Children & Parenting

How to Talk to Your Child about Parental Alienation

Children, says doctor of psychology Sue Cornbluth1, want three things from their parents in divorce: to not be caught in the middle, to know the divorce is not their fault, and for the parents to act like adults. Sadly, one parent often pits the children against the other, violating all three of those wishes. Parental alienation is a form of ...

By |December 7th, 2020|

How Much Do You Have to Owe in Child Support to Go to Jail?

How many zeros in a bajillion dollars? Sometime in the early 1990s, trolls and wags forged the word bajillion to join all the other words for a fantastically large amount of money. Kazillion, katrillion, umptillion — and our personal favorite, Godzillion (a cross between cool cash and a Japanese movie monster?). Just how much money does a Virginia noncustodial parent ...

By |November 23rd, 2020|

Who Has Custody of a Child If There’s No Court Order?

We all remember the quaint days of “No Shoes, No Shirt, No Service.” Nowadays, it’s “No Mask, No Service.” What happens if it’s “No Court Order, No Custody” looming in your life? At The Start: Equal Responsibility in Parenting Babies are natural. Paperwork is not. Babies are born free and unencumbered by birth certificates, immunization records, report cards, driver licenses, ...

By |November 16th, 2020|

Winning a Relocation Custody Case in Virginia

Go along to get along. Or is it, “Get along to go along?” Sam Rayburn said it the second way; author Hillary Jordan went the other way. Here’s a wrinkle: “Get along to go.” As in, go out of state. To make child custody and relocation work, you have to get along with your children’s mother, and the judge. Virginia ...

By |November 9th, 2020|

Can a Mother Lose Custody for Not Having a Job?

When we say, “All work is noble,” we not only forget the other half of that quotation, but we also ignore the subtle disdain it shows for anyone not working. When Maria Montessori said, “All work is noble,” she finished the thought with, “the only ignoble thing is to live without working.” What does Virginia make of a mother who ...

By |November 2nd, 2020|

My Wife is Abusive. What Can I Do?

Virginia’s judicial system has no time for stereotypes. Women and men can both be abused. The Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Courts do not refer to “wife beating” or “wife abuse.” The phrase is “family abuse,” which is legally defined as “any act involving violence, force, or threat including any forceful detention, which results in physical injury or places one ...

By |October 26th, 2020|

Who Claims the Children on Taxes After Divorce?

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) loves to give tests. There’s two phrases sure to head straight to your heart, and make it jump: IRS and tests. Publication 5041 includes a section called “Tests To Be A Qualifying Child.” Before you leap to that fascinating reading, though, be aware that the answer to the question, “Who Claims the Children on Taxes ...

By |October 12th, 2020|

What are the Chances of a Father Getting Full Custody in Virginia?

Who you gonna believe, a buncha statistics or your own eyes? Weirdly, it really comes down to that choice when you try to measure your odds (chances) of getting full custody of your children in a Virginia divorce. Why? Because, while fathers are still statistically unlikely to get full custody, the cause may surprise you. A Buncha Statistics Folks in ...

By |September 28th, 2020|

What Happens to Student Loan Debt in Divorce?

If you owned a stock that climbed 33 percent in value from 2014 to 2019, you would rightfully think of yourself as the next Warren Buffet. That percentage, though, is the increase in the amount of student loan debt incurred in the United States in that five-year period, according to Investopedia1. If a sliver of that debt is in your ...

By |September 14th, 2020|
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