One of the most frequently contested issues in North Carolina and South Carolina divorces is child custody. As parents who love your children, you both want custody and often, you both believe you are the best parent to have custody. Unfortunately, when parents are unable to agree on custody, custody battles can become quite contentious. Judges are forced to make this decision for the parents, despite having little to no knowledge of the family dynamic or any information that would help them make a decision. In these battles, judges may decide to bring in child psychologists to meet with the family and provide a report. How does this work? What does the report say? Can a parent fight the report if it goes against them? Get answers to these questions and others by meeting with one of King Law Offices’ experienced family law attorneys. Call (888) 748-KING to schedule a consultation in one of our South Carolina or North Carolina offices to discuss the details of your case. We proudly serve Winston-Salem, SC, Rock Hill, SC, Cornelius, NC, Charlotte, NC, Waynesville, NC, and Boone, NC.
What Is a Child Psychologist?
A child psychologist is a licensed mental health professional who has either a PhD in psychology or a PsyD, according to the Cleveland Clinic. They also take continuing education annually to remain up to date in field advances. Child psychologists work specifically with children from birth through adolescence, but some specialize in particular age groups.
Child psychologists assess and treat the mental, emotional, behavioral, and social health of children and adolescents. They can assess the child, diagnose and treat mental health conditions, guide the child and their family through challenging situations, and help with trauma. In the context of custody battles, a child psychologist will only assess and possibly diagnose the child. A child psychologist hired for a custody court case cannot treat the child or any member of their family outside of what is required specifically for the report to the court.
What Role Do Child Psychologists Play in Custody Battles?
When they are hired for custody battles, child psychologists have a limited role to play. They are hired to provide an objective assessment of the child’s needs and recommend the best custody arrangement for the child. They will evaluate the child and their parents with psychological tests, interviews, and possibly one or more home visits. They use the information they collect to determine the parents’ strengths, weaknesses, and challenges related to parenting, and make a recommendation for custody, visitation, or parenting plans based on that information.
Child psychologists must maintain impartiality in their role for the court. They cannot have treated any member of the family prior to the custody battle and cannot treat any member of the family after the evaluation. This impartiality and no other contact with the family beyond the custody situation is critical to ensuring that the psychologist’s report is fair, unbiased, and truly considers the needs of the child.
What Kind of Evaluations Can Child Psychologists Perform for Custody Battles?
Child psychologists can perform a number of different evaluations, interventions, therapies, programs, and procedures. However, for the purposes of custody battles, they typically perform one of four evaluations: custody, psychological, parental fitness, or expert opinion. These evaluations allow them to come to certain conclusions about the parents and children involved and make recommendations regarding custody. Even if they diagnose the child or a parent with a mental health condition, they cannot treat that condition.
Custody Evaluation
In custody evaluations, child psychologists use clinical diagnostic interviews, psychological tests, and occasionally home visits to assess each parent’s strengths and weaknesses. Each parent’s personality, social, emotional, and cognitive development is also reviewed, as is the developmental needs of the child. Then the child psychologist makes a recommendation regarding physical and legal custody, which is typically considered very heavily by the judge and can be very persuasive.
While each case is unique and often extremely complex, one oversimplified example of a custody evaluation would be for a 10-year-old child whom the child psychologist diagnoses with anxiety and determines that the child’s anxiety is soothed by living in an environment with lots of structure and routine. This evaluation would then consider both parents, their weaknesses, strengths, personality traits and more. The psychologist may then recommend one parent over the other to have custody because that parent provides a more structured home life with ample routines.
Psychological Evaluation
In some custody battles, the fight comes from a place of concern about one parent’s mental health. The parent may have a mental health condition, substance abuse, or personality or behavior dysfunction which causes the other parent to have significant concerns about their child’s safety and well-being with that parent. In those cases, a psychological evaluation may be requested. If the court determines it is necessary, the parent will be compelled by court order to submit to an evaluation. In this evaluation, the parent’s personality, style of thinking, behavior, and emotional capacity will be assessed to determine the parent’s strengths and weaknesses when it comes to parenting their child.
In these instances, the child may also be assessed to determine if and how they may be impacted by their parent’s mental health. This will largely depend on the child’s age, as well as the specifics of the concerns regarding the parent’s mental health. While the child’s evaluation will typically be confidential because they are a minor, it is important to note that because of their nature, a parent’s evaluation does not have any doctor-patient confidentiality. Additionally, if the parent is diagnosed, they will need to seek treatment from another mental health professional.
Parental Fitness Evaluation
In cases where there are allegations of domestic violence, child abuse, substance abuse, or abuse by extended family, a parental fitness evaluation may be requested. This evaluation may be performed on just one parent or on both, depending on the circumstances. While other evaluations tend to focus mostly on the parents and the child, these evaluations will also include information from other outside sources, such as other family members, teachers, family friends, neighbors, or others who have close knowledge of the family. This evaluation often consists of face-to-face interviews, direct observations of interactions between the parent and the child, psychological testing, and the input from outside sources.
With these evaluations, child psychologists determine whether parents are capable of meeting the physical and emotional needs of their child, as well as meeting their own needs in regard to parenting skills. Based on that information, they can then make a recommendation regarding what would be appropriate access for the parent to have and whether supervised visitation may be necessary.
Expert Opinion
The fourth role child psychologists can play in custody battles is not always an evaluation of the specific family, but instead, an expert opinion about a specific matter related to the family. In this case, the child psychologist is hired by one party with the intention of bolstering their case or critiquing the opinion or report of another psychologist. The psychologist will look at past psychological testing or interviews done with the family and provide their expertise about how a particular matter relates to the family. The psychologist may have been hired to speak on matters such as the needs of children who have developmental disorders, the attachments of young children to their parents or other caregivers, or how a parent’s substance abuse can impact a child.
Do Courts Always Do What the Child Psychologist Suggests?
When child psychologists are brought into custody battles, it is typically because the parents have been unable to agree on custody. This leaves the decision to the judge, who has neither the time nor the training to spend with the family before making such a crucial decision. Therefore, they bring in child psychologists who do have the training to be able to spend a limited amount of time with the family and make a professional, unbiased recommendation about what custody or parenting plan would be best for the child. Because of this, the court does tend to follow the recommendation of the child psychologist. The court tends to trust that the child psychologist has done enough testing and interviews, carefully considered all of the information, and provided a recommendation that they truly believe is in the best interests of the child.
What Does the “Best Interests of the Child” Mean?
When courts refer to the “best interests of the child,” they are referring to a legal principle that considers what is best for that particular child in a given situation. This means that a child’s best interests are nuanced and can be completely different from one child to the next, even if those children are siblings. By considering the best interests of the child in each case, the courts ensure that the child’s rights are respected and that the child is treated with the consideration and care they deserve.
Children’s best interests often include matters such as their safety and well-being, security, education, happiness, and the child’s own voice. Depending on the child’s age, they are often given the opportunity to speak for themselves regarding matters such as which parent they would like to live with.
At What Age Can Children Express Their Preference for Custody in North Carolina and South Carolina?
The North Carolina Courts do not have a set age at which children can speak to the judge regarding any preference for which parent they would like to live with. Generally, the judge will want to ensure that the child understands that being honest is crucial and that the child has reached the “age of discretion.” The “age of discretion” simply means the child displays good judgment and maturity. Typically, the courts will consider a teenager’s preferences.
Per S.C. Code 63-15-30, the court must consider the child’s reasonable preference for custody, but they must weigh that preference based on the child’s age, maturity, judgment, experience, and ability to express that preference. This means that South Carolina does not have a set age, either. Typically, most courts tend to listen to and consider the preferences of children who are age 12 or older. However, it is important to note that in both states, the courts are not required to consider the child’s preferences, and depending on the findings of a child psychologist’s report, those preferences will not outweigh the recommendations of a professional.
Can I Submit My Own Report From My Child’s Personal Psychologist or Therapist?
There are many circumstances in which a child may be seeing a child psychologist or a therapist prior to the parents’ custody battle. For example, the child may have already been diagnosed with a mental health condition or the parents may have wanted to ensure the child’s mental health was protected as they began navigating their divorce. Both North Carolina and South Carolina technically allow for the submission of a report from the child’s personal psychologist or therapist. However, there are additional considerations beyond whether it is technically allowed.
Privileged Information
The information contained in such a report may be considered privileged information and therefore, not be fully admissible without proper consent or a court order. In many cases, the patient themselves (not their parent) may need to be the one who provides consent for this kind of report to be admissible. Depending on the child’s age, they may not be old enough to provide such consent. Additionally, older children such as teenagers, may not be comfortable with such personal information being provided to the court and may refuse to provide consent. While the court can still order the submission of such a report, if the child is unable or unwilling to consent, the court may hesitate to order the submission as it could ultimately be an unnecessary invasion of the child’s privacy.
Impartial Observations
Even in a case where the child gives consent or the submission of a report from their personal psychologist or therapist is otherwise allowed, the court may still prefer a court-ordered evaluation from a neutral child psychologist who does not benefit in any way from evaluating the child and their family.
Child psychologists who evaluate a child and their family during a custody battle cannot treat the child or any member of their family after the custody issue has been resolved, nor can they treat any member of the family prior to the custody issue. While there are multiple reasons for this, one important reason is to preserve the impartiality of the observations made by the psychologist. By limiting the psychologist’s role, the courts can ensure that the psychologist’s observations are not influenced by even the hint of a possibility of continued work. While a private psychologist or therapist is legally bound by the same ethics, their findings could still skew toward favoring the parent who pays for their services or the parent who brings the child to their appointments, even if it is unintentional.
What Are My Options If the Child Psychologist’s Report Goes Against Me?
When child psychologists are brought into custody battles, part of their report includes recommendations regarding custody, visitation, and parenting plans. This means the psychologist may recommend joint custody or that only one parent have custody, that one parent have sole legal custody while both parents have joint physical custody, that one parent have supervised visits, or any number of other parenting plans that they think is best for the child. This can be frustrating for parents, because it means that even if both parents are excellent parents, the psychologist may deem one to be better than the other for custody purposes. There are options parents can explore if the report goes against them. However, it is also important that parents remember they are trying to prove what is in the best interests of the child, and should keep that standard in mind when determining their next steps.
Consult with a Family Law Attorney to Counter the Conclusions
Whether the parent was previously represented by an attorney or is considering hiring one for the first time after the evaluation, a family law attorney may be able to review and analyze the report, advise the parent regarding what specific legal options they may have, and assist them in developing a strategy for addressing the raised concerns.
A family attorney may also be able to cross-examine the psychologist and question their methodology and conclusions. The attorney may also have additional options, depending on the details of an individual’s case. An experienced family law attorney with King Law Offices may be able to assist you with determining what options you may have.
Challenge the Findings With Additional Evidence
Before doing anything else, parties should review the report carefully to understand more than simply the conclusion. Understanding the psychologist’s reasoning and the information they used to have that reasoning and come to the conclusion they did will be important to arguing against their report. When the parent understands the reasoning and the information behind it, they can then look for flaws or biases that may exist in the findings.
This understanding will also make it easier for the parent to seek out additional evidence to challenge the findings. This evidence may include questioning the psychologist’s qualifications, witness testimony (including out-of-court depositions and live testimony) to provide additional context for allegations made, private testimony from the child, and character reference letters from coaches, teachers, friends, and others who are familiar with the parent’s relationship with their child.
Request a Second Evaluation From a Different Psychologist
In some cases, a parent may be able to request a second evaluation from a different child psychologist. To do so, the parent may be required to outline the flaws in the initial evaluation, such as potential bias, incomplete information, or significant concerns regarding the methodology used to complete the evaluation. The parent may also need to provide evidence such as detailed records, affidavits, or other documentation. Finally, they will want to focus on proving that it is crucial to have a second evaluation done in order to ensure their child’s best interests are represented.
If a parent plans to request a second evaluation, they should also be prepared with the names of at least one or two qualified child psychologists who could perform the evaluation. Parents should ensure that these psychologists have relevant experience and expertise. Parents should also remember that these child psychologists cannot have interacted with the family prior to this evaluation. This means they cannot suggest their child’s current psychologist or any psychologist who has treated any member of the immediate family before.
How a Family Law Attorney May Be Able to Assist You
Custody battles can drag on as parents argue and try to find just the right evidence to “prove” the other parent is unfit. With the assistance of child psychologists, the courts can shorten the length of these battles, reduce the arguing between the parents, and get an unbiased recommendation regarding what custody, visitation, or parenting plan is best for the child. At King Law Offices, one of our knowledgeable attorneys may be able to walk you through what to expect with these evaluations, review the findings, and if necessary, challenge the report. Call (888) 748-KING to schedule a consultation and discuss your legal options. We proudly serve Forsyth County, York County, Mecklenburg County, Haywood County, and Watauga County.