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: Mother Nature and the Family Court: Why Local Parks Might Help Your Custody Case.

This past week, we’ve been blogging about schools, crime rates, and other ways to compare one neighborhood with another. In judging what’s in the best interest of a child in a custody case, a judge is often required to compare the mother’s home and community environment with the father’s.

Another consideration is the access to parks and recreational facilities. How close do your children live to the nearest park, lake, baseball field, or nature preserve? Is your home surrounded by waterways where the children can go swimming or boating? Are there organized sports in the neighborhood? Trails for walking and hiking? Bike paths? Public recreational facilities?

Because a judge sits in a courtroom and may never even meet your child, he or she may never get to know that your child likes to run, hike, play basketball, swim or go canoeing. In building your child custody case, however, it is important to emphasize the child’s recreational interests and to show how your community provides the greater access to parks and recreational facilities. If you have several children who routinely play together, it is important to develop evidence of how they play, where they play, and what they play. For example, the court might want to think twice before relocating two brothers who spend every free moment playing tennis at the local park. Their fraternal connection, their love of the sport, and their physical proximity to the park all contribute to a picture of stability and continuity that the court may wish to encourage.

Mother Nature is held in high esteem in the Family Court. Good, healthy recreational activities are positive influences on child development. Exposing children to such outdoor activities in a safe natural environment will score a few extra points in promoting your role as a parent in a child custody case.