Whether through a divorce or just a custody case with the mother/father of your children, determining where your children will be living and your involvement in their future is scary. Here are 3 tips to remember as you start your custody case:
- Emails, text messages, & letters can all be brought to Court. Attorneys, evaluators, and judges know child custody matters are incredibly emotional. Parents often get upset, angry, and frustrated as they try to navigate through this time of uncertainty. Even if you’re mad at your husband because he dropped off the children ten minutes late, sounding off through a text message or email might eventually have a harmful effect on your matter. Judges look at the parent’s ability to co-parent and get along for the sake of the children. You do not want a judge to think that you would purposely hurt the relationship between the children and their other parent.
- Facebook & Twitter postings can all be brought to Court. Keep in mind that posting a status update or tweeting about your child’s other parent can be given to the judge and used against you. A picture speaks a thousand words. Use common sense when deciding what to post on social networking sites. It is very easy to find anything posted to Twitter or Facebook, so don’t post anything that you don’t want brought up in court.
- Don’t use your children to hurt the other parent. Sometimes parents refuse to let the other parent spend time with the children. Oftentimes, this refusal is not born out of the childrens’ best interests, but because their feelings are hurt during the proceeding. Do not use the children to hurt the other parent—it ends up making you look bad in court and also insinuates that you will not be able to co-parent your children.
