During and after a divorce, divorced fathers need to be vigilant in helping their children deal with the stress, insecurity, and bewilderment they are likely to feel. This is especially true for middle schoolers who are still susceptible to feeling a wide range of emotions about the divorce, simply because…
The low conflict divorce might utilize a Bird’s Nest for Child Custody in Greensboro, North Carolina. It is particularly useful if that house won’t sell so no one has money for moving. Dear Carolyn, I just read about something that might work in my upcoming separation and divorce. I have…
Can the court terminate a parent’s rights for willful abandonment of the children? Are there steps a parent estranged from his child can take to ensure this doesn’t happen? In a recent North Carolina appellate decision, the court considered willful abandonment and termination of parental rights. The case arose when…
Can a lower court restrict your use of your passport in a North Carolina child custody order? In a recent North Carolina case, the defendant appealed from the court’s denial of his motion for reconsideration and relief from a 2015 child custody and support order. The defendant was a Poland-born…
In North Carolina, custody can be modified when there is a substantial change of circumstances, but importantly, this change need not be adverse. A positive change can also be the basis for a modification of North Carolina child custody. In a recent appellate decision, the court considered modification of custody…
Sometimes parents disagree as to the best course of treatment for a child’s mental health or health condition, or with regard to education. These issues came up in a recent North Carolina child custody appellate decision, in which a father appealed the court’s order giving a mother primary physical custody…
In a recent appellate court decision that discusses an aspect of North Carolina custody law, a mother appealed from an order that granted her and the father joint custody of teenage children pending the start of a reunification program. The program was supposed to fix the kids’ relationship to their father,…
The custodial parent must not decrease the status of the other parent in the child’s eyes. That is fundamental. Also fundamental: Do not place the child in the middle of the parent’s dispute. Woncik versus Woncik, from the court of appeals in North Carolina is instructive on the two fundamental…
We are officially in the midst of the best season of the year. No, I’m not referring to the pumpkin-filled days of Fall. I’m talking about football season. But as we don our team colors and cheer on our favorite players, the on-field battles aren’t the only ones that family…
Dear Carolyn, I reluctantly entered into a consent child custody order with the mother of my child in 2013. We were never married and never actually lived together. The child is now five having been born in 2011. I get visitation under the 2013 order, but the court never heard…