce can be devastating. Once you establish child custody, you and your family find a way to reach a new sense of normalcy.

Having a child starting college can be an exciting time. Now that one of your children is getting ready for college, it will be time to consider how things will change as you and your other children adjust to a member of your family being away at college.

Here’s what the court will consider when reconsidering child custody.

Age of the remaining children

In addition to one child starting college, your other children are now older and may have more of a say in which parent they live with. In Texas, once children reach age 12, the court gives more weight to their preferences.

While other children may not be old enough for the court to consider their opinion, the court’s decision could impact them as well. It is essential to represent the interest of both you and your children when it is time to reconsider child custody.

Best interests

Just like when the court considered child custody at the beginning of your divorce, the court will ultimately look to the children’s best interest, including:

• Stability of the custodial parent’s living situation
• Other members of the household
• Physical and emotional needs of the child
• The current condition of the parent-child relationship

The court wants children to be in stable environments and to be able to spend time with both parents as much as possible.

While it may be challenging to change your parenting time, it may be beneficial to your children to take another look at child custody now that one of your children will be away at college.

Parents sometimes file for divorce the summer that the last child moves out and goes to college, gets married or just gets their own place. This can lead to an assumption by the children that the parents only stayed together for their sake.

Many parents do engage in this practice. They are done with the relationship. It’s no longer romantic. But they agree to essentially be roommates until the children grow up so as to avoid harming their development by getting divorced. Is this smart?

The answer is complex. Divorce is often difficult for kids in the short-term. They may not have understood that their parents are unhappy, they’re confused by the loss of structure and consistency in their lives and they don’t know exactly what it all means. This can feel like doing “harm” to the children, which is what parents want to avoid.

If you look at the long-term outcome, though, an unhappy home is often more damaging to children than a divorce. Parents who fight and argue can stress the children out. Even when it’s just clear that the parents are not happy together, it can make children uneasy and concerned. In these cases, it is often better for the children when the parents get divorced because those single parents are now happier and able to focus more fully on their children’s happiness. This can reduce the children’s stress, and they will adjust to the routine and lifestyle changes over time.

At the end of the day, if you do decide to get divorced, just make sure you know what rights you have and how to put the children first.