Are you a parent fighting a custody battle or thinking about filing a custody action? I have some advice for you from the perspective of a family law attorney who has fought many hard battles over children: Settle.
Children are harmed when parents fight over them. You don’t have to fight around them to harm them. When children are the center of a custody battle, it is rare that parents can keep them from knowing it. Because children are in a different stage of development, they believe that all of the turmoil in the relationship between their parents is their fault. No matter how much you try to assure them, deep down, they will believe that they caused their parents to fight.
Short of one of you being unfit or harmful to the children, you should do everything within your power to quickly resolve any custody issues.
Here are some things to keep in mind when facing a disagreement over custody:
1. Children love both parents and unless one of you is unfit, your children need to be with both of you as much as possible. A good custody arrangement strikes a balance between stability and giving your children the opportunity to develop a meaningful relationship with each of you.
It is very unlikely that your children will develop a meaningful relationship with one parent having custody only every other weekend. You should be willing to live with some inconveniences and intrusion to give children this opportunity to have a meaningful relationship with both of you.
2. Don’t speak badly about the other parent around your children, no matter how upset you are. Doing this makes children feel insecure and torn between their parents. They feel the need to support both of you, and when you speak badly about the other parent they feel like they must choose between you - even if that was not your intent.
If you need a more practical reason than the well-being of your children to restrain your speech: a judge will not look kindly on you speaking badly about the other parent, and this may give the judge a reason not to give more time with your children.
In fact, you should say nice and supportive things about the other parent as much as you can – as this builds confidence in the life of your children.
3. Go to mediation and forget about what you might win in court. Instead, focus on what is best for your children, keeping in mind that they need both of you, no matter what has happened in your relationship with one another.
4. If you choose to go to court, know this: you are relinquishing your rights as parents to the court system. A judge who has only spent a couple of hours with you and does not know your family will have tremendous power over your day-to-day lives. The judge will have the power to tell you where your children will live, go to school, activities they can enjoy, and will control many other aspects of your life from then on. It would be better for all involved for you to find a way to agree.
5. With each conflict over your children, ask yourself, “Is this a hill worth dying on?” If you aren’t careful, the casualties of your battle will be your children.
