How to prepare for a child custody
evaluation home visit. Do I know anything about that? Well I used to do them so
listen in. Your child custody evaluation home visit, how do you prepare for that?
At Live On Purpose TV, we bring in people who have a little bit of experience and
I did that today. This is my friend, Sid Say hello, Sid. - Hi. - Now that we've
got the introductions out of the way, Sid and I got to know each other years ago
when I was doing child custody evaluations for the court and I always
included a home visit because if I'm going to make a recommendation to the
judge about where these kids are going to live, I want to have some first-hand
knowledge about where they have been living or where they're going to be
living so I would naturally go into that environment. Now, Sid, you've been on the
other end of this where you've represented parents typically in a
child custody case but you know how judges think too so I think that's
part of the knowledge we need to pull out of you today, okay. What
do you think is the most important thing for someone to know as they prepare for
their child custody evaluation home visit? - It's a case-by-case thing what's
most important but the thing that comes up the most is that the evaluator
reports that there's something obviously wrong with the home for example dog poop
on the beds, laps in the yard, things like that, things that are obviously dangerous, yes,
super obvious so having minimal cleaning and as sort of a natural or clean
environment. It doesn't have to look like it's not lived in. I've had custody
evaluators report back to me that sometimes the house is absolutely
pristine and they're positive, the house isn't always like that and I know my
house isn't always like that. - You know, I used to put in my notes sometimes to the judge. I
would tell him there's a state of unnatural tension. You know when you
walk into a place and you just know that as soon as you leave, everything's going to
fall from where it was back to where it used to be
so that's what you're talking about? - Yeah, that's sort of obvious. Another
obvious thing that I get a lot of feedback about is that parents seem to
just want to talk about the other parent even though they're at their own home
visit, they want to talk about the other parent, they want to talk about how bad it is, they
want to talk about, see, we have this bed here for our child, the other side, they
they have to sleep on the couch, things like that and that's also just
the wrong approach. - You know what I just thought of, what if you just invite
the other parent over for your home visit? How silly would that be? It's not about them.
You showcase your brilliance and you don't fake it because that causes
the unnatural tension so you want to be real.
You mentioned the safety things so that stuff is obvious. Look, if
you're having a problem with safety concerns, we've got other concerns about
this custody situation so get yourself up to speed. Now this brings something up
that I think is important.. You may realize or people may give you a heads
up to some changes that you need to make personally whether that's about safety
or the appropriateness of sleeping arrangements for example. You know what,
and be transparent, okay. If your kid is sleeping with you on your
bed, just be transparent about that because I'm going to ask the kid and I can
usually tell when they're lying or when they're trying to do a script or cover
for mom or dad. I've been into homes where it's like this beautiful
little bedroom for the child, right, and the kid is going through this little
script of, this is my room, right?And they're all excited and then I pull them
aside and I say, so where do you sleep? Oh, in there with mom. - Yeah, well
and that's that brings up another thing. Don't try to get the kids to say a
certain thing, don't coach them on what to say and I know parents say they never
coached their kid. I never told them what to say, I just tell them to tell
the truth but the truth is, I feel the coaching all the time. People bring kids
into my office because I'm a special master which means I'm sort of like a
minor judge sometimes and when I get the parents out of there and start talking
to the kids, I hear it almost always a different story than what I heard from
either of the parents. Sure, that's what evaluators go through as well
and when you're in the home environment, the kids are more used to it I guess and
I think they can be more relaxed or they could be more tense if they've been
coached and I think the evaluator can tell that. - Which is a great point because as an evaluator, often what I was looking
for is not how pristine is this home I mean, I would go into places and there's
bread baking in the oven and there's potpourri simmering on the stuff. Please,
you know. This is not a Pinterest contest. - Well unless they share the bread. - Well,
there's that but here is what I'm looking for, I don't care about all that stuff,
okay, don't care, as long as the the fundamental safety and provisions for
that child's needs are in place, I'm good with whatever your home looks like. What
I'm looking for is how that child is feeling and interacting and being in
that environment and if you've created, if you're coaching them, if
you've set up a whole bunch of fake stuff for the evaluation, these kids are
going to pick up on that quickly and that's what I'm going to notice. I don't
care about all the facades, I'm going to notice how that child is feeling and the
very best thing you can do, this happens way before the home visit, okay. You
set up the most sane stable loving comfortable provided environment that
you possibly can for your child and you do that not for the home visit, you do
that because that's the right thing to do for you and for your child. Do you see
where I'm going with that? - Well and that also brings up, think about what the whole
focus is here, is the focus on what's best for the child or is to focus on
showing that I'm the parent? And if you think about
what's best for the child and this is just my experience, most custody
evaluators come out pretty even, they don't come out that one parent is just
totally one and the other parent is totally lost, they come out pretty even
and these days, I don't know if you're aware of this but the law is such
that a 50/50 custody or something close to that
is often recommended by custody evaluators because the truth is that,
either parent can probably handle it and so what the evaluators are
looking for are things that really stick out and if there's a bunch of tension
and things like that then - that's going to stick out - that's going to stick out and
it's also hard to discern what the truth is so you got to be careful about that and focus on what's best for the
kids and realize that it may be best for the kids not to just be with one parent
or the other most of the time. - There's always paradoxes in psychology and
one of the paradoxes that I think we've identified here and you'll see this from
your experience too, Sid, the home visit is not about the home. - Yeah, that's right.
- It's not about as long as it's adequate. Now if it's not adequate, you
probably don't have any business having custody of that child if another person
can provide an adequate environment. That sounds harsh but you know what, at a very
fundamental level, most people have an adequate environment.
Don't worry about the home, you make sure that you're setting up a culture in an
environment for this child that is healthy and is not characterized by the
conflict of fighting with the other parent, it's not characterized by
coaching them to try to make you look good.
See, we get our focus back on the child and then things get a lot a lot better.
- Right, and then from a judge's perspective, judges always have the law
to go by and the first thing in the law is where does the child live or the
children live right now, is there a good reason to change that and if there's not
some big danger or some big problem with changing that then that's a big hurdle
to overcome and then the next one is what the child wants. Now the child
doesn't really count directly, they count child only counts indirectly, never
ever ask the child where do you want to live, ever. Now I don't know a house
like that, I just handled that but I counsel my clients
not to do that. Unfortunately, in the media you see that in movies and TV
shows all the time. Well where do you want to live? I don't care, just tell me where
you want to, never ever do that, don't do that ever. In fact, let it just flow. - Yes, in
fact, you just led into something beautifully because we're doing
another video, you can link to it right up in that corner about five mistakes
that will lose your child custody case so make sure you watch that one too. Sid,
will you hang around for that? - Absolutely. - Awesome. Thanks to my attorney friend,
Sid. We've got some nice insights about how to do that. Share this with
someone who would benefit.
