Saturday, July 14, 2018

Answers To Common Questions Regarding Psychological Testing Child Custody Hearings Require

By Scott Wright


Not all couples can separate their differences from the best interests of their children when they are in the middle of a divorce. Accusations may fly back and forth until it takes a court intervention and the evaluation of professionals to sort out the truth. When one or both parent's ability to care for the children is being evaluated, both sides need to be informed about the psychological testing child custody judges order.

Parents ask why there has to be an evaluation. If the court is hearing conflicting stories about poor parenting, the judge's response is usually to bring in an unbiased third party professional to assess the parent's level of functionality. The judge is trying to discover if the couple can co-parent at all, and if one parent should have sole or primary custodial rights.

Parents want to know how much weight the psychological tests carry when judges are ruling on custodial arrangements. The psychologists say these tests are only part of what they look at during the evaluations. They take things like interviews, observation, teachers, parent-child interaction, and information from others who are close of this family into consideration.

A common question involves what happens if a parent receives an unfavorable assessment during this process. Lawyers say they want to talk to the psychologist about the findings, whether good or bad, prior to the writing of the report. If the news is not good, the lawyer has limited options. Another expert can be requested, but judges do not generally like to keep questioning the children in these cases.

Parents want to know if there can be a compromise if neither of the parents is deemed harmful to their kids. Psychologists point out that findings are the result of meticulous information gathering. They include everything in the report that is relevant. When an evaluator runs into a situation that is outside his or her expertise, another professional is called to conduct that portion of an evaluation.

Couples ask what happens when both sides get their own evaluators. Both the lawyers and psychologists say this is something that happens all the time. Most of the time the conclusions reached are pretty much the same. It is fairly rare for psychologists to be biased in favor of the parents who are paying them.

Some parents want to know if children can be compelled to visit an alienated parent. The answer to this question depends on the circumstances. In most cases, judges don't like to try and force children to spend time with the alienated parent because it tends to make the situation worse. In a case where one parent is not cooperating with visitation, the court may decide to intervene before that situation worsens.

Divorce is never easy for the adults or the children involved. It is always a better idea for the parents to work custodial issues out privately. When they aren't able to do that, they risk losing control to the courts, the lawyers, and the psychologists.




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