Relocation of children after divorce and children's best interests: new evidence and legal considerations (original) (raw)

The Relocation of Children and Custodial Parents: Public Policy, Past and Present

1996

While this article was in press, the California Supreme Court rendered a 6-1 decision in In re Marriage of Burgess, 913 P.2d 473 (Cal. 1996). The court's opinion shares much of the reasoning set forth in this article. A custodial parent has a presumptive right to change the children's residence that applies in either an initial custody case or a modification action. Noting "the paramount need for continuity and stability in custodial arrangements," Justice Mosk's majority opinion emphasizes maintaining the custodial household and grants deference to the factual custodial relationship. The legislature's endorsement of frequent and continuing contact with both parents, he writes, "[does] not specify a preference for any particular form of 'contact'." Nor does it constrain the trial court's best-interest decision or impose a burden of proof on those wishing to relocate. Specifically declining to require that trial courts "micromanage.. . everyday decisions about career and family," the opinion states that a court may not require either parent to justify a residential choice. Rather, the majority notes the "ordinary needs for both parents after a marital dissolution to secure or retain employment, pursue *

ROCK-PAPER-SCISSORS: PLAYING THE ODDS WITH THE LAW OF CHILD RELOCATION

Family Court Review, 2007

This article offers for inspection the proposition that the adversarial evidence-based litigation process is unsuitable for resolving custody cases in general and relocation cases in particular. It analyzes the leading cases from New York, Massachusetts, California, England, Canada, and Australia. It reaches a conclusion that no jurisdiction has devised a legal standard or formula that enables a judge to predict the future best interest of a child if that child is allowed to relocate with one parent away from the other. For this reason, the court has a duty to offer as sophisticated and friendly a settlement process and atmosphere as possible. However, knowing that judges will still be required to resolve these difficult cases because they often seem impervious to settlement, the article offers thirty-six factors that a court should consider in all move-away cases. By relying on each of these factors that is relevant to the case, the parents will have an understanding of why the decision was made the way it was and it will also allow for effective appellate review.

The Psychological Effects of Relocation for Children of Divorce

1999

The divorce of parents significantly undermines their children’s sense of security and stability. The two people upon whom the child is dependent are no longer equally accessible to the child and the foundation of the child’s world is splintered. From the child’s perspective, the best of all possible worlds, after parental divorce, includes parents who are amicable, do not display overt hostility, can communicate with each other about the child, and live close enough to each other so that child can have the same playmates when with either parent.1 These conditions maximize the potential for the child developing strong, positive relationships with both parents as well as for both parents’ involvement in the child’s school and extracurricular activities and for frequent and regular contact with the nonresidential parent. When a residential or custodial parent, then, seeks to move to a different geographic region, that best possible post-divorce scenario for children is threatened. The...

Children of Divorce: New Trends and Ongoing Dilemmas

Currently, and for the foreseeable future, divorce occupies a persistent place in the social structure as a family transition that substantially impacts all members, not least are the children. In this child-centered chapter we will describe three major aspects of family relationships that exacerbate children's problematic development or shield them from the potentially more pernicious effects of divorce: (1) the child's relationship with the residential parent; (2) the amount and type of conflict between parents; and (3) the quality of access and relationship the child has with the non-residential, or less seen parent, typically the father. We will then introduce some of the new concepts and dilemmas mental health and legal professionals have encountered in recent years: parenting plans for young children, parent relocation cases, and child alienation from one parent.

Relocation Following Parental Separation: The Welfare and Best Interests of Children Research Report

2010

This study would not have been possible without the financial support provided by the New Zealand Law Foundation Te Manatū a Ture o Aotearoa. We greatly appreciated their Board's willingness to support our research project, and would particularly like to thank Lynda Hagen, Director, and Dianne Gallagher, Executive Assistant, for all their invaluable assistance over recent years. We would like to gratefully acknowledge the support of His Honour Judge Peter Boshier, Principal Family Court Judge, for encouraging the research and taking a keen interest in it. We are also most grateful to the Family Law Section of the New Zealand Law Society, and their members-the family lawyers of New Zealand-who so willingly helped us to recruit the family participants in our study. We also owe a huge debt of gratitude to the parents and children who shared their family stories with us during the interviews we conducted throughout New Zealand and overseas. Their perspectives about the interface between their personal lives and the family law system over relocation disputes and children's post-separation care arrangements have been remarkably insightful. It has truly been a privilege to meet and talk with all these people about such profoundly sensitive family issues. Finally, we would like to express our thanks to our colleagues in Australia and England who have also undertaken research in the relocation field and with whom we have shared many emails and several meetings discussing our respective studies:

The Best Interests of the Child and Relocation Disputes

The fluidity of the modern family springs from changing social values on various forms of intimate relationships. But as easily as they form, they are easily unformed, susceptible to separation and re-partnering. In the aftermath of separation, the problem is often exacerbated by the presence of children. It’s a painful process in which one of the parents may well at some level need to distance himself or herself physically as well as emotionally from the other. Dissension results and contested relocation emerges in which the best interest of the child is paramount. But what are the child’s best interests and who can determine them? This article examines the best interests of the child and its application in relocation disputes.