The Custody Handbook

Previous edition, 1st, published in 1995.

Whether assessing general family functioning or specific areas of conflict, professionals preparing child custody evaluations require sound knowledge of three interrelated fields: up-to-date legal issues, psychological findings, and forensic procedures. This book covers these three essential areas to walk readers through the evaluation process clearly and concisely. It further provides a unique combination of legal guidelines with social science research.

Is your ex-spouse trying to gain custody of your kids? Has he or she launched a campaign to make you look like a bad parent, both in the eyes of your children and the law? You aren’t alone. Unfortunately, high-conflict custody battles are all-too-common in today’s world. So how can you arm yourself with the mental and legal resources needed to survive this difficult time and keep your kids safe? In The High-Conflict Custody Battle, a team of legal and psychology experts present a practical guidebook for people like you who are engaged in a high-conflict custody battle. If you are dealing with an overtly hostile, inflammatory, deceitful, or manipulative ex-spouse, you will learn how to find and work with an attorney and prepare for a custody evaluation. The book also provides helpful tips you can use to defend yourself against false accusations, and gives a realistic portrayal of what to expect during a legal fight. Going through a divorce is hard, but going through a custody battle can feel like war. Don’t go in unprepared. With this book as your guide, you will be able to navigate this difficult process and learn powerful skills that will help you maintain a healthy relationship with your kids, fight unfair accusations, and uphold your rights as a parent.

Joint custody. Same?sex custody. Young children with the mother. Which is the best arrangement? Unfortunately, for those who seek a trustworthy solution, research has proven that there is no single best arrangement for all children. This timely volume, however, does offer a practical and realisic methodology with which to confront the challenging and often confusing issues facing the custody evaluator. THe only book of its kind, The Custody Evaluation Handbook offers a strikingly helpful model for evaluating and assigning weight to the mountains of disparate information accumulated during a custody suit. Written by an unparalleled expert in the field of custody evaluation, the book eschews what the author calls the negative incident model in which each parent responds to the custody process by compiling a long list of grievances against the hated opponent. It advocates, instead a test?based approach that measures how successful each parent actually is at the job of parenting. The book describes numerous tests and tools for eliciting reliable information from both children and parents. With an eye to learning the actual impact a parent has on a child rather than what a given parent may or may not be doing, the book emphasizes obtaining measurements from the involved child. Parent tests are designed to reflect the effectiveness with which a parent responds to typical childcare situations, and the degree to which a parent truly knows ? and can satisfy the needs of ? a particular child. The volume also sets forth concepts derived from extensive research that are particularly helpful in understanding parent?child interactions, and provides a specific system of nonadversary communication strategies that can be used and modeled in all interchanges with evaluation participants, and in the wording of all written reports. Readers will also welcome the numerous suggestions from evaluators all over the country on specific custody dilemmas they have faced. The book is based on many years' meticulous research and is informed by a number of conceptual approaches that include: The proven premise that whatever certain parents intend to communicate is often not what their children are, in fact, perceiving and reacting to The Utilization Model of Milton E. Erikson The Thomas, Chess, and Birch goodness?of?fit model of parent?child interaction Bandler and Grinders' assertion that the meaning of a communication is the response it elicits, regardless of the intentions of the sender Clearly, spelling out the targets of a truly comprehensive and reliable evaluation, The Custody Evaluation Handbook will be an invaluable handbook for custody evaluators and marriage and family therapists, as well as other involved mental health professionals.

This multidisciplinary volume offers an essential, comprehensive study of perspectives on the scope and application of the best interests of the child and focuses mainly on its application in relation to child custody. With expert contributions from psychological, sociological and legal perspectives, it offers scientific analysis and debate on whether it should be the primary consideration in deciding child custody cases in cases of divorce or separation or whether it should be one of several primary considerations. It explores complex dilemmas inherent in shared parenting and whether the advantages it offers children are sufficient when compared to attributing custody to one parent and limiting visitation rights of the other. Offering a comprehensive analysis of this complex topic, chapters provide detailed insight into the current state of research in this area, as well as expert guidelines aimed at resolving the controversies when parents agree or disagree over their children’s living arrangements. Cutting-edge topics explored include: transnational shared parenting; alternative dispute resolution; breastfeeding parents; religious disputes between parents and the psychological, social and economic factors that affect shared parenting. The Routledge International Handbook of Shared Parenting and Best Interest of the Child will be essential reading for scholars and graduate students in law, psychology, sociology and economics interested in shared parenting and family law.

Millions of fathers are currently embroiled in the fight of their lives to win custody of their children. Wounded by the acrimony and greed that often accompany divorce proceedings, many wonder if they will ever again be an important part of their sons' and daughters' lives. With this landmark book, renowned men's rights attorney Jeffery M. Leving offers disenfranchised fathers true hope and meaningful advice certain to save years of anguish and possibly thousands of dollars.Drawing on more than fifteen years of frontline experience, Leving leads fathers through every twist and turn of the legal system and shows them how to protect their rights (and their children's)—both before and during divorce litigation.This authoritative and accessible book covers every aspect of the custody process, including protecting the parent/child relationship as a breakup occurs; finding a competent and sympathetic lawyer; drafting a “Shared Parenting Agreement”; demonstrating parental competence when falsely accused of abuse; avoiding parental alienation; determining when to settle and when to litigate; techniques for dealing effectively with psychologists, social workers, and other domestic relations experts; and much more.Illustrated with vivid real-life examples, Jeffery Leving and Kenneth Dachman's practical guide is essential reading for the scores of American fathers routinely excluded from their children's lives by a biased legal system in which avarice and recrimination too often overwhelm compassion and justice.