A self-censored chronicle of family court dramas, lived by parents who lost all or some visitation with or custody of a child or children based on perjury and/or other false courtroom evidence
The SAVE Domestic Violence Legislative Project (DVLP) is a network of state-level groups working for domestic violence policies that protect victims, safeguard families, and respect due process.
Recently, I have found myself thinking a lot about the best, and the worst, custodyarrangements for very young children. When I say very young children, I am thinking about infants (aged newborn to roughly 18 months) as well as toddlers (aged 18 months to about 3 years).
Below, I will offer some of my own thoughts about this very important, and it seems, increasingly controversial topic. But at the outset, I want to invite readers to share their experiences about what is working for you, and what isn't; about what custody arrangements you have chosen for your own very young children, and about what schedules were imposed on you by a court, an ex, whoever.
I am looking for your input, because I have been hearing more and more from parents who are very unhappy about parenting plans for their very young children. Mostly, I have been getting emails or telephone calls from parents, usually mothers, who are scared to death that their very young child has been divided - and is being damaged both now and in the long term. I also have heard from other parents, mainly fathers, who are afraid they are being shut out of their very young children's lives - now and for the long run.
There are a lot of complicated psychological, practical, and legal issues involved in custody arrangements for very young children. I will not delve very deeply into the details in this post, or I will end up going on for too long. Look for future posts with more specifics.
Psychologically, the quality of attachment relationships is the main concern about the well-being of very young children. Children form a close bond with those who care for them, usually their parents, in the first year of life (and beyond). The development of attachments is a biologically driven process, one that is observed in other primates, other mammals, and precocial birds. (Think of ducklings swimming in line behind their mother on a pond in springtime.)
Very young children can and do form multiple attachments, including to mothers, fathers, grandparents, nannies, and so on. Still, children have a primary attachment figure, the person they prefer to offer them comfort in times of anxiety or pain. (A daycare worker can comfort a distraught toddler when no parent is available, but given a choice, an 18 month old will run to Mommy - or Daddy.)
Now we are getting to the nub of one controversy. A great deal of psychological research shows that the quality of the primary attachment - particularly whether it is secure or insecure - in very young children predicts the development of various psychological and social problems in the future. (Importantly, attachment is a central concern not only for custody but for other issues like day care, families where both parents are employed for long hours, hospitalized premature infants, incarcerated parents, and a variety of other issues involving parents' relationships with their very young children.)
So in disputed custody cases, parents, lawyers, and various experts can and do end up debating whether a very young child's primary attachment (usually to the mother) is all-important and pretty fragile - or whether their secondary attachment (usually to the father) is just as important and perhaps is being undermined, maybe deliberately, by a doting or vindictive primary attachment figure. Specific questions and debates range from whether babies, or toddlers, should have overnights with their secondary attachment figures to whether parents should share joint physical custody of infants, alternating back and forth every day if necessary.
A Mother's Day message from Dr. Mark Roseman of The Toby Center.
For an increasing number of moms, Mother’s Day without their children are expected, and characteristic. It’s characteristic of mothers who are court ordered to have visitation that they not see their children on this day. For dads, too, there are many whose children cannot spend time with their them.
Why? Court orders.
Court orders in Family Court, especially require parents to have a shared parenting plan, a plan which delineates when each parent may spend quality time with their children. Not because of social media, and cell phone compulsions. It is because when they separate and divorce, children’s time is allocated. Like any commodity. Litigation is used to advocate for a parent’s time; litigation is used to prevent a parent’s time. Consider: Thirty percent of parents who separate are very unhappy, angry, and vindictive. They seek to punish each other, or at least to claim themselves a victim of anything that will deprive the other parent of significant quality time with their children. Such parents are considered to be in ‘high conflict’ and seek to blame, deny, and often, to run away with the children.
Litigation damages many among these families, for there remains not enough opportunity for children to spend time with their parents, particularly, when their parents need to pay for shared parenting time that must besupervised. Supervised visitation is used by the courts when the judge believes there needs to be a neutral third party to observe, and guard against emotional and physical abuse.
But supervised visitation works when the custodial parent does not interfere with the child’s scheduled visitation. As Toby Center’s Program Director, I have seen this happen over thirty percent of the time. We can’t enforce visitation for those who may even have money to pay for this service.
Who can afford these unfunded services? Well, 40 percent of those asking for these services in Central Florida cannot. In South Florida, 30 percent cannot. Supervised visitation services are little funded in Florida. Florida’s funds come from the Federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through their office of Child Support Enforcement. These monies are to be used by states for furthering supervised visitation and family mediation. These are cases found in the Family Courts.
Yet, in Florida, these monies are used solely and entirely by the Department of Children and Familiesthrough thirdparty case management companies. Though DCF client families benefit from funded services as visitation and therapy, even more significant are the needs of families whose child custody cases are heard in Family Court. In the latter case, such families did not have their children removed from their homes. Even though the reasons for family court action may be quite the same or similar to some in Dependency Court.
I have served in this field since 1999 when I began working in Washington, DC with the national Children’s Rights Council. Then, it was David L. Levy, Esq. who emerged the loudest advocate for joint custody, and established the largest network of supervised visitation locations. I was appointed by David to be the Assistant Director for Child Access. In charge of visitation curriculum and training, I joined David on numerous visits to the Office of Child Support Enforcement, meeting two Directors of CSE during the Bush Administrations.
Indeed, it was David Levy who challenged the Federal Government during the Clinton Administration to allocate money for families journeying through very costly child custody matters in Family Court. With his successful testimony on Capitol Hill (and he was a wonderful, passionate orator of my time!), David created this annual earmark so that more families would not be denied the visitation services so essential for building and strengthening parent and child relations.
Social research has shown that children best thrive when both parents are involved in their children’s lives. It is therefore incumbent upon grantors and state agencies to find the money to preserve our families post separation. If we do, then we will reduce the rate of alcohol and drug abuse, juvenile crime, teen suicide.
Mother’s Day. Father’s Day.
For the forty percent of public school children living in single parent households, nearly half of our families today, family holidays just ‘ain’t what they used to be’. But with more funds, and support, they come close.
The U.S. Supreme Court has consistently protected parental rights, including it among those rights deemed fundamental. As a fundamental right, parental liberty is to be protected by the highest standard of review: the compelling interest test. As can be seen from the cases described above, parental rights have reached their highest level of protection in over 75 years. The Court decisively confirmed these rights in the recent case of Troxel v. Granville, which should serve to maintain and protect parental rights for many years to come.
As long as CPS is allowed to have an exaggerated view of their power and is allowed by state officials and the courts to exploit that power and abuse it against both children and parents, they will both be continually harmed. The constitution is there for two primary reasons, 1) to restrict the power of the government and 2) to protect the people from the government, not the government from the people. And the constitution is there to prohibit certain activity from government officials and that prohibition does not apply to one type or kind of official but to ANY government official whether it is the police, CPS or FBI.
“More money flows through the family courts, and into the hands of courthouse insiders, than in all other court systems in America combined – over $50 billion a year and growing. Through extensive research and interviews with the nation’s top divorce lawyers, mediators, judges, politicians, litigants and journalists, DIVORCE CORP. uncovers how children are torn from their homes, unlicensed custody evaluators extort money, and abusive judges play god with people’s lives while enriching their friends. This explosive documentary reveals the family courts as unregulated, extra-constitutional freedoms. Rather than assist victims of domestic crimes, these courts often precipitate them. And rather than help parents and children move on, as they are mandated to do, these courts – and their associates – drag out cases for years, sometimes decades, ultimately resulting in a rash of social ills, including home foreclosure, bankruptcy, suicide and violence. Solutions to the crisis are sought out in countries where divorce is handled in a more holistic manner.Continue reading
