Tips for custody evaluations

[VIDEO: "What is parental alienation?"]

I have my initial meeting with the forensic psychologist that's performing our custody evaluation on Monday. I've read a fair amount about how to approach this both in books/articles and on here, and my attorney has been helpful as well with his advice. I'd love to hear any tips you all may have for what to do/say or not do/say.

[alleyesonme]

I have my initial meeting with the forensic psychologist that's performing our custody evaluation on Monday. I've read a fair amount about how to approach this both in books/articles and on here, and my attorney has been helpful as well with his advice. I'd love to hear any tips you all may have for what to do/say or not do/say.

[formflier]

Focus on behaviors...not labels/diagnosis.  If there is an official diagnosis to share...then this is less of a concern.

Most likely best to flip this around on you. 

Given what you know now...what is your planned approach.

What are specific things you are worried about?

What are specific things you plan on doing?

Best,

FF

[ForeverDad]

Likely this will not be your only session, a custody evaluation is much more in-depth than a cursory psych eval, though it often includes psych eval testing.  This will not be just an assessment of the parents but also their relationships with the children and their overall parenting.  So expect additional sessions where each parent gets to bring the children.  Or possibly the CE may want to make a home visit.

Typically, unless there are extreme circumstances (some extent of child abuse) then a CE won't generally recommend sole custody to one parent or the other.  So you may have to spend some time giving examples why, even with split parenting time, you should have some level of authority to ensure common sense rules are set.  What I'm describing could be you needing Decision Making or Tie Breaker status in order to not be sabotaged by your stbEx.

Can you be the parent who doesn't just complain about the other parent, but can you be the parent who proposes practical solutions?  Note that I'm not saying you should be the appeasing or passive parent.  Prepared to cooperate (if possible) may be the term I'm reaching for.

[GaGrl]

The evaluator is going to want to assess your parenting approaches to various areas,so be prepared to talk about how you discipline your children, what your schedule looks like regarding daily needs (homework, screen time, outside play, bath and bed time, etc. This is also where you can discuss differences with your wife regarding these approaches and areas, and your concerns.

[alleyesonme]

Focus on behaviors...not labels/diagnosis.  If there is an official diagnosis to share...then this is less of a concern.

Most likely best to flip this around on you. 

Given what you know now...what is your planned approach.

What are specific things you are worried about?

What are specific things you plan on doing?

Best,

FF

To start, I'm planning to just speak my truth. It feels like I haven't even had a chance to say even close to everything yet, and we're a year into this thing. I'll definitely be discussing the concerning patterns of her behavior, and also come prepared with a short and long term plan for raising our daughter.

[alleyesonme]

Likely this will not be your only session, a custody evaluation is much more in-depth than a cursory psych eval, though it often includes psych eval testing.  This will not be just an assessment of the parents but also their relationships with the children and their overall parenting.  So expect additional sessions where each parent gets to bring the children.  Or possibly the CE may want to make a home visit.

Typically, unless there are extreme circumstances (some extent of child abuse) then a CE won't generally recommend sole custody to one parent or the other.  So you may have to spend some time giving examples why, even with split parenting time, you should have some level of authority to ensure common sense rules are set.  What I'm describing could be you needing Decision Making or Tie Breaker status in order to not be sabotaged by your stbEx.

Can you be the parent who doesn't just complain about the other parent, but can you be the parent who proposes practical solutions?  Note that I'm not saying you should be the appeasing or passive parent.  Prepared to cooperate (if possible) may be the term I'm reaching for.

Thank you for the info. You make a great point that this won't be the only meeting. And of course me having tiebreaker status would be what's best for our daughter, but given what's already happened, it's tough to trust the decision makers to really dig deep enough to figure out what's going on.

I like your tip about proposing practical solutions. I've been trying that since this all began, but have been stonewalled at every turned. I'll be sure to mention that, and also what I see as a reasonable solution moving forward.

[alleyesonme]

The evaluator is going to want to assess your parenting approaches to various areas,so be prepared to talk about how you discipline your children, what your schedule looks like regarding daily needs (homework, screen time, outside play, bath and bed time, etc. This is also where you can discuss differences with your wife regarding these approaches and areas, and your concerns.

Thank you for the tips! In your experience, do you think there's a "right" answer to any of these? I mean I fully realize it's the wrong answer to say you let your kid watch 8 hours of TV every day, skip school and eat cookies for breakfast. But with a lot of those parenting decisions, there isn't always only one right answer. I assume that as long as my approach is reasonable and I can justify it, that'd be fine. What do you think?

[ForeverDad]

In your experience, do you think there's a "right" answer to any of these?

There can be many variations that could be accepted as right answers.  Some of what an evaluator looks at may be something you totally wouldn't expect.

Reminder about those tests, some of the questions are worded so there's not really a good answer, you may have to choose between an assortment of perplexing answers.  The same question may be there repeatedly but in different terms.  One concern of the test designers is to detect when someone is "presenting falsely".  Reminds me of the court's inclination to passively describing lying as "not credible".  So don't overthink it.

[livednlearned]

I'm planning to just speak my truth

What would that be?

Do you feel comfortable sharing here how you would phrase this to the CE.

[alleyesonme]

There can be many variations that could be accepted as right answers.  Some of what an evaluator looks at may be something you totally wouldn't expect.

Reminder about those tests, some of the questions are worded so there's not really a good answer, you may have to choose between an assortment of perplexing answers.  The same question may be there repeatedly but in different terms.  One concern of the test designers is to detect when someone is "presenting falsely".  Reminds me of the court's inclination to passively describing lying as "not credible".  So don't overthink it.

Thank you for the information about that. That was very helpful to ease my nerves heading into it.

[alleyesonme]

What would that be?

Do you feel comfortable sharing here how you would phrase this to the CE.

I mainly focused on the positives that I bring to the table as our daughter's parent, then discussed my ex's disturbing patterns of behavior. I felt like it went okay, but we won't know for sure for awhile.

[PearlsBefore]

Most jurisdictions let the evaluations be done by psychiatrists, psychologists, child therapists, all kinds of possible credentials - obviously if you have a BPD ex or child, you'd want an assessor with a psych background, not just a counsellor/therapist.

Don't lie, and don't expect them to trust that you're not lying - if you're going to quote what your partner said in a court document, bring the highlighted document for them to take back to their office with them, etc.

[ForeverDad]

I can't tell you what to do if your stbEx wants to settle for 50/50 even before the evaluations are released.  Below, I will mention the tactic I used, but I already knew what the CE had in mind as recommendation a few months earlier.

I know how it feels, even my lawyer warned me that things might not go my way.  But since my then-stbEx was ignoring all cooperation, I didn't get any settlement offers until nearly two years later, when I arrived at the court house and was greeted with news she was finally ready to settle.  (She had a very favorable temp order that entire time and so of course delayed the outcome as long as she could.)  I later learned that her lawyer told her she would lose at trial so she had incentive to settle but of course I didn't know that at the time.

I knew the CE had recommended Shared Parenting in his initial recommendation a few months earlier.  He had concerns about her, one sentence in the summary was, "Mother cannot share 'her' child but Father can."  (Then she lost the pediatrician who "withdrew services" due to her conflict with pediatrician's staff and so she even looked worse.)  So when she wanted to settle I knew that equal time was still probably in his recommendation.  Yet I and my lawyer had spent days preparing for a trial.  So I decided I would set a firm condition — I would be in charge of schooling in my district's school or let's start the trial.  Believe it or not, my lawyer joined her lawyer in saying that didn't mean anything.  But I held firm.  I knew that otherwise she would remain in charge of school and have an edge over me.  If she moved away (and soon she did move around a few times) then I'd have to follow her around or do a lot of driving to her school system.

She gave in and in the settlement I became the equal time Residential Parent for School Purposes.  Since our son had almost 3 months left of the school year, I was given permission for him to finish out the year in his kindergarten class.  But that didn't happen. Within several weeks there had been more incidents with mom.  (There had been prior school incidents but school hadn't wanted to get involved in court so it had claimed their issues with her had been resolved.)  Well, with about 5 weeks to go, her school gave me one to register him with my school.

The lesson I learned:  Schools are often stuck with bad parents and they know they have to live with it.  But if they can dump a bad parent and get rid of the hassle, they will do it if they have the option.  I had gifted them the option.

So... you mentioned there's an hour between parents.  Who knows where she might move in the years to come.  Clearly you live in different school districts.  If you someday face a settlement offer, ponder including one of the important terms being that you become the (more stable) parent in charge of schooling.  Even if your lawyer says mothers always are in charge of schooling and it means nothing long term, it does, or at least it did for me and my son.

[Sluggo]

Alleysome, 

My takeaways from my CE

1.  It cost much more than I realized it would. About 20k. 

2. It took about 10 months for the report to be written.  It was about 80 pages long. 

3.  It helped me so much emotionally as I had someone acknowledge the dynamics of the relationship so well.  Stated that there was emotioal abuse and alienation with bpd.mom.   it said Dad (me) was emotionally healthy and mom had personalty disorder.   She recommended 50/50 time but said to get full custody if alienation continues. 

4.  Custody evaluator was a great witness at trial for me.  She spelled everything out wonderfully.  She stated best way to deprogram the alienation is for kids to live 6 months uninterrupted with dad. 

4.  Despite all the positive things with evaluation and her trial witness, I still only got minimum guidelines.  It was stated that mom was stay at home and 2 of the 7kids had disabilities... so should stay with mom. 

I was devastated.   But I kept the reassurance I was not crazy or misinterpreting the dynamics of my marriage and parenting skills with the custody evaluation.  It was such an important document for me personally.

But then...

6 months after final divorce (which took almost 3 years after my appeal which I lost) exbpd wife told me she did not want kids anymore.  So in 2 weeks exwife signed away all rights to kids over to me and judge agreed  to that.  She stated she only wanted to see kids 30 days in summer. 

Sluggo

[ForeverDad]

I also had an excellent Custody Evaluator, a child psychologist who firmly had the the court's ear, so my lawyer claimed.  I never found out because on Trial Day she surprised us all by saying she'd settle and it followed the CE's general recommendation.

And she delayed the divorce case as much as she could because she had a favorable temp order and so of course delaying was beneficial to her, like in Sluggo's case.

The rest, I had the polar opposite of Sluggo.  My CE's initial report was a little over 10 pages ("just the facts, ma'am") without trying to write a book.  Fees were quoted under $3K until my then-stbEx caused delays and costs so he had to charge more.  She viewed 'her' son as virtually an extension of herself and so she never relinquished any parenting without an order, for over 14 years.

[formflier]

Hey Sluggo,

Thanks for sharing.  Do you have a best guess as to "why" your ex took such a dramatic change?  How are you kids doing?  What is their r/s like with Mom now?

Best,

FF

[Sluggo]

FF,

Do you have a best guess as to "why" your ex took such a dramatic change?  How are you kids doing?  What is their r/s like with Mom now?

Great question... 

I have a couple of theories and/or it could be a mixture of them

1.  When I had kids for my first time for summer (1/2 summer) once divorce was finalized after 3 years...  she moved in with her boyfriend.  She sent me email 3 weeks into summer telling me to keep them.  So it could have been to start fresh with boyfriend.  He is 20 yrs her senior at age of 62 I imagine he was not wanting to raise at the time a  5, 8, 10, 12, and 14 year old.  The 5 and 12 yr old use wheelchairs and go out of state for medical care and surgeries frequently each year. 

2.  Her letter to me said she is doing it for the kids so they would not have to deal with the changing of houses.  The language also in the letter painted herself as doing it for the kids and as a mothers ultimate sacrifice.  ...  my question... if it was for kids then why cut off all communication.  So that does not add up. 

3.  She may have felt I would not be able to handle it, so she thought she was going to watch me sink. 

4.  The kids seem to be an object which she uses... more so than a person for her to love.  So when the kids were not useful anymore to her, it was time to discard them. 

5.  My ex seemed to have a pretty enmmeshed relationship with the oldest 2..  19 and 17 at the time.  The other kids took from her time and energy  but the older ones did not.  She treated them as their confidant.  Since they were over 18 and had rejected me, no reason to keep the other kids. 

Kids are doing ok.  The two older kids that live with me have made peace with me and trust me.  They held my ex anger so much but have come to see a balanced picture of me. 

The day we got the news that it was finalized I let the children know that I wanted them to have a relationship with their mother (although mom did not want that seemingly).   However since Christmas this year (18 months after getting that letter), they started to spend time with her 2-3 days at a time every 6 weeks or so.    I let them go when they ask to go.  My oldest daughter who drives now goes over there a few times every couple of weeks with stay over.  This daughter told me last week that she does believe me when I said that I want her to have a relationship.  It was not just lip service.  That was a big obstacle to overcome with her.

It has been internally hard to say yes as my ex kept the kids from me so viciously and cruelly during the 3 years of divorce.  I signed a horrible agreement which i kicked myself so many times for signing.
However, despite that, I am positive about encouraging their relationship.

The one relationship I worry about is the youngest who is 7 now.  He said tonight he called her and she hung up on him.  He was crying...  I honestly don't think she likes him much at all.  He is the one with the most medical issues. 

Sluggo

[formflier]

Uggg..dude.  Sluggo, I kinda knew your story..but..wow!

Doing the "right" thing is hard and can feel yucky sometimes.

Is your ex still with that boyfriend?

Best,

FF

[Sluggo]

Ff

Yes...  Ex and boyfriend still living together.. 

Sluggo