Family Law Articles

Dedicating yourself to a sober lifestyle isn’t easy, but it’s crucial for anyone looking to maintain a healthy family life. As you’re likely aware, addiction doesn’t just affect you, it affects your entire family. This is especially true when you have children and you’re involved in a custody situation, whether it’s an existing arrangement or you’re just entering family law proceedings and are trying to establish basic ground rules that will ensure your children are living in stable environments.

Custody cases are, by default, some of the most emotionally difficult legal proceedings handled by our courts. In such an emotionally charged situation, it can sometimes be difficult to draw distinctions between what a party knows, and what can be proved in a legal sense. And in a court case, the outcome always hinges on what can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

Today, roughly 10% of children live with a parent who abuses alcohol. Even more alarming than this statistic is how rapidly this number continues to grow. With a global pandemic contributing to higher divorce rates, alcohol abuse is up, causing parents to reevaluate their unions and make decisions in the best interests of their children. 

Working on creating a parenting schedule for a family that’s recently separated is never easy, but creating a formal schedule can help smooth over a lot of bumps in the road before they even happen. No matter how well you and your former spouse get along, having a schedule you can reference gives both of you a solid frame you can build your new relationship around without risking further stress on your children

It’s simple: you want each encounter with your child to be meaningful, no matter how frequently your parenting time schedule allows you to see them. Each experience is a new chance to bond, to grow, and to create lasting memories you’ll both carry forever.

Once you make the decision to incorporate monitoring into your child custody arrangement, you’ll then have to decide how frequently monitoring should occur. Typically you’ll have two options: monitoring during parenting time or daily monitoring.

When deciding between monitoring only during parenting time or daily monitoring, it’s important to consider the degree of alcohol dependence your custody arrangement entails. Those who decide on daily monitoring are dealing with a parent who has a serious alcohol dependence.

Venturing into a new community and learning the common language used there can be a daunting task. It’s no different for Family Law. But starting work on a Family Law or child custody arrangement can be a difficult and contentious time for parents; the last thing they should have to worry about is learning the lingo.

In most custody arrangements that aren’t equally or jointly divided, one parent is considered custodial and awarded sole custody of the children. The other parent is non-custodial, but is typically awarded parenting time, or the right to see and visit with their children on a set schedule.