Legal Articles

Both parents must decide on custody of minor children under the age of 18. Divorce courts are very concerned regarding the well-being of any children born naturally to both parents or adopted by the parents. If the wife is pregnant, the child should be listed as "one unborn" in the petition and be treated as a born child for purposes of a dissolution of marriage. There are four basic types of child custody recognized under state laws:  1.Sole Physical Custody: Sole physical custody means the children shall reside with and under the supervision of one parent, subject to the power of the court to approve the parent's plan for visitation rights granted to the other parent.  2.Joint Physical Custody: Joint physical custody means that each of the parents shall have significant periods of physical custody. In other words, the physical custody of the children shall be such that both parents...

Children Lose When A Divorced Parent Is Forced Out  by Honorable Anne Kass. Ann Kass is a District Judge in the Second Judicial District State of New Mexico What some divorcing parents would like, more than anything, is for the other parent to vanish. They believe that would solve all their problems. What they don't recognize is that when one parent disappears, the children's problems generally get worse. A few years ago a case in my Court showed me what a high price children can pay when they lose a parent through divorce. The case had started 14 years earlier. The divorcing parents had a one-year-old daughter. They were quarreling about how much time dad should spend with her. At some point the mother grew weary of the fight, and she moved to Nevada where she filed a second divorce suit. People could do that back then. It seems the...

Sharp-tongued parents turn child into chameleon. Chameleon kids are an all too frequent product of divorce. These are children who behave, think and feel one way at dad's house and an altogether different way at mom's house. Chameleon kids often tell each of their parents different stories to keep them both happy. Telling each parent, "I want to live with you." is a common example. Complaining about or criticizing one parent to the other parent is another. Chameleon kids go far beyond that, however. Sometimes they change the way they dress, their interests, and virtually all aspects of their lives as they go back and forth between their parents' homes. In one case a teenage girl rode horses at her mom's house and talked about rodeos. At dad's house, she wore preppie clothes and talked about school proms. The most extreme case I can remember involved a young girl whose...