No one like a custody battle. The hope is couples can figure out how to co-parent their children without getting attornies or judges involved. Unfortunately, that is not the case with a significant number of couples who aren’t able to make the relationship work but still have kids to parent. It’s is amazing how ugly these custodial cases can get. They can become like an utter tug of war where people almost fight to the death. By death, I’m referring to the death of a healthy relationship for their child if they aren’t careful.
As time moves forward, our society is moving away from a time where fathers lose out both financially and on visitation time with their children. There is still more work to be done, but the shift is in place. Today’s courts in most states recognize the father’s role as significantly as the mother’s role. Even with that in mind, a lot of kids still end up living primarily with the mom. How can dad’s ensure their rights are protected regardless of the child’s living arrangement and not instead?
- Be reasonable in your requests about custody and visitation – Do you have the time to commit to spending more quality time with your child and not necessarily relying on other family members to watch them during your allotted time.
- Face your own emotions about the end of the relationship with your children’s mother – is it an angry/ bitter relationship, were you wronged, did you do wrong and she chose not forget?
- Stay focused on what’s in the best interest of your child – Your child is half you and half the other parent. They didn’t choose you. You and the co-parent chose each other and now your kids must deal with the choices you made. The two of you can’t erase each other because that’s like an invalidation of your child’s request.
- Let go of the pain – If you’ve had issues with your ex in the past over the kids or your former relationship with them let it go. Often times parents don’t know how to vie for their space in their child’s heart so unfortunately, they end up acting it out.
- Make room for your child – If you plan to deal with the court especially, you want to make sure you note you have adequate safe space for your child to visit or live halftime.
- Stop sweating the small stuff – There will be fights about things like which sneakers the child should wear etc.
- Hire an attorney if needed to help you navigate the process; however, you will need to develop a checklist. e
Remember, we are all doing the best we can and especially where it doesn’t have to be said that we are looking for our spot. Rejection of anyone’s right to have a fair and healthy relationship is not appropriate. It can happen, however when a parent doesn’t understand that love is infinite and just because your child loves you it does not mean they don’t love the other parent too. The only cases where the idea of visitation of custody are questionable that I agree with would be the elimination of visitation, etc for custody and other visitation. Lastly, don’t forget to have your rights protected you must use the court systems in your chaos because if not, you aren’t exercising you own rights.
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