NPO Blog Archive

April 17, 2020 by Robert Franklin, JD, Member, National Board of Directors

There’s bad news on the child protection front (KSAT, 4/13/20).  In Texas and across the country, calls to child protective agencies during the COVID-19 crisis have sharply decreased.  By 20% in Texas, by 50% in Wisconsin and elsewhere, reports of child abuse and neglect have dropped precipitously.

And CPS officials aren’t happy about it.  Not one bit.

A perfect storm — that’s what some child abuse prevention advocates are calling the coronavirus pandemic.

For a month now, children at risk of abuse and neglect have been locked in homes with parents ill-equipped to deal with the stress, anxiety, and uncertainty of the virus. Some worry the longer this crisis continues, it will lead to another epidemic of child abuse and neglect cases.

Randy Burton is particularly worried about the impact the health crisis is having on kids who were already living in crisis. The Houston-based attorney, former Harris County prosecutor, and founder of the non-profit Justice For Children fears what’s happening behind closed doors.

“This is a bad situation. It’s open season on these children right now,” Burton said. “We would anticipate that there will be significant increases in (abuse) reports.”

“Open season on these children?”  Really?  Being home with their parents is fraught with peril?  It’s astonishing to see people wringing their hands and making the wildest statements with absolutely no evidence for their claims.  What’s happening “behind closed doors?”  No one knows because the doors are, well, closed.  Burton doesn’t know and neither do I.  But I don’t assume that children are at increased risk of abuse, while Burton and many others take it for granted.

What is unquestionably true is that kids are no longer in school and aren’t allowed to go out publicly to parks, malls, etc. nearly as much as they recently could.  And, since many “mandated reporters” – teachers and other school officials, police officers, etc. – are to be found in those locations, there won’t be as many reports of abuse.  Clearly, that’s no surprise.

Here’s a rundown of where reports to CPS agencies come from nationwide (Richland Source, 4/11/20):

According to www.childwelfare.gov, the most common professional report sources were education personnel (19.4 percent), legal and law enforcement personnel (18.3 percent), social services staff (11.7 percent), and medical personnel (9.6 percent).

The remaining reports were made by nonprofessionals (17.3 percent), such as friends, neighbors, and relatives, or by unclassified reporters (17.0 percent), a category that includes anonymous and unknown reporters.

It’s strange in the extreme that the various opiners on children assume that kids are at increased risk because they’re spending more time with their parents than previously.  In fact, it’s entirely possible that the vast majority of the decrease in calls to CPS agencies are those that didn’t need to be made in the first place.

What none of the articles I’ve read mentions is that, nationwide, 80% of calls reporting suspected abuse or neglect are unfounded.  That’s according to the Administration for Children and Families that collects child abuse data from the states every year.  There are about 3.4 million such reports every year, but under 700,000 of them report actual harm to a child.  Of those, over 70% show neglect, not abuse.  Now, I strongly suspect that, with more parents at home with the kids, neglect of children is significantly lower than it previously was.  How can it be otherwise?  So I suspect that one impact of the virus on children is that they’re being better cared for than before.  

Plus, we can’t forget that mandatory reporters run a huge risk if they see something that might indicate abuse or neglect but fail to report it.  In Texas, it’s a felony to fail to report and that also likely means the loss of employment.  So needless to say, mandatory reporters are highly motivated to call CPS at even the slightest hint of abuse or neglect.  It stands to reason then that they’re responsible for a lot of the over-reporting that plagues the system.

In short, it’s likely that much of the drop-off in reports is due to mandatory reporters not having contact with children and not making reports that don’t need to be made.

But we won’t hear that from the likes of Randy Burton or CPS officials who seem to have a vested interest in keeping the public as alarmed as possible about danger – whether real or imagined – to kids.

April 16, 2020 by Robert Franklin, JD, Member, National Board of Director

I recently posted a piece lauding courts for generally continuing to enforce whatever custody and parenting time orders are in place during the time restrictions on human interaction are in place due to the risk of contracting COVID-19.  This case is a rare exception (CNN, 4/13/20).  It’s also an opportunity to explore some of the reasons why the virus must not be used as an excuse to limit children’s time with one parent or another.

Dr. Theresa Greene is an emergency room physician in Florida.  She’s been divorced from her ex-husband, Eric, for two years and the couple have a young daughter.  The two have, until recently, shared parenting time equally. 

But Eric went to court to request that Theresa’s time with their daughter be stopped for some period of time, presumably until the risk of contracting the virus abates.  Judge Bernard Shapiro’s order includes make-up time for Theresa when the emergency is over and daily Skype time with her daughter.  So, whatever its other shortcomings, the order isn’t as bad as it might be.

Understandably, Theresa is appealing the order on the ground that it discriminates against her as a divorced parent.  She makes a good point.  As she says in the video interview that accompanies the article, if she were married, no one would tell her not to go home to her family every night, even though she’d worked at the hospital all day and been exposed to COVID-19.  That’s true and there’s no coherent argument to be made for treating divorced and married parents differently, certainly not in Greene’s situation.

But there’s a larger point too.  The simple fact is that this virus will eventually abate, a vaccine will be developed or perhaps hydroxycholoroquine plus an antibiotic will prove effective at combatting it.  However that happens, prior to this particular pandemic and after it, doctors have been and will be exposed to infectious diseases.  So will nurses.  So will hospital orderlies.  So will secretaries and various  assistants for all sorts of medical providers.  So will EMTs.

Should they all be restricted from seeing their children?  After all, the diseases to which they’re exposed can be dangerous and their children can in turn be exposed and potentially infected.  There’s little difference between COVID-19 and many other infectious diseases in their ability to sicken and even kill children. 

There is no reasoning that demands removing all parents who are medical providers from their children based on their exposure to disease at their places of work.  Therefore, there is no reasoning that we should do that to parents who are exposed to COVID-19.  Yes, this virus is somewhat more easily transmissible than some others, but it’s also less deadly than many, particularly for children. 

Judge Shapiro’s order does not constitute a precedent in any case; it’s binding on no one except Eric and Theresa.  But no one should consider it authoritative.  On the contrary, it should be rejected as wrongly thought out by all and sundry.

Moreover, this order is one more pernicious example of the misuse of the concept of the “best interests of the child,” that’s too often been used to deny parental rights on less than solid grounds.  The best interests standard is so vague as to mean little at all, if anything.  It’s a tabula rasa on which every judge is invited to write his/her own ideas about proper parenting.  Not only are judges untrained in what actually constitutes children’s best interests, they routinely ignore the most important thing that promotes those interests – meaningful relationships with both parents.  Removing Theresa Greene’s child from her care due to the fear that the child may contract the virus is not in her interests, but Shapiro seems to have looked only at the risk of illness and not the certainty of trauma suffered by the child on the temporary loss of her mother.

Last, as poorly as judges manage custody and parenting time, child protective service organizations do much worse.  Charged with protecting children from abuse or neglect, caseworkers too often err on the side of taking children from their parents, thereby causing harm where none is warranted.  We often see CPS officials taking children from parents based only on what they perceive as the risk of abuse or neglect, instead of abuse or neglect itself.

I can easily see CPS caseworkers doing the same during the COVID-19 outbreak and using Judge Shapiro’s reasoning to do so.  Does Mom’s work at the hospital pose a threat to her children?  Well, then perhaps they should be taken from her.  Doing so doesn’t make sense, but so much of what CPS does is senseless.

It can’t be overstated: medical professionals of all sorts are daily exposed to illness.  That never has and does not now constitute a justification for limiting their access to their children or their children’s time with them.  Period.

April 14, 2020 by Robert Franklin, JD, Member, National Board of Directors

With the massive changes brought about by COVID-19, the question that’s in the back of a lot of people’s minds is “How does this affect existing court orders for custody and parenting time?”  After all, we’re supposed to limit contact between individuals and children traveling between homes means more exposure for all involved.  So perhaps the answer is for whoever has the kids to keep them until restrictions on contact are loosened.

But, from my vantage point, I see courts uniformly instructing parents and lawyers that, whatever order is in effect remains in effect until modified.  In other words, as far as parenting time orders go, there’s been no change, virus or no virus.

I maintain multiple Google Alerts for a wide variety of topics, including terms like “shared parenting,” “non-custodial parent,” “child’s best interests,” and the like.  I receive scores of articles every day and, since the advent of the virus, a huge number of them have been about what happens to parenting time and parent-child contact orders during lockdown or otherwise restricted contact.

The answer across the board is “nothing.”  Everything remains the same as before.  Literally no article or piece of news I’ve seen in the past three weeks – and there have been hundreds of them – says anything else.  It’s true from coast to coast.  Here’s one piece from the excellent Marilyn York in Nevada (Reno Gazette, 4/7/20).  And NPO just received a letter from the Chief Judge of the Probate and Family Courts of Massachusetts, Judge John D. Casey.  Both are clear as a bell: orders that were in effect remain in effect.

And that includes parents who are on the front lines of caring for COVID-19 patients.  The fact that you’re a nurse or an EMT can’t be used against you in a modification hearing.  Yes, you have greater exposure to the virus, but courts are not allowing that to interfere with your parenting time.

The answer to increased exposure is to be extra diligent in limiting your potential exposure to others.  So being more than usually cognizant of washing hands, clothes and other items that have been contacted by others is important, as is keeping your distance when it’s possible.

Plus of course, just because this crisis is upon us doesn’t mean that kids in some way no longer need both parents.  In fact, they probably need them more.  The crisis itself and the many changes it’s brought about in everyone’s life are bad enough for children and so it’s even more important than usual to make sure their relationships with their parents aren’t impaired.  In his letter, Judge Casey made a special point of exactly that.

Courts are to be lauded for doing the right thing and not allowing this critical time to be used as an excuse to limit parents’ contact with their children.

April 10, 2020 by Robert Franklin, JD, Member, National Board of Directors

Dr. Linda Nielsen has written an important and necessary book.  Entitled Improving Father/Daughter Relationships: A Guide for Women and Their Dads, it’s based on Nielsen’s many years of research into father-daughter dynamics as well as the work of other established social scientists.  It’s scientifically based, but written for lay people.  It’s a book for any father or daughter who’s concerned about their relationship with the other.  It’s for any father who’s expecting a daughter or already has one of any age.  It’s for any daughter in her mid-late teens or older.  And, although the title doesn’t mention it, it’s for mothers with daughters.

Improving Father/Daughter Bonds is scheduled for release in June.  The book can be purchased here.  And here it is on Dr. Nielsen’s website.  

As a professor and researcher in adolescent psychology, Nielsen asks fathers and daughters who believe they can improve their relationship with each other to familiarize themselves with the applicable research first.  That’s because there’s a welter of mis/disinformation about fathers which it’s essentially impossible to avoid.

Fathers and daughters start out with a disadvantage in part because our society idealizes mothers in ways that undermine the father-daughter bond. Media, commercials, children’s storybooks, TV sitcoms and films generally portray mothers in more favorable ways. Compared to dads, the moms are more unselfish, understanding, sympathetic, insightful, trustworthy, and self-sacrificing. Even Father’s Day cards often make dad look like a moron compared to mom. Indeed, you will have a hard time finding Mother’s Day cards that make women look as incompetent and insensitive as fathers. American children and their parents are surrounded by messages that idealize mothers and that sideline, denigrate, or mock fathers.

Anyone with an interest in fathers and fatherhood knows the genre.  Needless to say, kids, including daughters, absorb the message often to the detriment of their relationship with their father.  So do fathers who can all too readily conclude that they’re incompetent at parenting and poorly designed for the job.

But the research that Nielsen asks readers to learn says otherwise.  In fact, fathers are every bit as competent at parenting and necessary to kids as are mothers.  As readers of this blog well know, humans are a bi-parental species; our kids need both parents and both parents provide parenting inputs that are special (if not unique) to them.  Nielsen wants us to look past the news media and pop culture to what science tells us about fathers and their kids.  She can’t shout that too loudly.  It’s a message we all need to hear and internalize.

Fathers have a profound, lifelong impact on their daughters’ well-being—their academic and career success, income and job security, romantic relationships and marriage, drug and alcohol use, and her physical and mental health. Though we tend to overlook this reality, daughters also have a big impact on their fathers. When fathers are not getting along well with their daughters, especially if they are growing apart, fathers are more physically stressed, anxious, unhappy, and depressed. In extreme cases, when they seem to be losing all connection to their daughters, fathers are more likely to become suicidal and more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol.

In the book, one of her most effective methods of teaching research findings to readers is via “What do you think?” quizzes that ask readers’ beliefs about a wide range of topics.  In taking the quizzes, readers focus on what they believe about fathers and their impact on and importance to their children.  All too often, those beliefs are products of popular culture or simple bias.  As one example, Nielsen asks readers to agree or disagree with the following assertions:

1. Most women choose jobs that demand less time that most men’s jobs.
2. Some mothers do not want their husbands to do any more of the childcare.
3. Most fathers earn nearly 70% of the family’s income.
4. When both parents have full-time jobs, fathers still work 7 more hours than mothers.
5. Most fathers wish they could spend more time with their children.
6. Mothers are generally more sensitive, compassionate and cooperative than fathers.
7. Women have an inborn instinct for mothering and nurturing children that men lack.
8. Fathers are far more likely than mothers to physically abuse or kill their children.
9. Almost 30% of American daughters are sexually abused by their fathers.
10. Mothers have a greater impact on children than do fathers.
11. Mothers are far more stressed than fathers trying to balance work and family.
12. Mothers enjoy being parents far more than fathers do.
13. When children reach school age, mothers spend about three times more time with them

than fathers do.

14. Compared to women, men say being parent is less important to their happiness and

identity.

15. The main reason mothers do more of the childcare is that dads refuse to do it.

The first five are correct, the next 10 incorrect.  But how many lay people would answer them all correctly?  My guess is very few.  And in that way, Nielsen challenges their pre-conceived notions and provides a window on the deep and broad science on parenting.

Because hers is a book for lay people and because she wants fathers and daughters to be closer than many of them are, Nielsen offers readers a “how-to” approach to healing damaged relationships.  It’s a four-step process.  Step One is to learn the research on the topic at issue.  So, if a father’s adult daughter wants to have a baby out of wedlock and Dad is opposed, it can be helpful for them both to know that out-of-wedlock childbearing is a very unstable arrangement that often results in the child growing up without a father.

Step Two is “Don’t Make Assumptions.”  So, if a daughter has boyfriend issues, money problems, school issues, etc., she may assume that her father will react a certain way if she brings them up with him.  She may be right about her assumptions, but she may be wrong. 

This is why a daughter needs to invest time, lots of time, finding out: Who is this man? What does he feel and believe—and why? Where do his beliefs and feelings come from? His parents? His religion? His experiences as an adult? Something he read? Things he has heard about other people’s experiences?

Step Three is “Identify and Share Your Fears.”  If there’s an issue between a father and daughter, it’s likely that each harbors concerns about how the other will react if the issue is confronted.  Those fears need to be faced and dealt with.

Finally, fathers and daughters need to “Propose a Plan” to resolve the issue.  Doing so involves three steps.

First, only ask for one change. Do not reel off a list of all the things you want the other person to change. Just focus on one or maybe two changes that you think would help resolve the situation.

Second, tell one another how you feel about the troublesome situation as it now stands. Sharing your feelings helps the other person understand why it is important to settle things between you. For instance, if the current situation makes you feel unloved, say so. Or if it makes you feel unappreciated or taken for granted, they say it. Sharing feelings also helps you perceive each other as vulnerable, sensitive people. Again, you want to be specific when you talk about your feelings. I feel “bad” or I feel “sad” is not very specific. Try these kinds of words instead to describe your feelings: unloved, unlovable, unappreciated, unwanted, abandoned, and rejected. Whatever your feeling is, own up to it and state it.

The third step is the hardest. What are you going to do differently to contribute to a solution? You need to offer at least one change in exchange for the change that you are asking the other person to make. Both people have to contribute to the solution. It can’t be all give on one side and all take on the other.

Nielsen’s book is rich with intelligence and even wisdom.  In this era of family breakdown and disinformation about fathers, it provides vital information that counteracts widespread and inaccurate beliefs and helps create and sustain healthy father-daughter relationships. 

I’ll have more to say about Improving Father/Daughter Bonds when it comes out in June.

April 9, 2020 by Linda Reutzel, National Parents Organization of Missouri and Ken Goins, Esq., Director, Protecting American Families

According to CNBC the Federal Government estimates that job losses could total 47 million and the unemployment rate could hit 32% because of the Covid 19 pandemic.  Currently, the historical impact on the economy has had a drastic effect on the daily lives of most families.

Our society has a deep heart-felt empathetic understanding that many single-parent families are hit even harder by layoffs, hiring freezes, furloughs, reduction in hours etc. In response the government has said it’s going to send money to every adult earning less than $100,000.  However, this monetary help will not be sent to the families of obligor-parents who are late on support payments. So in the middle of record unemployment which is a direct indication of needing help, our government will not provide the same help to the families of obligor-parents late in payments.  This is stereotyped-bias, illogical and destructive to the children. This focus on punishing all obligor-parents hurts their children because that money will not get to the child[ren] thru either parent. See Eternal Verities in a time of Change by NPO’s Robert Franklin, JD.

When it comes to single-parent families where the parent is an obligor for support payments, our society has difficulty recognizing the hardship the loss of income has on that family.   This is because of an offensive gender-based stereotype peddled by many that is based on an incorrect assumption that obligors are all potential absent deadbeats and not really part of the family.

Our message to obligor-parents is this:

1. Once the obligor-parent has a loss in income the obligor should consider immediately filing a request for a downward modification with the administrative agency and a request in court. The Missouri Supreme Court has a website with fill-in-the-blank documents that those without attorneys can use to file for downward modifications in court. https://www.courts.mo.gov/page.jsp?id=38397 and for help with understanding the basic steps this webpage has information –https://www.courts.mo.gov/page.jsp?id=38396
2. Also, every parent should complete a Missouri Form 14 that can be found on the internet to calculate your monthly obligation after the reduction in income.http://www.freeform14.com/ and/or http://form14.teamlex.com/

Our current laws incorrectly assume the obligor-parent has an ability to pay and does not require the agency/courts to order a downward modification when there is a loss/reduction in income. In fact, in Missouri our agency/regulations require:

1. A notarized application that alleges at least a 50% reduction in income that exists for at least 3 MONTHS and will continue for at least another 6 MONTHS. So 49% is NOT enough.
2. Even then, the agency is not required to seek a downward modification, but simply has the obligation to review and can refuse a downward modification request for any or no reason.
3. The agency’s standard notice to obligor’s incorrectly states that it can refuse a request for a modification made for an order less than three years old and routinely denies modification requests simply because the order is less than 3 years old regardless of the obligor’s loss of income or (in)ability to pay.
4. Our courts/agency place those on probation or enter into payment arrangements that require 1.5 times the original amount the obligor could not pay originally, without helping them obtain downward modifications.

The attorney for the agency, defended this practice saying that obligor-parents should have saved and anticipated the loss of income and their failure to anticipate the loss is an intentional failure to provide for their children.  In the real world, most families live paycheck to paycheck so it’s quite difficult to save for a rainy day.  Most obligor parents share custody so child support is more than just financial.  But loss of job might force the obligor-parent to sell the family-car, family-refrigerator, family-stove and other family-necessities to meet the financial obligation to the children.  This actually forces families of the obligor-parent who cannot afford the monthly payment to take out a loan to make the payment.  So our courts are actually encouraging the use of payday loans!  Finally, the courts/agency even assume that every obligor-parent is a finance expert who can predict the economy and layoffs and furloughs (and pandemics!).   In fact, until last year all obligor-parents in Missouri were legally defined as absent.

In a federal court constitutional challenge to its suspension of licenses without assessing (in)ability to pay, the agency very clearly used the incorrect assumption(stereotype) in the first line of its defense:

Plaintiffs are noncustodial parents who have failed to financially support their children, as legally required.

Our courts/agency fail to acknowledge that every obligor-parent is not an absent selfish deadbeat. Our courts/agency fail to establish the ability to pay as the legal criteria for how much if any amount should be paid to the other parent when most parents are sharing custody.  We all know a mother or father who are not meeting their responsibility, but when we begin to prejudge all parents and change our legal structure to reflect this bias, we are harming the families, especially the children. 

Visiting the support-agency website, you clearly see how to file for services, but there is no easily locatable tab labeled “modifications”.  Cases are established at the field offices throughout the state, but modifications are given less priority and only handled in the central office. 

With a loss of income, you MUST get the monthly obligation lowered so you can pay it or else the balance will accrue and you will be treated as if you had the money and were simply too selfish to pay it. There are groups that provide basic free information on child support.  You should reach out and visit them and if they charge a modest fee it is money well spent.

The bias against the families of obligor parents who fall on hard times is real and not warranted.   Most parents love and want to raise their children.  It is shameful that in this epic crisis our government officials would choose to ignore the suffering endured by the families of obligor-parents, especially their children.

April 8, 2020 by Robert Franklin, JD, Member, National Board of Directors

As I said here, the federal stimulus plan to combat the economic ravages of the COVID-19 virus contains an insidious exception.  Everyone who earns under $75,000 per year will receive a check from Washington in the amount of $1,200 – everyone, that is, except non-custodial parents who’ve fallen behind on the child support payments. 

Yes, if you’ve stiffed the government on your student loans, you still get a check.  The same is true if you’ve refused to pay income taxes.  No matter, you still get a check.  But if you’re too poor to pay your child support, you get nothing.

As I pointed out, that is nothing but punitive.  It accomplishes nothing except to punish parents (about 90% of them fathers).  It sends not a sou to kids.  And of course it diminishes the impact of the stimulus.  If handing money to individuals helps the economy, and it does (although to what extent I can’t say), then withholding it from poor parents serves only to make the stimulus less effective.

And of course the parents this affects are overwhelmingly poor.  The Office of Child Support Enforcement has for many years (at least since 2006) reported that those who don’t pay child support are the poorest of the poor.  So keeping them from receiving the checks looks to be doubly mean-spirited.

But last time, I neglected to mention another obvious impact of the draconian limitations place on economic activity due to the virus.  However many non-custodial parents were behind on their child support before the lockdown, there will soon be very, very many more.  Countless child support obligors have been furloughed, laid off or fired.  Countless more will be before the economic impact of the lockdown runs its course.  That means that millions of parents will find themselves unable to make their payments and fall behind.  And in due course, they’ll begin to accumulate arrears and the arrears will accumulate interest and fees.

Now, we all know that, for those parents, the inability to pay is not their fault.  They didn’t invent this disease and no one asked them if they wanted the economy to shut down.  But they’ve still lost their ability to earn and won’t have the money to hire lawyers to request downward modifications in court.  Plus, the courts aren’t able to process cases as quickly as they could when hearings were being held in person.

That all adds up to an urgent necessity.  States must establish quick, easy and free processes through which obligor parents can request and receive downward modifications of their child support orders.  My thought is that a notarized affidavit from the parent’s employer stating that the person is no longer working due to the virus and the lockdown should be sufficient to cancel the obligation for at least three months, at which point another affidavit would be required to extend the cancellation.  I understand that some people will still be able to make their payments even though they’re temporarily not working.  In those cases, hearings should be held after the lockdown to ascertain whether the payments could have been made and, if so, the missing payments could be made up.

But whatever the precise specifics, this is an emergency and states should treat it as such.  The purely punitive approach to child support obligors has been a flawed policy from its inception.  Now is not the time to make a bad policy vastly worse.

April 7, 2020 by Indiana Lee

No one enters into a marriage expecting it to end. Anyone who has been through a divorce knows that it is one of the most traumatic events you will ever face.

But as difficult as it may be for you and your soon-to-be former spouse to accept the dissolution of your marriage, consider how much more painful it can be to your children. The fact is that your children may be frightened, confused, depressed, or even angry about their parents’ divorce, but they may not have the ability to express or even to adequately understand their feelings.

This is why the protection of your child’s mental health is of paramount importance as the divorce process proceeds. But it is not only your child’s psychological well-being that must be preserved.

Moms and dads, too, need mental healthcare as the family makes this difficult transition, not only for their own sake but for the sake of the children. An important strategy for supporting the entire family’s mental health during the divorce process is to incorporate a family-wide mental healthcare plan into custody negotiations.

This will ensure that not only is your child receiving the psychological support she needs, but so too are the parents entrusted to care for her.

The Best Interests of the Child

One of the first and most important issues when it comes to custody negotiations and mental health is the recognition that, in the vast majority of cases, shared custody is in the best interests of the child. Studies increasingly show that strained relationships between the child and one or both parents is a leading cause of mental illness in children, and is an especially important risk factor in the development of anxiety and depression.

Unfortunately, when a divorce occurs, the parent/child relationship rarely goes unaffected. Of particular concern is the reality that, fathers are especially likely to report having little or no contact with their child following a divorce. According to current statistics, roughly 30% of divorced fathers see their children fewer than four times a month.

Studies suggest these impacts on the father/child relationship can even linger well into the child’s adult life. Separation from a parent can lead children to experience not only depression but anxiety and panic disorders. They may act out, blame themselves, or even have trouble forming stable relationships later in life due to a fear of abandonment.

Worse, parental alienation, in which one parent actively seeks to turn the child against the other parent, is not uncommon. The results can be devastating for the child’s relationship with both parents. Not only does the child miss out on the chance to build a healthy relationship with the alienated parent, but he may also ultimately come to resent the custodial parent who deprived him of that relationship.

Seeking Support

As a parent, you may be experiencing mental health issues due simply to the trauma of the divorce and custody fight, or you may have a long history of mental illness. In fact, it is estimated that one in five Americans has some form of mental illness.

But that in no way means you have to give up the right to your children in the event of a divorce. No matter what your diagnosis may be, as long as you are able to provide a safe, secure, happy, and nurturing environment for your child while she is under your care, then the courts should not separate you from her .

However, demonstrating your ability to provide a stable and healthy home life for your child may well mean proving that you are under the care of a reputable professional, one who believes in your ability to give your child the care she needs and is willing to attest to that in court if needed. Seeking the support of a licensed social worker or therapist may be all the proof the courts need of your willingness and ability to take care of yourself so that you can take care of your child.

Unfortunately, this process can be easier said than done for many fathers, who may feel reluctant to seek counseling or psychiatric treatment. Men are routinely stigmatized when it comes to mental healthcare. The “feminization” of mental health has not only led to a disproportionate number of female healthcare providers, but it has also led the courts, as well as families, to overlook or disregard the psychological needs of men. Because of this, fathers may even be afraid to seek help for their depression, anxiety, or other issues, fearing that this may reduce their chances to win custody.

The Takeaway

Child custody isn’t just a legal issue. It is also a mental health one. And that means that protecting the psychological well-being of the entire family is of paramount importance when custody issues are being decided. This includes not only the protection of the child’s relationship with both parents, but also ensuring the support of attorneys, social workers, therapists, and psychologists to help the family make this difficult transition as healthily and happily as possible for all, and especially for the children.

Indiana Lee lives in the Northwest and has a passion for the environment and healthy lifestyles. She draws her inspiration from nature and makes sure to explore the outdoors regularly with her two dogs. Indiana enjoys mountain bicycling and hiking on her off time and has experience in owning and operating her own business. Feel free to contact her at indianaleewrites@gmail.com or follow her on twitter @indianalee3  

April 6, 2020 by Robert Franklin, JD, Member, National Board of Directors

The Australian government is currently conducting a review of family law.  The last time it did so was three years ago.  Why such a quick repudiation of the previous review?  Because it was astonishingly badly done, relied on mythologies about family court at the expense of facts, misrepresented the science on shared parenting, etc.  In short, it needed to go.  Time will tell if the review now under way will be any better.

But the domestic violence establishment in Australia generally liked the previous review because it did away with the need for judges to even consider shared parenting as an arrangement for kids when their parents divorce.  The DV industry has long been, along with divorce lawyers, a reliable opponent of kids retaining meaningful relationships with both parents when the adults split up.  The excuse they offer is that, when a mother claims a father is abusive, he is.  That is, mothers never lie to gain an advantage in custody proceedings.  As a corollary to that, mothers never engage in parental alienation, which, in any case doesn’t exist. 

Such are the D.O.A. notions of DV industry stalwarts.

And of course they have their lapdogs in the press, so it’s no surprise to see The Guardian once again giving space to lawyer Jess Hill to entirely misrepresent not only domestic violence, but its role in family law (The Guardian, 3/14/20).  But I don’t want to be too hard on The Guardian; after all, the article at least admits this:

“Investigative journalist Jess Hill interviewed dozens of abused women, domestic abuse-sector workers, male perpetrators, children’s advocates and system experts over five years in order to write her award-winning book See What You Made Me Do.”

Yes, in her “investigation” of domestic violence and family law, Hill scrupulously avoided speaking to any man who’d been victimized or any female perpetrator.  Stated another way, she was careful to speak with only those who could be counted on to agree with her opinions on matters under discussion.

And sure enough, it worked!  In her Guardian interview, Hill never admits of the possibility of male victims or female perpetrators.  None of the abusers she cites are women and none of the victims are men.

Adding emphasis to the effect, The Guardian helpfully leads the article with a photo of the three Clarke children whose father murdered them not long ago.  Of course it does.  That horrible tragedy has been a staple of Australian news for many weeks and all of the coverage has been in the same vein: “see what men do.”  And when one investigating officer and commentators like Betina Arndt speculated that the Clarke children’s father may have been at his wit’s end due to a variety of pressures in his life, publications like The Guardian excoriated them for being soft on DV and excusing a man’s violent behavior.

But their indignation about Arndt, et al compares poorly with their coverage, just three years ago of Raina Thaiday’s slaughter of her seven children and a niece.  There the press coverage was careful not to blame Thaiday at all and to emphasize her long-term drug use that, some mental health professionals said, triggered schizophrenia.  The fact that Thaiday in no way acted on the spur of the moment, had been threatening for three years to kill the children, but never sought help, escaped her apologists entirely.

The point being that the likes of Jess Hill have a way of picking and choosing the domestic violence they condemn and the domestic violence they forgive.  DV committed by men invariably gets their opprobrium.  That committed by women?  Not so much.

And of course the point of the entire exercise is to maintain mothers’ power over fathers and children in family courts.  That’s why they loathe and fear the ongoing review of family law.  After all, this time, the government might get the matter right.

The uncomfortable fact is that mothers commit more abuse of children than do fathers and are equally violent toward their intimate partners.  So if that’s the sine qua non of losing custody, then Australian dads should be the majority of custodial parents.  But they’re far from it and Jess Hill and her ilk are dead set on anything changing.  That strongly suggests that it’s not violence that concerns them, but the dread prospect of fathers getting some sort of power in family courts. 

April 2, 2020 by Robert Franklin, JD, Member, National Board of Directors

‘Tis a season of change, a time of upheaval.  It’s an era in which everyday life has been turned upside down and things we thought of as givens now aren’t.  Do you need to go to the hardware store for a part for the leaky valve in the sink?  You can’t.  Thought you had a stable job?  You were wrong.  Some things are known to be certain as a matter of cliché, but now even taxes won’t be collected at the usual time.  Death?  That’s another matter.

So in this time of crisis and uncertainty, where it seems nothing is predictable, it’s “good” to know that at least one of life’s eternal verities remains.  I refer of course to sticking it to poor parents for child support (NBC News, 3/27/20).  That, my friends, continues to be public policy, even now.

As we all know, the federal Treasury will soon be mailing out checks to individuals who reported under $75,000 in income on their tax returns last year.  And pretty much all of those people will be getting them – except for those owing child support.  So, for example, Sarah may be behind on repaying her student debt, but she needn’t worry.  She’ll get her check in due course.  So will Jason even though he owes the Internal Revenue Service a hefty amount in back income taxes.  The government is empowered to collect those debts and could withhold Sarah’s or Jason’s check and credit the amount toward their indebtedness.  But it won’t do that.  For them, the check’s in the mail, and this time, it really is.

Not so Randall who’s fallen behind on his child support.  No, he gets nothing.  Never mind that, if he got that check, he’d be better able to support his child.  And never mind that the government’s keeping it from him won’t provide the child one penny more than she otherwise would have.  None of those obvious facts matter.  Like the system of child support enforcement, the federal government’s action on stimulus payments is purely punitive.  It assumes that non-custodial parents are able to pay what they’ve been ordered to, but don’t out of spite, greed or whatever. 

In sum, the stimulative effect of the checks is blunted, the lives of non-custodial parents are made worse and no child is benefited.  Make sense?

And let’s not forget that those who owe child support are, generally speaking, the poorest of the poor, i.e. the ones who most need and would most benefit from those checks.  The Office of Child Support Enforcement has long told us that over 60% of those in arrears report incomes under $10,000 per year.  Those are people to whom $1,200 is real money.  But they won’t get it, not because they don’t need it and not because they don’t care about their kids. 

Overwhelmingly, those parents don’t pay because they can’t.  And, since they don’t even have the money to pay what they owe, they certainly don’t have the money pay a lawyer to file for a downward modification of their support order.  So their arrears go up and up and interest and fees only add to the burden that will never, never be lifted.

That’s why the Department of Health and Human Services has for years reported that at least 40% of what’s owed is completely uncollectable.  It’s a bad debt that any sensible business would have written off years or decades ago.

But not the federal or state governments.  They go right along pretending that, if they keep hammering on it long enough, that stone really will produce blood.  It’s a fool’s game that the politicians are playing solely because they don’t have the courage to admit the truth.  Being tough on “deadbeat dads” remains a ballot-box winner, so common sense and decency must be sacrificed.

And the poorest of the poor, the real hard cases of our society pay the bill so our elected officials can spend five minutes preening for the cameras.

Come to think of it, isn’t that another of those eternal verities?  Yes, I believe it is.

March 31, 2020 by Robert Franklin, JD, Member, National Board of Directors

Here’s a case out of Nebraska that’s noteworthy both for what it is and for what it’s not.

Jesse Coffman and Marcy Nichols were married and had three children, currently aged 12, eight and five.  They divorced and, during the pendency of the litigation, Nichols had primary custody of the kids.  Coffman received the usual every other weekend visitation.  The court found that, generally, both parents are perfectly fit and loving parents and that the children are thriving.

During the divorce process, there was conflict between the parents, albeit not of an extreme nature.  However,

“This is the third paternity action commenced by the Mother.  The prior actions were dismissed at her request.”

That’s the trial court’s terse way of saying that Nichols misused the judicial system to try to harass and inconvenience Coffman.  Now, why he didn’t file his own countersuit so that, if she dismissed hers, his would still be in place and go forward, I don’t know.  Still, when they want to, judges can say a lot with a few words and the judge in Nichols v. Coffman did just that.

Also,

“[T]he mother’s claims regarding threatening, abusive behavior by the Father are not credible. Despite seeking court orders limiting contact with the Father, the Mother continued to initiate contact [with] him. The Mother has displayed a similar pattern with a prior boyfriend as well.  The Mother made a false allegation that the Father had tried to hit her with his vehicle while exchanging the children [at] the Law Enforcement Center.”

And,

“[D]omestic intimate partner abuse includes using a child to establish or maintain power and control over any current or past intimate partner.  Neb. Rev. Stat. Section 43-2922(8).  The Court finds the testimony of Dr. McConnell to be credible as to his observations regarding parental alienation by the Mother.  The Court finds that some of the Mother’s actions are consistent with Dr. Harman’s expert testimony regarding the use of the legal system in order to gain control over the target parent.” 

In short, Nichols engaged in some probably mid-level alienation of the children and lied to the court in claiming that Coffman had tried to hit her with his vehicle.  As I said, this is a fairly unremarkable case.  Neither parent behaved entirely well during the litigation and Mom’s alienating actions were inappropriate, but far from as egregious as we’ve seen many, many times.

The result?  Coffman was given primary custody and Nichols ordered to pay child support.  Should the two relocate nearer each other, the order will change to a shared parenting arrangement with neither paying support.   Plus, Nichols was ordered to pay Coffman $5,000 in attorney’s fees for her misuse of the judicial system.

This is a good and welcome outcome.  It’s good because of what it is – the recognition of parental alienation by the trial court that then took steps to rectify same.  Parental alienation is child abuse; alienators are child abusers.  Given that Coffman is a good father, it was entirely appropriate for the court to give him primary custody.  The only reason the order isn’t for shared custody is that the two parents live about 60 miles apart, making the logistics of shared parenting difficult.

As I said, the case is also important for what it’s not.  It’s not a case in which one parent’s alienating behavior was so extreme and so deleterious to the children that the court was forced to give custody to the targeted parent.  No, this looks to be a case of moderate alienation, and yet the court took action anyway, as it should have.

It appears that courts are becoming more and more sensitive to the issue of parental alienation and less and less tolerant of that behavior.  They seem to understand alienation much better than they used to and to be more willing to punish alienating parents.  Hopefully, this case is part of a trend.

And let’s not forget one last thing: to those opposed to children maintaining meaningful relationships with both parents following divorce, this didn’t happen.  To the Jess Hills, Sonia Sodhas, Zoe Rathuses and countless others of the world, allegations of alienation are just a clever ruse by nefarious dads to take custody from mothers who are invariably entitled to it.  To them, when a mother claims abuse by a father (as Nichols did), he abused her (or the children).  Period.  Accordingly, mothers never lie about either domestic violence or child abuse.

And, since they never lie, fathers’ claims of parental alienation are yet another attempt to abuse the mother via the courts.

Judges know better.  So do lawyers.  So do mental health professionals like the two cited by the court in Nichols v. Coffman.  And so do most people who aren’t so desperate to deny children a relationship with their father that they routinely lie and misrepresent the truth about child abuse, intimate partner abuse and parental alienation. 

Parental alienation is, sadly, a well-known occurrence.  The anti-dad crowd’s notion that PA doesn’t exist, that it’s something only fathers claim about mothers and not vice versa and that alleging it is just a tactic utilized by abusive fathers is bizarre and at utterly odds with known facts.  But of course, when you oppose what’s known to be best for kids, i.e. healthy relationships with both parents, you pretty much have to resort to claims that only the most doctrinaire ideologues even pretend to hold water.