As a parent, your primary focus is your children’s health, well-being, and happiness, and if you have concerns about how fit their other parent is, it puts you in a very challenging position.
The State of Texas takes the matter of unfit parenting very seriously, and an experienced Round Rock child custody attorney can help you better understand the situation and take the necessary steps to protect your children.
The Best Interests of Your Children
An important consideration when determining whether a parent is unfit is that the State of Texas’s focus is the children’s best interests. A primary concern regarding the best interests of children is the opportunity to spend a significant amount of time with both parents, which—barring a serious obstacle, such as child abuse—is universally considered beneficial.
Texas courts are not interested in the fact that you consider yourself a better parent than your ex but, instead, focus on serious issues when the matter of unfit parenting is raised.
Parents often have varying approaches when it comes to raising their children, and the courts do not get involved in these discrepancies unless one parent puts the children’s physical or emotional well-being at significant risk.
In other words, you must have a substantial reason to support your claim that your ex is an unfit parent before the court will consider it. Even serious differences of opinion regarding parenting will not suffice.
If you have concerns but aren’t sure about your ex’s parenting abilities – or if you are convinced that your ex is an unfit parent – it’s time to consult with a seasoned child custody attorney.
Addressing Your Concerns
If your ex has been credibly charged with child abuse, child neglect, or domestic violence, the court will give the matter the utmost consideration, and it’s very likely to affect the other parent’s rights. This can include restrictions regarding their parenting time schedule that may require supervision or limited access.
Other Red Flags
While abuse and neglect are obvious indicators that there’s a serious problem, there are other red flags that should also be taken into consideration:
A history of drug or alcohol abuse that hasn’t been successfully addressed
A sexual offense on their record
An unstable living environment
Unfit living conditions
Each of these must be assessed in relation to degree, relevance, and level of risk. For example, even a house that you consider very messy is unlikely to endanger your children. If, on the other hand, your children are living in hoarder conditions, it’s a far more serious matter.
Further, if your ex moves frequently, you may not consider it ideal, but if their ability to put a roof over your children’s heads is in question, the matter is much more dire and could qualify as unfit. If your concerns are based on less concrete issues and have more to do with your sense that your ex isn’t doing well emotionally, you shouldn’t ignore your feelings.
Emotional Concerns
Psychological issues can be difficult to pinpoint, but there are often warning signs, and as your children’s other parent, you may be close enough to your ex to help spot them. Retaining copies of your interactions with your ex can help you demonstrate that your concerns are well-founded and can leave you better prepared to address the matter with the court. Examples include:
Copies of emails, texts, and any other forms of electronic messages between you and your ex
letters or notes from your ex
Voicemails left by your ex
Notes jotted down from conversations you’ve had with your ex
Concerns about your ex shared with you by others
Texas courts recognize that parents who are no longer together may have serious disagreements and may say or write things to one another that are fueled by animosity, and this doesn’t come close to qualifying as unfit.
However, if you’re genuinely concerned about your ex hurting either themselves or someone else, it’s a serious matter. Further, if their communications leave you with concerns about their ability to provide your children with the care they need, you should pay attention.
Categories of Fitness
When it comes to parental fitness, there are different categories to consider. Texas courts take matters like the following into careful consideration:
The parent’s overall mental health
The parent’s ability to provide a safe, nurturing, and stable home for their children, including in relation to their financial stability
The parent’s adherence to the law
The parent’s ability to live up to their parental responsibilities
While any parent can exhibit an occasional lapse in judgment or can make a mistake, a parent who consistently has trouble meeting the requirements of fit parenting is of far greater concern to Texas Courts.
The Court’s Focus
If you are genuinely worried about your ex’s fitness as a parent, the court will take any credible claim you make into careful consideration and will likely conduct a child social study that evaluates both of your homes in response. In the process, the court will focus on a range of important factors that help establish parental fitness.
Setting Limits that Are Age and Developmentally Appropriate
You and your children’s other parent don’t have to agree on what is age and developmentally appropriate for each of your children. The state takes a broad view when it comes to determining appropriate limits. Only if either of you sets limits that are well beyond what is considered healthy and safe—or if you fail to set limits at all—will the court take notice.
If you can’t trust your children’s other parent to set limits that support their emotional and physical well-being, it’s a valid concern. For example, if your ex allows your 5-year-old to stay up all night and watch adult-themed movies, it’s a problem.
Allowing your preteen to stay out all night can be similarly concerning. Texas recognizes that it’s a parent’s job to set limits that help keep their children safe, and failure to do so is a warning sign.
Having a Solid Track Record of Being There for the Kids
If your ex has always been there for your shared children and is always willing to do whatever it takes to provide for and protect them, they likely have good standing as a fit parent. However, if your ex is all too willing to bail on your children or to rely on you to pick up the slack when times get tough, their current parenting time schedule may be too much for them to handle.
If your ex can’t seem to manage the children without an extra set of hands chipping in, you should take the matter seriously.
Understanding and Adequately Responding to the Children’s Needs
Children need to feel heard, to be understood, and to have their needs adequately addressed. Children who go back and forth between each parent’s home can feel more vulnerable and stressed, translating to greater needs. When any of the following apply, it can put the child at risk of their needs going unmet:
When a parent has difficulty communicating with the child
When a parent has difficulty reading the child’s emotional cues
When a parent has difficulty connecting with the child overall
A parent who doesn’t put the necessary time and effort into assessing a child’s needs and providing them with the support they require can leave the child feeling disconnected and anxious. And this doesn’t bode well for their mental health and well-being.
Fostering the Other Parent’s Healthy Relationship with the Children
Texas courts are looking for cooperation between parents when it comes to child custody orders. Parents who demonstrate that they’re ready, willing, and able to do what it takes to co-parent effectively fit the bill nicely.
A parent who has a chip on their shoulder and who is more interested in thwarting the other parent’s ability to parent effectively, on the other hand, can be a red flag.
If your ex is actively trying to shut you out of parenting decisions, out of parenting time, or out of important information about your children’s schooling or medical care, it could be a sign of parental alienation, which the State of Texas takes very seriously.
Children are vulnerable to suggestion and rely entirely on their parents to take care of them and to provide for them, which makes a parent who has designs on alienating them from their other parent that much more dangerous.
Parental alienation refers to a pattern of behaviors that are intended to turn a child’s affections and loyalties away from one parent and to focus solely on the parent doing the alienating. The emotional damage children experience in response to parental alienation is well documented.
If you have concerns that your ex may be engaging in this dangerous practice, you shouldn’t hesitate to discuss it with a knowledgeable child custody attorney who has a significant amount of experience effectively resolving cases involving parental alienation.
Some of the most common warning signs of parental alienation – in terms of the children themselves – include all the following:
The child expresses a newly adopted disapproval of you that may be worse when they return from their other parent’s home.
The child expresses justifications for their new-found hostility toward you that strike you as being scripted.
The child demonstrates a newly adopted hostility toward your side of the family that may be worse when they return from their other parent’s home.
The child fully adopts your ex’s opinions and may parrot them back to you.
The child doesn’t appear to feel any guilt about their new-found hostility toward you and your family.
The child seems to believe that their anger toward you is a matter of their own creation and has nothing to do with their other parent.
The child elevates their other parent’s status to an idealized position.
If your ex consistently engages in alienating practices, the above results aren’t difficult to achieve – but they can be very harmful to your children.
There are also warning signs to be on the lookout for in terms of your ex’s behaviors, including:
Withholding important information from you
Badmouthing you in front of your children – or directly to your children
Referring to you by your first name to your children
Confiding in your children regarding your problems with one another
Telling your children that you don’t care about them, that you don’t love them, or even that you pose a danger to them
Withdrawing their own love unless your children reject you openly
Forcing your children to choose one of you over the other
Interfering with your ability to communicate with or to spend time with your children
Parental alienation is far too serious a matter to put off seeking the professional legal guidance you need.
Make the Call to an Experienced Round Rock Child Custody Attorney Today
Brett Pritchard at The Law Office of Brett H. Pritchard is a practiced Round Rock child custody attorney who has a wealth of experience successfully guiding challenging cases involving unfit parenting toward favorable resolutions. He supports our clients’ rights and protects the children involved.
Our savvy legal team recognizes the urgency of your situation and has the legal insight, skill, and experience to help. Your case is important to your children’s future, so please don’t put off contacting or calling us at 254-781-4222 to schedule your free consultation and learn more about what we can do to help you today.