Divorce and child custody are complicated enough for the average family. For families that have a child with special needs, figuring out the best living arrangement and caretaking responsibilities is even harder. Extra attention needs to be given to creating a carefully drafted parenting plan that takes all of the child’s best interests into account. An experienced Hinsdale child custody attorney will be able to help you throughout the divorce process.

Shared Custody Is Often the Best Custody Arrangement

Numerous U.S. and international studies have shown that children thrive the most when they have both parents in their lives. As such, shared custody is usually a desirable outcome for custody decisions. Even if the child lives primarily with one parent, as long as the other parent has a constant presence in their child’s life, the child will be much better off than if one parent is seldom around.

Parenting is a demanding job. For children with special needs, the demands placed on parents are greater. Having two parents play an equal role in caretaking, driving the child to appointments and school, and homemaking can be a great asset to everyone involved. However, in certain situations, it may be best to fight for sole custody if the other parent has proven themselves to be unfit for the job.

Your children are the most important thing in a parent’s life, and it is common to lash out at anything that potentially harms their child or prevents a parent from seeing their child or spending time with their child. In this case, that thing is a custody hearing. Below are some common mistakes that parents make during custody battles that can harm their chances of receiving a desirable outcome in court.

Using Social Media to Complain About the Other Parent

As tempting as it may be, using social media to publicly badmouth the other parent, that parent’s lawyer, or a judge handling the case is a recipe for disaster. Not only will it unnecessarily anger all parties target, which may in fact by your short-term goal, but it will harm your reputation, making you seem vindictive, irrational, or a bad role model.

Losing Your Temper in Court

A judge wants to place a child with a responsible parent in a stable home with a calm environment. Outbursts in court prove to the judge that you are not that person and your home is not that place.

It is not uncommon to hire an attorney and, after divorce proceedings have begun, realize that they are not a good fit for your needs. Whether they do not seem to be qualified for the job, have a conflict of interest, are not spending enough time on your case, or you simply do not get along with him or her, you can terminate your agreement with your attorney even after divorce proceedings already began.

Reasons to Get a New Divorce Attorney

From ex-clients stalking lawyers who they felt were at fault for not winning their custody case, to husbands tracking down and shooting their wives’ divorce attorneys to get even, being a divorce lawyer comes with serious risks. While threats and violence are never okay, it is understandable if you are frustrated with your current lawyer. Good reasons to leave them include the following:

• Misses deadlines
• Does not seem to have enough time for your case
• Poor communication by lack of calls and emails
• Breaks promises
• Belittles you
• Misses court appearances
• Does not listen to you
• Does not keep you up to date on your case

Retain a Different Attorney

The first step in getting rid of your current divorce lawyer is to find a new one. When you sign a contract with your new lawyer, ensure that he or she knows that you have an existing attorney that you plan to part ways with. This can be accomplished with a letter of termination submitted in person or in the mail. Even if you tell your attorney face to face or over the phone, you need to submit this termination letter in addition. Ensure that you are completely caught up in payments.

When there is any doubt about who your child’s father is, you, as the dad, should take a paternity test. A paternity test will clear up any confusion or false claims regarding who the biological father truly is. While paternity tests are often used by mothers to hold fathers accountable for child support, fathers can use them too to ensure their own parenting rights.

What Is a Paternity Test?

A paternity test is just another name for a DNA test, which compares the DNA of the potential father to that of the child or infant. Nearly 300,000 paternity tests are performed in the U.S. annually, according to studies. Paternity testing can be done when the child is still a fetus, though this is less common and may involve unnecessary risks. Paternity testing is virtually 100 percent accurate, though it does not need to be done if the mother is married to the father at the time of the birth — in this case, it is generally assumed that the husband is the father unless stated otherwise. The following scenarios are examples of when a father might want to have a paternity test performed:

• If a husband, boyfriend, or sexual partner believes he is not the father and does not want to be wrongly held responsible for child support
• If a husband, boyfriend, or sexual partner believes that he is not the father and wants to know for his own peace of mind
• If a husband, boyfriend, or sexual partner believes that he is the father but the mother denies this fact

Child Custody and Visitation Depend on Paternity

Whether you are seeking child custody or visitation, you must be able to prove that you are the child’s biological father. A paternity test can quickly accomplish this and put any doubts to bed. After your paternity has been proven, you can then petition the court for custody, visitation rights, and to be included in the parenting plan.

Women are trapped in bad or abusive marriages for a variety of reasons. Below are the top three reasons that women stay in marriages that are harmful to themselves and their children.

Major Wage Discrepancies Between Men and Women Cause Women More Stress

On average, full-time female Illinois workers make just 78 cents for every dollar that full-time male workers earn. Obviously, women face pay discrimination — being paid less than men for the same occupations — but they also face discrimination in the workplace when it comes to promotions, being hired for good-paying jobs in the first place, for taking time away from work due to pregnancy, and for dozens of other reasons.

Because of this, two-thirds of minimum wage workers are women, and hundreds of thousands of women are trapped in bad marriages due to the financial stress that getting divorced would cause. It is understandable that studies show that women are more stressed out about money than men.