Skip to Content
Top

How Can You Best Prepare for a Child Custody Hearing?

|

Your child custody hearing in Texas will help determine a satisfactory agreement between you and your former spouse regarding the care of your children. Many factors influence how and why the custody agreement comes together.

While you may disagree with aspects of the agreement or find the arrangement inconvenient, your willingness to show flexibility can provide instrumental support for your case in the years going forward.

Honesty Supports Evidence

You may feel as though you can bend the truth in your favor during custody proceedings. However, this behavior could actually hurt your case significantly especially if people uncover your dishonesty. According to AptParenting, your honesty will boost your reputation and can help support evidence as well. Rather than focus on ways to get around your ex, focus on your own strengths and weaknesses to identify a strategy to help you in court.

For example, you can ask yourself which aspects of your parenting does your ex usually complain about? Have you made mistakes in the past that could compromise others’ views of your parenting qualifications? What are your biggest strengths in parenting? Consider writing an exhaustive list of your personality traits, as well as your parenting strengths and play off of those to diminish the severity of the incriminating statements your ex may try to make against you.

Seeking a Modification

Once finalized, your child custody agreement may not work forever. As your children grow, your job situation changes, your ex moves or new opportunities come along, the original arrangement may not be as effective as it once was. When this happens, you can request modifications. Throughout the lifetime of your custody agreement, keep notes about its function and effectiveness so you have ample information to use as evidence should you ever need to request a modification.