DAILY CUSTODY TIP: Don’t allow tattoos, piercings or blue hair on your children without the other parent’s consent.

Has this happened in your family? Your child leaves your home on a Friday for an ordinary visit with your ex-spouse and comes back on Sunday looking like a monster. Without your knowledge or consent, your child suddenly has an enormous tattoo on her chest, or your seven-year-old son has a nose ring. Or worse yet, your child has a haircut from hell, featuring streaks of blue and lavender. Holy $&#%!!

The best policy is not to make any significant changes to your child’s appearance without discussing it first with the other parent. Because tattoos and peircings are not universally accepted by the population, they should be discussed between the parents and with the child before any action is taken. We frequently see custody disputes in which one parent complains that her ex-husband secretly took their son to get an earring or a tattoo, without discussing it first. In these cases, one parent frequently argues that such adornments are unsafe, unhealthy, anti-social, or perhaps suggestive of a dirty, wild, rock-and-roll spirit. The other parent responds by saying that tattoos and piercings are commonplace these days, they’re widely accepted and perfectly safe, and the other parent is just conservative or out of touch with modern times.

The fact that parents have these fights is why it’s important to talk it over first. An unannounced tattoo or piercing not only raises questions about what’s right for the child but it reflects that lack of communication between the parents. Ultimately, somebody will have to answer for why he or she did not consult the other parent first.

The same goes for wild haircuts, or cutting off a young girls’ long, flowing locks of hair after years of careful grooming and management. Material alterations to a child’s appearance should be discussed first.

Discussing these matters before taking action will improve your chances of demonstrating your co-parenting abilities in a custody case. They will also give each parent a fair opportunity to air his or her thoughts about these matters.

Tell me your experiences with this.

DAILY CUSTODY TIP: Eat up! Feed your kids well right before they go to visit your ex.

It’s not uncommon for one parent to feed the children better than the other. When custody is divided between two households, the kids tend to eat better, and more nutritionally, at one home than the other. In the best of all worlds, both parents would be healthy eaters who would pass on wholesome, low-fat, nutritional habits to their children – but we don’t live in the best of all worlds.

For better or worse, there will be a clear disparity in the quality of the children’s diet in most cases. Therefore, it is not a bad idea to feed your children a good meal right before they go to visit your ex (the other parent). This may seem like contrary logic to some parents: Some folks think it’s smarter to send the kids to the other parent hungry and force the other parent to bear the cost or the effort of preparing the meal. Petty spitefulness aside, this approach means that you’re passing up an opportunity to improve your status with your own kids.

The better approach – both for the benefit of your kids and for your strategic advantage – is to sit the children down for a great meal directly before they leave for the other parent’s household. Not only will you lock in your position as the primary caregiver for the kids, but you’ll also prompt them, quite quickly, to associate wholesome eating with your house. Indeed, they may associate all eating with your house, and may prefer to be at your home during every mealtime.

Developing good eating habits and reliable timetables is part of good parenting. Taking the initiative in this area will have both short-term and long-term benefits for your children, and will provide you with important ammunition in a child custody or visitation case in the Family Court.

DAILY CUSTODY TIP: Share children’s grades and unify system of rewards and punishments.

Do you know your child’s grades in reading, mathematics and other subjects? Does your ex-spouse know? If you’re not aware of your child’s current level of scholastic achievement, or if you’re not sharing information with another parent, you may be harming your chances for custody and/or visitation rights.

Ask the mother in McCoy vs. McCoy, a 2004 child custody case in Michigan. In that case, the father, who had custody, would not let the mother see the child’s report card, and the mother had to go to the school to get a copy of it. She soon learned that the child had 22 absences and had failing grades. She quickly moved for a change in custody.

Or ask the father in Gault vs. Gault, a 2006 case out of Alaska. In Gault, the judge transferred custody of the boy (now 8 years old) to his father after the boy’s grades slipped dramatically. The father convinced the court that he could oversee the child’s educational needs better than the mother.

To avoid these kinds of custody motions, it is best for parents to share report cards and to provide timely information to each other about the child’s grades and academic progress. Students who do well in school should be rewarded – in both parents’ households – while students who do poorly should be jointly disciplined or counseled to make improvements. If only one parent reacts to the child’s grades, that parent may be seen by the court as having the greater level of concern about the child’s educational best interests.

By developing a uniform system of rewards and punishments, even divorced and separated parents can stress the importance of academic achievement. In fact, a parent who cooperates by sharing information with the other parent, and coordinating how the two of them will respond to the child’s performance level is likely to be favored as showing leadership in the area of academic achievement.

DAILY CUSTODY TIP: Whisper, Whisper, Not a Good Idea. Avoid discussing the other parent in the presence of the child.

Can you believe that Mr. Creepo wants full custody now? You won’t believe what that &$!#!!
told the judge about me? Guess what that loser-ex-wife of mine is offering me in visitation time?

When the heat of a child custody battle rises to the surface, parents tend to talk openly about each other. In fact, it’s not uncommon to gripe about the proceedings to one’s friends and family members, and to verbally defame the other parent in the privacy of one’s home.

Yet, having these "private" conversations where children can hear them is bad news all around. For one thing, if a child believes what she hears and adopts the parent’s defamatory tone, the other parent will catch on quickly that he (she) is being maligned in front of the child. It may prompt the aggrieved parent to file a motion or, worse yet, to argue that the slanderous parent is engaging in parental alienation tactics. The child may repeat what she hears to a psychologist, to a custody evaluator or to a judge, leaving these persons with great concerns about the nasty parent’s household demeanor.

Sometimes, too, defaming a parent in the presence of a child can backfire, prompting the child to take the victim-parent’s side. It teaches children that it’s okay to speak poorly of their parents, and can have multiple damaging ripple effects.

If you feel you must lash out against your opponent in a child custody case, schedule a private get-together with adult family members or friends – outside the earshot of children. Letting off steam in the presence of the kids is likely only to complicate your case, not to improve your position.

DAILY CUSTODY TIP: Back to school before back to court: Take a class with your child and gain an advantage in your custody case.

An excellent way to improve your stake in a child custody case is to take a class with your child. Sign up for a cooking class with your teen. Or sign up for karate together. Enroll in a summer basketball camp – both of you – and complete the program together. Join an art club or take a painting class together.

Not only will taking a class together draw you and your child closer together, tightening the parent-child bond, but it could be lots of fun and could provide a great recreational activity for a sometimes stressful relationship. Perhaps most importantly, taking a class together will provide demonstrable evidence of your commitment to your children, creating strong evidence in your favor in a family court.

There may also be enduring benefits even after the class ends. Consider, for example, cooking up a feast with your child for Thanksgiving, while showing off some of things you learned together in the cooking class. Or, practicing karate together as a form of exercise at the commencement of each of your weekend visitations with the child, drawing on the techniques learned in your karate class. By extending the classroom experience, you can enhance the parenting experience while bolstering your position in a contested custody case.

Has anybody ever taken a class with their son or daughter?

DAILY CUSTODY TIP: Do not withdraw restraining orders when custody is at issue. (Domestic Violence and Child Custody – Part 2).

Yesterday, I blogged about the importance of securing a domestic violence protection order or restraining order if you’re a legitimate victim of domestic violence. Not just because you may need one to ensure your safety, and not just because judges often issue temporary custody orders as well. I recommended that you secure the domestic violence orders as a tactical maneuver in the event that have – or expect to have – a child custody dispute on the horizon.

I also cautioned against using the domestic violence system improperly: Court orders are intended for real victims of domestic violence who can use the orders as a shield against further harm, not for imagined “victims” who see a domestic violence order as a sword to be wielded to gain an advantage in divorce court.

If you obtain a protection order or a restraining order, do not forget about it. Don’t bury it. Don’t re-write it on your own. Don’t voluntarily disobey it (or permit the assailant to do so), and most importantly, don’t agree to dismiss it. Too often, when parties reach an agreement on child custody or visitation time, they include a provision withdrawing or dismissing the domestic violence protection order. In fact, such a provision may seem necessary in order to carry out the visitations. After all, how can the parents exchange the children between their homes if they’re restrained from communicating with each other or entering upon each other’s property?

The better practice is to return to the domestic violence court and to narrowly modify the protection order or restraining order to permit the kind of custody and visitation arrangement you wish to have. Modify those portions of the order that must be changed to make the custody arrangement meaningful, but retain the remaining language in the order. For example, a modified restraining order could state that the non-custodial parent is permitted to communicate with the custodial parent, but only via email or texting, and only for the purposes of transmitting informational updates concerning the children. A formal modification of the court order, best accomplished with the advice of legal counsel, will promise the greatest amount of protection while enabling the custody and visitation plan to be put into force.

DAILY CUSTODY TIP: When violence strikes, don’t give love a second chance. A restraining order will help your custody case.

Long before couples get divorced or find themselves in child custody cases, they may have fights that turn violent. Domestic violence is, of course, a serious matter, and the family courts around the country are prepared to issue restraining orders and temporary custody orders to deal with violent persons and their victims. But just as often, couples brush their nasty fights under the rug, ignoring their legal rights and remedies.

Many times, a victim of domestic violence passes up the opportunity to get a restraining order or a temporary custody order – in the name of love, or in order to avoid disrupting the lives of the children by kicking one of their parents out of the house.

A domestic violence restraining order can have serious consequences for everybody involved. The law of domestic violence should not be trivialized; complaints should not be filed because somebody raised his voice, used profane words or lost his temper on a rare occasion. Judges are on guard for “victims” who use the domestic violence law as a sword (rather than as a shield), as they try to gain unfair advantage in a child custody case.

On the other hand, a legitimate victim of domestic violence should not give love a second chance. By filing a timely complaint for domestic violence (even if no divorce or child custody case is presently pending), a victim can obtain a protection order, a restraining order or a temporary custody order. This will not only ensure the victim’s safety but it will give the victim a decided advantage in a future custody case.

Spend a day in domestic violence court, and you will see lots of victims telling the judge how they were victimized in the past but never bothered to report it to police or to the court. Not only have these victims missed the opportunity to gain protection earlier and to secure an advantage in a subsequent child custody dispute, but they may be viewed by the domestic violence judge as less credible.

The best policy: When domestic violence strikes, file a report with police, file a complaint with the court, and obtain the protection order or restraining order. Even if you drop the case or withdraw the court orders later, the legal record you’ve created will assist you in a future custody case.