How Does the Court Determine the Best Interests of the Child?

Any family law attorney in Houston can tell you that the courts here in Texas are laser focused on what’s in the best interest of the child when it comes to child custody and support decisions. If you’re trying to get custody of your children, protect them from an abusive parent, or deal with child support needs and requirements, it’s helpful to understand precisely what factors the court will consider as it decides what’s best for your children.

From a Family Law Attorney in Houston: Determining the Best Interests of the Child

To decide what’s in the best interest of the child, the court is going to investigate the family and all its relationships, finances, and more. When it comes to other aspects of a divorce, the court will try to keep things fair and equitable between the two spouses. But in the matter of child custody or support, the only thing the court is concerned with is what’s best for the child.
The court will do everything possible to minimize the effect of a divorce upon a child and ensure that a child’s life is as healthy, safe, and consistent as possible. Here are some of the factors the court is going to consider:

What’s Are the Child’s Current Relationships?

The court wants to know who the child is closest to. For example, if your child were to have a problem, which parent would they tend to go to for help? They will also look at this from the parents’ side to consider how much time each parent spends with a child and how they relate to the child. An important question here is whether a parent has the ability to separate their own needs from the child’s needs in order to prioritize the child whenever that’s necessary.

How Are the Parents At Providing?

In determining the best interest of the child, the court is going to look at the finances of both parents. For physical custody, which in Texas is known as possessory conservatorship, the question is which parent/s are able to provide for the child’s needs with them in the home?
When it comes to child support, the court will look to even out the burden between the two parents to make sure that the child has a consistent experience, no matter which parent they are with. If the child lives only with one parent, the court is likely to order more child support from the other parent to ensure the possessory parent can care for all the child’s physical needs.

Are the Parents “Morally Fit?”

As the court considers issues of custody, it’s going to look carefully at the behavior of the parents. The most important factor is, of course, how a parent treats their child. Any abuse or assault will likely result in the loss of possessory conservatorship and possibly even visitation rights entirely, or a parent may be allowed to visit with their child only when supervised.
What some divorcing couples don’t know is that the court will also consider how the parents treat each other as they think about the child’s best interests. For example, if the divorce is because of adultery, and if the adulterous partner had an open affair and made no attempt to hide this betrayal from their child, the court may interpret this to mean that the parent in question lacks concern for their child’s well-being. The court will also look here at addiction. If a parent is addicted to drugs or alcohol, this would be an important factor in determining child custody.

Can the Parents Guide and Nurture?

This factor goes a long way to determining what custody decision will be in the best interest of a child. This goes beyond the basic ability of a parent to provide for their child’s physical needs and considers who can best promote their child’s overall thriving and development in life. The court may consider things like who stays home from work when the child is sick or who is most active in attending a child’s extracurricular activities.
Another important aspect of this is discipline. The courts are very aware that there’s a difference between a “fun parent” and a “good parent.” A good parent can also be fun, but a fun parent can be a failure in other areas. Young children especially are likely to want to spend time with the parent who lets them do whatever they want, but the court knows that discipline and structure are important for a child’s development. They will look at the discipline styles of both parents and consider who is going to help the child grow up best.

What’s the Most Stable Environment for the Child?

If one of the parents is keeping the family home, this may be a consideration for child custody depending on how long the child has been living there. It’s not just a matter of length of time, either. Even if one parent is keeping the home, if the other parent is better at providing a secure and stable environment, the court may see giving them custody as in the best interest of the child. All other things being equal, however, the court will strive to keep the child’s life as unchanged as possible if their parents are divorcing.

Where Are Family Units and Relationships Strongest?

A child needs more than a mother and father. Relationships with siblings, cousins, grandparents, and even close family friends that the child has known all their life have potential to be very important to a child. The court will look into all these relationships as it makes custody decisions and strive to keep a child in a situation where they have access to all the important relationships of their life.

Where Will the Child Have the Most Consistent Home, School, and Community Life?

The court knows that it’s in the best interest of a child to stay in school, develop healthy friendships with their peers, take on responsibilities like chores at home, and be involved in the community in some way, whether that be in public events, attendance at church or synagogue, or joining clubs or groups with other children.

As the court decides what’s in the best interest of the children, they will be taking a look at whether a parent helps a child to consistently take part in all these things and facilitates their overall development in this area of life.

What Does the Child Prefer?

For children who are over 12 years old, their own preferences about which parent they want to live with (or sometimes, in rare cases, no parent) will be taken into account by the court. The court can ask a child who is under 12, but it is not until the child is 12 that this becomes a bigger factor in making decisions about what’s best for them. No matter how old a child is, however, their preference alone is never the only deciding factor in these situations.

Is the Child Safe?

This should go without saying, but the courts will certainly be looking at whether a situation is safe for a child. This means they will look not only at the possibility of physical abuse, but also whether there has been any verbal or emotional abuse.
Reach out to us now at The Clark Law Firm, P.C. in Houston for help with your family law case.

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