Child Custody Mental Health

Print This Post

Today, the rulings of child custody are not granted without a mental evaluation. The judge usually orders this evaluation to better determine his ruling. Those who are experienced in the mental health field, will observe the parents in their natural home setting. They observe them with the child, out in other environments, and in some cases they will evaluate their state of mind. The child is fully evaluated to determine their preference of where they would like to be.

The final statement from the psychologist can be used as the basis for the ruling if both parents do not object. However, in many cases the parents do object because each one wants to have custody of the child. If both parents decide to disagree with the statement from the psychologist, then the judge will take all evidence into consideration to make his final decision. The mental health evaluations have been relied on so much throughout the past few years, that over 90% of all rulings are based on the evaluation.

The actual evaluation of the family is not a pleasant experience, for the family or the psychologist. The job of the mental health expert is to find any thing lingering in the background that may cause a problem for the child. This often upsets the parents and takes them off guard when any thing negative is implied. Because of this issue, the parents tend to get very uptight, nervous, and distraught during the process. Many parents have even refused to be evaluated further and have requested a different psychologist. This form of acting out does not go well with the judge and usually it does not help their case. The job is not easy for the psychologist and they often have to become ugly in order for any answers to be given. The child is usually kept out of the situation with the parents when the evaluation becomes intense. Besides the fact that the parents are observed with the child, each parent and the child are evaluated for any mental problems that may exist.

In certain circumstances, the issue of child abuse is raised by the other parent. For this reason, the psychologist may be asked by the judge to focus primarily on the child abuse with the parent accused. The mental evaluation will be based on the child abuse and it will be the job of the psychologist to look for any sign of abuse. When asking the child about the abuse, the questions are asked in a private room without the accused parent to keep the parent from making the child answer in a specific way.