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A board-certified family law attorney, Jaime Davis and her guests provide information and tips for getting through a separation and divorce without destroying family relationships or finances. From marriage therapists and financial planners to private investigators and parenting coordinators, learn how to navigate divorce without destruction.
JAMIE: Welcome to a year in a day. I'm Jamie Davis,
board certified family law attorney at Gaylor Hunt. On this show, I talk with
lawyers, psychologists, and other experts with
the goal of helping you navigate divorce without
destruction. In this episode, I'm talking with
Melissa Essek, fellow family law attorney at Gaylor Hunt and trained mediator in all
family law matters. Today we're going to be discussing
legal custody or the authority a parent might
have to make important decisions about their children's
lives. Legal custody is different and separate from physical custody, which is with whom the
child lives and when. And we'll be talking through
this differentiation and why understanding this
concept is important if you are going through
a divorce with children. Thanks for joining me,
Melissa.
MELISSA: Thanks for having me, Jamie.
JAMIE: So I'm going to dive right in. What is
legal custody?
MELISSA: Legal custody is the ability to make
the important decisions for your children, such
as medical decisions, educational decisions, elective
medical care, dental care, those kind of things.
JAMIE: So there are a couple of types of legal
custody. There is sole legal custody and joint
legal custody. What are the differences between
the two?
MELISSA: It's really unusual that we see sole
legal custody. Typically, most parents are awarded
joint legal custody, which is where both parents
have equal authority to make the decisions for
the children. Sole legal as if the court would
grant one party, one parent the decision to make those or the authority to make those decisions.
JAMIE: If you have joint legal custody, what information
are you entitled to about your child?
MELISSA: Pretty much everything. So you have access
to all of their educational documents? You could
have access to all of their medical care documents.
You have pretty much access. You both should have
equal access to all of those important documents
related to your children. I always tell people
the more you can include the other parent on the
front end, the better. Meaning, if you're signing
your child up for an extracurricular activity,
for example, go ahead and let the coach know to
include the other parent on the email chain. That
way you're not the responsible parent for having
to share that information with the other person.
Similarly, if you're signing them up for school
or if you're signing them up for a new pediatrician,
go ahead and add them as another guardian so that
they have that same information and doesn't fall
on you to share that information with them.
JAMIE: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, anytime that you can just
add the other parents email address or contact
info and make sure they're receiving the same
information you are at the same time, so much
easier for you and getting rid of that burden that you might forget to share
something. I tell my clients, too, when in doubt,
overshare.
MELISSA: Right?
JAMIE: Like they may have the baseball schedule
or the pediatrician appointment, but if you're
not sure they have it, share it again.
MELISSA: That's right. Absolutely. I have a lot
of clients that say the same thing. Well, I already
know that they have the schedule. I gave them
the schedule at the beginning of the year and they are always texting me to ask me when the next game
is. Just tell them when the next game is. I agree
with you.
JAMIE: What decisions typically have to be made
jointly by both parents if they are sharing joint
legal custody?
MELISSA: Day to day decisions can be made by the
parent who has the child that day. So things like
maybe bedtime routines and diets and those kind
of things can typically just be made by the parent
that has the custody of the child that day. But
important decisions related to the children, such
as medical care, education, preschool selection, extracurricular activities, those kind of things that
the court would deem important that would change
the well being of the child or potentially have
an effect of their well being of the child. Those
things need to be made jointly. Yeah.
JAMIE: And I think a big one that we see a lot
too is whether the child should attend therapy.
And if they should attend therapy, who should
the therapist be? That's one of the biggies, I
think, when it comes to joint decision making.
MELISSA: Absolutely. And I will tell you most
of the time, if there is a parent that thinks
that one child, that the child should attend therapy,
most likely they need to be attending therapy.
And so I always tell my clients to err on the
side of caution on that too. And you can always
defer to the professionals. So maybe you set up
that initial console or that initial intake with
the therapist and then just deferred to the therapist
as to what they recommend as far as how frequent
the visit should be.
JAMIE: Well, and practically speaking, I think
most child psychologists are not going to see
a child unless both parents consent anyway. Has
that been your experience?
MELISSA: Absolutely. I have a case right now that
one parent has sole legal custody and even though they have the authority to sign the child up for
therapy, unilaterally, the therapist still wants
the consent of both parents. And so that has become
an issue in several of my cases.
JAMIE: So what about smaller things like, let's
say the kid gets an invitation to a birthday party.
It occurs during your time. Do you need to ask
your co parent whether your child can go to the
birthday party?
MELISSA: I consider that more of a day to day
decision. Certainly if the birthday party is falling
on the other person's time before you tell the
child about it and get the child excited about
it, or before you RSVP for the child. Right. Definitely
contact the other parent and just say, hey, I
just wanted to make you aware, or forward it and
just say, I'm assuming that you're going to RSVP
if you can make it.
JAMIE: So what if there is an emergency? What
if during your custodial time, your child falls
at the playground and needs to get rushed to the
hospital for maybe a broken arm or something like
that? How do you handle any of those types of
decisions that need to be made at the hospital?
MELISSA: Well, I would say you need to alert the
parent as soon as it's safe to do so. And so if
you're in a situation where you're really it's
just triage, right. You're just trying to make
sure that the child's safe, stable, and get the
child the care that he or she needs. Your first
thought is not going to be to contact the parent.
If you get a chance or an opportunity, and you
can just send a text that says, hey, there's been
an emergency. They're going to be okay, but we're
going to go check it out at Rex Hospital. We're
headed there now. Alert them as soon as you can.
But ultimately your first concern should just
be the safety of the children.
JAMIE: Yeah. I think there normally is a carve
out for emergency medical decisions that even
if you have joint legal custody, if there is a
decision that needs to be made because of some
emergent medical issue, that you should be able
to put the child's medical needs first and get
that taken care of.
MELISSA: Right. You mentioned earlier about oversharing.
I think this is where this comes into play. If
a parent is not there, sending information as
soon as you get it. If you're at the hospital,
for example, and you speak to the doctor, go ahead
and send a text that just relays the information that you're receiving. Or
if there's some appointment that needs to be made
for sickness, maybe it's not quite an emergency,
but they are coming down with something and the
other parent wouldn't otherwise know about it.
Go ahead and let them know and tell them that
you're making an appointment for your child to
be seen by the pediatrician. So again, oversharing
is always best.
JAMIE: Well, and I think too, if you overshare,
you're going to provide a certain level of comfort
to the other parent that you're not withholding
information right. And that you're always being
above board. And so I think that can help foster
some trust between co parents that mom or dad
is going to do the right thing by the child. They
have this history of giving me all the information
so that I can make informed decisions when I need to. I mean, ultimately that's going to be
what's best for the child.
MELISSA: Absolutely. One of the things that I see oftentimes is when there are cases where
the child is older and the child may, let's say, has a cell phone
and communicates with the other parent, often
by text. For example, just because the child is
communicating and sharing information with the
other parent does not negate your responsibility for having to share that information.
So I always tell parents, don't communicate to
the children. It's always best. Even if you think
that the child's already relayed the information
to the other parent, go ahead and share it again.
And also to the extent that you can keep the child
out of any type of adult decisions or custodial
decisions, that's what's best because the child
really doesn't need to be involved in these day
to day conversations and communications that should
be between the parents.
JAMIE: Yeah, I think it's tricky when kids get
older and they have cell phones and if the parents
don't have a great relationship, I think that
there can be a tendency to try to use the child
as a workaround because they really don't want
to communicate with the co parent. And so there's
this assumption made that the child has communicated
whatever the important information is to the other
parent. And at the end of the day, they're just
kids. You can't really rely on the children to
relay all of the necessary information to the
other parent.
MELISSA: Right. And they may not know what's necessary
information. They may not know what's relevant
or the information that the other parent would
otherwise need to know. Also, I would say before
you communicate decisions to the child, communicate
with the other parent. Make sure that the other
parent's on board. And then say to the child,
hey, just want to let you know I talked to dad,
and Dad's on board with taking you to the birthday
party. Before you tell the child that you're going
to take them to the birthday party, and so I think
that's important just so that you're not alienating
the child. If the child finds out that, hey, dad
might not be able to take me for whatever reason,
you certainly don't want that alienation, but
also the disappointment in the child, right?
JAMIE: I mean, before you say to your child, hey,
we're going to go to this really fun thing that
happens during mom's time, maybe you should check
with mom first and make sure that's okay.
MELISSA: Absolutely.
JAMIE: So we've kind of touched on this a little
bit, but I'd like to go a little more in depth
joint decision making. Where do folks go wrong
here?
MELISSA: There's a lot of places where folks can
go wrong. I would say mainly something that I
see most often is when parents make decisions
for the child, such as medical appointment, for
example, and they make the appointment and then
on the day of the appointment, they send a text
that says, hey, I wanted to let you know I'm taking
John to the pediatrician. I want to get him tested
for ADHD. That is a very important decision that
needs to be made jointly between the two parties.
And that is a decision that needs to be consulted
with the other parent and discussed with the other
parent before making the appointment. Just because
you're sharing the appointment time and date does
not mean that you've actually consulted with the
other parent. I think people forget that step
and leave that step out. That occurs oftentimes where there's one parent during the
marriage that is the one that's kind of the fallback
from making the appointments. And that's typical
for most marriages. You have your certain responsibilities and maybe dad's responsible for signing
up for extracurricular activities, but mom's responsible
for the appointments. Or that's just kind of by
default how it's worked out. When you separate,
that tends to just kind of fall in line. But you
have to remember that things are a little bit
different now that you're separated and you do
need to be consulting with the other parent and
getting their thoughts and getting there. Okay.
Yeah.
JAMIE: And I think, too, there can be a little
bit of gamesmanship here, which I don't love as
a lawyer, I think that sometimes, for example,
the pediatrician appointment that you mentioned
clearly that's an appointment that probably needed
to be on a calendar for months before it was actually
time for the appointment. And so the parent in
that scenario would have had more than ample time
to reach out to their co parent to say, hey, thinking
about putting this on the calendar for this day.
Can you be there? And so it is really important
that you not play those types of games with your
co parent. And if you think the appointment is
necessary and you want the child to go, let the
other parent know, get their input. I mean, you
guys may disagree about whatever the issue is,
and it's important to get out ahead of that and
discuss it.
MELISSA: Right, exactly. So I see that with appointments,
we also see issues with regards to, like you said
earlier, mental health decisions. And sometimes
competitive sports take up a lot of time and most
of the time are going to fall on both parties
weekends or somehow fall on both parties custodial
time. And so making sure that both parties support
that competitive sport is really important.
JAMIE: Yeah, especially those travel sports. Those
can be tough. I've heard it a lot recently with
the travel hockey, the gymnastics, where there
are meets or games in different states. I mean,
that can be tough.
MELISSA: Absolutely inexpensive. Most of the time
people are going to share in some regard their
extracurricular activity expenses, and we don't
have to get into that piece of it. But that does
come into play and certainly has to be factored
in as part of the decision as to whether or not
that's viable. Right.
JAMIE: Another area where I've seen people go
Awry, and I don't think it's intentional registering
the child for kindergarten. When folks are separated
and living in different houses, either parent's
address can be used as the base address for the
school. And so maybe mom or dad, whichever, parent
just takes it upon themselves to register the
child for kindergarten, not even thinking there
needs to be a conversation about school choice.
You have more than one school that is available
for the child and maybe your co parent doesn't
want the child to attend the school associated
with your base address.
MELISSA: Absolutely. It's a little bit easier
when they're already enrolled, already attending
school because you can just kind of have the just
maintain status quo and have what they're doing.
Just kind of be the thing that's done. It is different
when you're making that first registration, that
first decision. And I don't know that most people,
if you don't have a child that you've registered
for kindergarten, a lot of people don't realize
how early it is. Typically it's sometime in January
before the start of the year. And so lots of decisions
have to be made pretty early. So you have to stay
ahead of it.
JAMIE: Well, and it's an ordeal. I mean, having
just registered a child for kindergarten myself,
you have to have all the paperwork in order. You've
got to take it to the school. I mean, it's more
than just filling out a form online.
MELISSA: Right. And there's decisions related
to charter schools and magnet schools and all
of these other things that come into play that
really need to be discussed ahead of time.
JAMIE: Absolutely. So we've talked about all the
things that you should do to be a good co parent
and to communicate and consult and try to make
joint decisions. What if you do all of those things
and your co parent simply just doesn't respond
to you?
MELISSA: That happens often. What I tell my clients
is to continue to relay the information even if
you're not getting feedback or response. If you
have to have a decision made, there needs to be
a yes or no response. Send an email that says
something to the effect of if I don't hear from
you by Friday, I'm going to assume that you consent
to me getting John tested for ADHD. And that way
the fallback is the assumption is yes, I consent
if you don't get a response. If you do get a response,
great. That elicited some sort of conversation
and you guys can discuss it and try to make a
joint decision about it. But otherwise at least
you've got something in writing that says that
I made the assumption that I told you I was going
to make because I didn't hear from you by X date.
Right.
JAMIE: I mean, burying your head in the sand is
not a good solution. And we see plenty of co parents
that try to do that. And that can be terribly
frustrating for the parent who is trying to get
whatever the thing is done for the child. But
I think that is a great strategy to handle that.
MELISSA: Yeah. And our judges don't like people
that are non responsive. They really want to see
two parents that are communicating together timely
and effectively. And anytime that the child's,
especially their medical needs are delayed, you
run the risk that the judge could, if you end
up in a courtroom, that the judge could say, okay, well, I'm going to grant sole legal medical decision to the other
parent because they're the only ones that are
attentive to the child's needs. And so you just
need to be careful there.
JAMIE: What happens if you get a response and
you and your co parent don't agree on a decision
that's affecting the child?
MELISSA: That happens often. There's a couple
of different things that you could do. First step,
I think, would be to consult with the professional,
if there's a professional in that area. For example,
if there is a question regarding mental health
therapy, you could certainly just set up an initial meeting with the therapist and let the therapist talk to
the child and let the therapist make the recommendation
as to how often they think the child needs to
be seen, if at all. Or for example, you might
want to consult with the pediatrician or you might
want to consult with the teacher if there's a
question about education. So consulting with the
professional and maybe just deferring to the professional
is a first step if that doesn't work, because
sometimes that doesn't. I see folks that will
schedule a mediation and have the mediator, which
is normally either a family lawyer or most of
the time a family lawyer, that will help the two
of them try and bridge the gap. Sometimes mediators
can kind of think outside the box and come up
with creative solutions that maybe the parents
themselves weren't thinking of because sometimes
if you're too close to it, you can't really be.
JAMIE: Objective well, and mediation is great
because that's something you can do before a lawsuit
is even filed. So let's say that you consult with
professionals. You guys still don't agree, you
schedule a mediation. Nobody has to have filed
a lawsuit for you to be able to do that. So I
think that is just one more step that you can
try to take before you end up in court.
MELISSA: Yes, absolutely. Another thing that I
see folks do is having a parenting coordinator
appointed. This is someone that would have to
be appointed by the court, so there would have
to be an underlying lawsuit filed. But the parenting
coordinator is a third party, typically a therapist or a lawyer. That would become the tiebreaker
and help make decisions. When the two of you can't
otherwise agree, the parenting coordinator's decision,
or they call it a directive, becomes binding,
just as if the judge was ordering the parties
to do something. So a parenting coordinator is
certainly an option that a lot of folks tend to
fall back on.
JAMIE: Yeah, I actually do some work as a parenting
coordinator. Most days I'm just a regular family
law attorney representing folks going through
a divorce. But I do have some cases where I am
the parenting coordinator and I think parenting
coordinators can be very helpful in cases to kind
of be you're sort of like a third parent and you're
the tiebreaker, right? So let's say that mom thinks
the child needs to be medicated for ADHD and dad
doesn't. And they've consulted with the doctor
and the doctor also believes the child should
be medicated, but they still won't agree. Dad
still won't agree. And so if there is a parenting
coordinator who has the authority over, I believe
it's called healthcare management, the parenting coordinator could be that tiebreaker and say, okay, well, I've talked
to the doctor, I've looked at the medical records,
I've talked to mom, I've talked to dad. And based
on all of those things, I think it's best for
the child to take medication as prescribed by
his or her doctor. So I think that that can be
a good solution. The parenting coordinator is
somewhat limited in that there is an appointment
order that sets forth various areas of authority
such as sharing a vacation and holidays or discipline or health care management, all of those things. And
the authority of the parenting coordinator is limited to just those areas.
So if the area is not specified in the order,
it's not a decision your parenting coordinator
is going to be able to help you with. But provided
there are lots of different areas that are selected
in the order, the parenting coordinator can be
very helpful.
MELISSA: Yeah, absolutely. And the good thing
is it helps save some money in that you're not having to run
into a courtroom every single time you have a
decision. But also it gets decisions made timely.
And so some of these decisions can't wait. In
our courts, typically it takes months to get in
to see a judge for a judge to be able to make
that decision. And so if you need a decision made
quickly, the parenting coordinator is a great
option. One of the areas that I see often used
is communication. That's communication between
the parents on how to communicate the parenting
coordinator. One of their roles and objectives,
I think, is to help the two parties communicate,
because oftentimes there's issues there, but also
the parents communicating with the children and
how that's going to happen, when that's going
to happen, how often those are issues that I see
a lot of the times that need to be addressed with
the parenting coordinator. So I suggest giving
the parenting coordinator as much authority as
possible, checking all the boxes on the appointment
order and adding additional to fit the needs of
the family.
JAMIE: Yeah, I agree with that too. I think that
parenting coordinators can be very good at filling
in gaps in the court order. If there is something
that is ambiguous or if there's something that
simply isn't addressed, the parenting coordinator
can make a directive that bridges that gap. Something
that comes to mind is let's say that there is
a parent who travels for work and they have to
schedule a flight that gets them home slightly
after the custodial exchange time. And the other
parent doesn't agree. They're like, no, you have
to pick the kids up at exactly 05:00. And the other parent's like, but I don't get in
from my trip until 722, or whatever it is.
MELISSA: Right.
JAMIE: The Parenting Coordinator can step in and
say for this one visit, the pickup time is 730
or 08:00 P.m. Or whatever works to accommodate
the travel.
MELISSA: Right. And ultimately, the Parenting
Coordinator is trying to make decisions that's
best for the children. Sometimes as parents that
have gone through a divorce, they become very
rigid in certain aspects, especially custodial
time, so they can't see objectively how this might
affect the child and what's best for the child.
And so the Parenting Coordinator can kind of take
a step back, look big picture, what's going to
be best for the child? Well, it's not going to
be best for the child if they miss their custodial
time with dad because he was an hour late and
couldn't pick up the child on time. And so the
Parenting Coordinator is very helpful, I think,
in that role. And also, you spoke to it earlier,
but the Parenting Coordinator has a lot of authority
in that they can contact professionals or they
can contact all the people that are associated
with whatever issue is brought to them. So a lot
of the times the Parenting Coordinator will contact
a teacher, for example, or contact a therapist
or contact the doctor, and it just gives them
a little bit more information to make an informed
decision about that issue.
JAMIE: In my work as a PC, I often say to my clients,
I'm not always going to agree with you. I'm not
always going to agree with the other party, but
I will always make a decision that will bring
peace to your child. The goal is to reduce conflict
because reducing that conflict ultimately is going
to be best for the child.
MELISSA: Right, exactly. And so sometimes the
parents or parties can't do that themselves. They
need the help of a Parenting Coordinator or sometimes
a judge.
JAMIE: Absolutely. So let's talk about that. We've
talked about how a Parenting Coordinator can be
helpful, but there are some cases where the Parenting
Coordinator is not. What do you do if the PC is
not effective?
MELISSA: Well, you're going to end up in front
of a judge, and you're ultimately going to have
to have the judge make the decision as to what's
best for the child. And in some instances, the
judge may award sole legal custody to one parent
on all issues. I have seen, though, where a judge
has kind of split the baby, so to speak, and they've
awarded sole legal custody on certain issues to
mom and other issues to dad. For example, if mom
has, let's say, an educational background, let's
say mom's the teacher, and she's always been involved,
mainly involved with the child's education. Maybe
they would award legal for educational decisions
to mom or let's say mom's a doctor, for example,
and that she's been very involved in the medical
issues. Maybe they award sole legal for medical
issues to mom or dad's a therapist. They might
award mental health to dad. So it really just
depends on kind of their involvement in the past
and their decisions in the past. And I do think
the judge is going to want to know that whoever
they award soul legal to is going to be communicative
with the other parent. They're not going to award soul legal if they feel like they're
going to withhold information or not consult with
the other parent. Because even if one parent gets
the final authority to make the decision, you're
still going to be ordered to consult with the
other parent and discuss the issue with the other
parent and then you ultimately get to make the
decision. But typically it's not unless the other parent is just not involved at all. Typically
it's not just you can do whatever you want to,
right.
JAMIE: You don't get to bypass them. You still
have to deal with them and talk to them and make
sure that they're informed.
MELISSA: Right? I know I have some parents that
come to me and they're like, how can I get it
so that I just never have to talk to them again?
Well, you don't get that benefit.
JAMIE: That ship has sailed. You have a child
together.
MELISSA: That's right. And so you don't get that
benefit anymore and it's not good for the kids.
JAMIE: Right.
MELISSA: And so as difficult as it may be to effectively
or respectfully communicate with the other parent,
it's really best for the children if you can.
JAMIE: So I often have clients come in for initial
consultations and they say, I want sole legal
custody. I want to file a lawsuit. I want to ask
for sole legal custody. In your experience, how
likely is it that a court is going to award sole
legal custody just right off the bat without trying
some other stuff first?
MELISSA: Very unusual. Obviously I can't give
it a percentage, but I would say very difficult.
Typically before the court will award sole legal
custody, they're going to try and put some other
alternatives in place such as suggest that they
get a parenting coordinator or attend mediation
or consult the professional. There's just so many
other things that they can do as a parent. We
do have rights to make decisions for our children
unless we lose those rights. And so to the extent
that both parents are fit and able and have the
ability to make those decisions, the judge most
likely is going to say joint legal custody is
best for the kids.
JAMIE: What are some of the things that folks
can do to impact their decision making rights for the children? What is some of the bad behavior that
we see that can affect their ability. To do that.
MELISSA: I think failing to communicate, failing
to communicate timely, not sharing information,
playing games.
JAMIE: Yeah.
MELISSA: Using the children kind of as pawns. So that it's very clear to
the court that the decisions are not being made
about what's best for the children, but they're
making the decision about what's best for the
parent or what the parent wants, rather than putting
the child first. And so the judge ultimately,
it's their job to do what's best for the children.
And that might not be convenient for mom or convenient
for dad. I see that a lot. Well, this isn't going
to work for me because of X, Y and Z. Well, you're
going to have to figure it out because that's
what the judge thinks is going to be best for
the child.
JAMIE: Yeah. I think substance abuse can also
be another issue that affects a person's rights
to make decisions for the children. If they're
suffering from an addiction that hampers their
ability to make good decisions, or maybe they
have an untreated mental health condition that
is also hampering their ability to make good decisions,
I think that that could potentially affect their
ability to have legal custody.
MELISSA: Yeah. Especially if there's an underlying
mental health issue and they're not being treated
for it and they're not taking their medication,
and they're notorious for that. Absolutely. I've
seen that as well, even though a lot of the times
it's not forever. If there is a substance abuse
issue, what the court will they may award temporary
sole legal custody to one parent or the other
until the person with that substance abuse can
get the treatment that they need. And so they're
not looking to exclude the parent. They're looking
to make sure that the parent is healthy and stable
and is making good judgments for the children.
JAMIE: Melissa, is there anything else that you
would like to add that we haven't talked about
today?
MELISSA: I don't think so. We've covered a lot.
There's been a lot of information shared. Obviously,
every case is case specific, fact specific, and
what a child needs, and every case is a little
different. So I do always encourage my clients
to try to stay out of court if you can, because
ultimately the parents are the best people to
make decisions about what's best for their child.
The judge is only going to hear the case for a
few hours, and so the judge is not the person
in the best place to make those decisions. So
to the extent that you can try to communicate
effectively with the other parent, try to be respectful,
professional, courteous, I would encourage them
to do that.
JAMIE: So are there certain situations where even
though it's difficult, you would encourage your
client to seek sole legal custody?
MELISSA: Yes, absolutely. Anytime that the child
is not safe, I would encourage my clients to ask
for sole legal custody. For example, maybe someone
has a substance abuse issue and they're leaving
the child unattended for long periods of time
or a young child unattended for any period of
time. In situations as that I would certainly
ask for sole legal or maybe a child's medical
need is not being met or not being met timely.
I have some cases in the past where a parent has
not acknowledged that there is an underlying medical
condition and so they're just not getting the
treatment that they need. In those situations,
having one parent be able to make the decision
and be able to make it timely is what's best for
the child.
JAMIE: Yeah, I've also seen that in cases where
one parent will kind of bury their head in the
sand. I feel like I've said that a lot, but it
happens about whether or not a child should be
evaluated for learning disabilities. I know we've
discussed ADHD sometimes with vaccinations. Absolutely.
MELISSA: A lot too, especially during this COVID
season. We've seen that.
JAMIE: Right. And if one parent does not have
sole legal custody, it can really slow down these
decisions that need to be made rather quickly
for the child. And so it does end up being in
the child's best interest that one parent or the
other have sole legal custody. So can you give
me an example of where a parent might be interfering
with the child's activities in a way that might
warrant sole legal custody?
MELISSA: It happens a lot with mental health.
It can happen with medical providers, but also
it could happen as far as daycare providers or
childcare providers. Maybe they are interfering
with the relationship with the babysitter, for
example, or constantly changing the babysitter,
or interfering somehow with the daycare provider,
getting them kicked out somehow of daycare and
enforcing them to constantly continue to move
the child. I mean, stability and consistency is
always best for the children. And so if a judge
thinks that someone is just, again, it's playing
games, it's doing what? There are some cases that
we have, and I don't know if it's an underlying
mental health issue or why, but there are some
cases where people just want to create drama and
create conflict and just to have I don't know
if it's just to continue.
JAMIE: That the connection.
MELISSA: The connection to the other spouse. Right,
exactly. And so they're not thinking about what's
best for the child. They don't care about what's
best for the child. They're just constantly in
this state of conflict and turmoil with the other
parent. And so in those situations, the judge
potentially may say, okay, well, the parent that's
going to provide most stability for the child
is the one that's going to be making sole decisions
for the child.
JAMIE: Thanks Melissa, for joining us and thank
you for listening. If you like this episode, be
sure to follow the show wherever you get your
podcast so you don't miss the next one. While
this information is intended to provide you with
general information to navigate divorce without destruction, this podcast is not legal advice.
This information is specific to the law in North
Carolina. If you have any questions before taking
action, consult an attorney who is licensed in
your state. If you are in need of assistance in
North Carolina, contact us at gaylorhunt by visiting
divorcestuff.com. I'm Jamie Davis, and I'll talk
with you next time on A Year in A Day.