Thank you for joining me. My name is LaSheena Williams, and I am a Maryland family law attorney. My firm helps our clients take control of out-of-control domestic situations. Today, we will be discussing custody battle red flags.
Coaching the Children
If you are currently in an ongoing custody modification or custody establishment matter, it’s important that you do not coach your children to provide answers, especially if there’s a situation when a best interest attorney is appointed, or custody evaluators appointed, or even if DHS is involved and they must interview your children. The professionals that will speak with the children are trained to look for coaching. They are trained to ask the appropriate questions to find out if your child was coached in dealing with custody matters. If they find that that’s the case or that they believe that that’s the case, it will undoubtedly be brought up in their report and even in their testimony. It’s better in the long run if you don’t coach your children to make sure you’re getting the best outcome for your children.
Turning the Children Against You
Sometimes in custody cases, it may get to a point where your co-parent may attempt to turn the children against you. They may say terrible things about you to the children or if they already know that they’re not supposed to say terrible things to the children about you, they may say terrible things around the children about you, which is just as bad as talking to them. It’s important that you be aware that your co-parent may be doing this and it’s important that you do not turn your children against your co-parent. Like I said, if there’s a situation where some other third-party professional like a custody evaluator or best interest attorney is involved, they are trained to look for these types of signs they are trained to see it and it will come up in any report or evaluation that they provide it may negatively impact your case.
Failing to Pick Up during Parenting Time
Another red flag during your custody case is if you or your co-parent fails to pick your children up at the right time for your parenting time or fail to pick your children up at all for your parenting time. This can be problematic because if you’re not taking the time that’s ordered or agreed upon to spend time with your children, the court looks at it as if why should they give you additional time if you’re not taking the time that you already have or if you’re not prioritizing your children to make sure that you can pick them up at the correct time. It can negatively impact your case, and this is something that you want to avoid making sure that you get, again, the best outcome for you and your family.
When Kids are Never with Parent During Parenting Time
Another red flag, which is like the last red flag, is if your children are picked up on time and they are picked up for the access time, but those children are immediately dropped off at a grandparent’s home, a friend’s home, an aunt’s home, and they never actually spend parenting time with their parent. Now it’s important to know that there’s some reasons why you might drop your children off with the grandmother or the aunt, but it shouldn’t be every visit, it shouldn’t be all the time. It shouldn’t be that the child knows your grandparent’s home and her rules more than they know your co-parents homing rules because they’re always there and they’re never actually with their parent if this may be enough of a problem that you can request a modification of custody or access from the court.
If you have any questions about dealing with custody battle red flags or any other issues in your ongoing or future child custody matter, contact the Law Office of LaSheena M. Williams at (301) 778 – 9950 or leave an online request for a consultation.
