Custody Battles and the Impact on Children
Erroneous Handling of Abuse Cases and the Often Silent (or Silenced) Victims Caught In-Between
Custody battles, often fraught with emotion, have implications that stretch beyond the immediate parties involved.
The often hidden casualties are the children — silently enduring the process, absorbing its reverberations, and living the consequences.
In cases intertwined with allegations of abuse, the stakes are exponentially higher, and the potential for missteps, more profound.
It is my experience (having formerly practiced law for the better part of a decade), that family court systems, meant to serve as an impartial mediator, frequently misapprehends the nuanced intricacies of abuse, both physical and psychological.
What seems to be an objective evaluation often falls victim to deep-rooted biases, perpetuating myths surrounding abuse, victimhood, and credibility.
The guiding principle of custody decisions is in most jurisdictions legislation, often stated to be the “best interests of the child.”
While the meaning of this should be clear on the surface, there are in fact a myriad of ways in which this can be interpreted — with such interpretation at the discretion of the judges, lawyers, and evaluators involved in family court cases.
In abuse-laden cases, the ambiguity can lead to devastating consequences.
For example, is it in the best interest of a child to maintain relations with both parents, even when one is an abuser?
Where should the line be drawn?
My personal perspective — and experience — is that women and children are often not believed (either wholly or at all), and that even where they are believed, societal norms mean that protection is most often not offered or provided as it needs to be.
I’ve also previously written on how abuse often does not leave visible scars.
Psychological abuse, including coercive control, manipulation, and gaslighting, is harder to evidence but equally, if not more, damaging.
In my experience though, courts often weigh physical evidence over testimonies and histories, disadvantaging victims of non-physical abuse.
There’s also a prevailing myth that false allegations of abuse are rampant during custody battles.
In reality, social science research has repeatedly shown that false accusations are rare.
Yet this myth (and the failure of legal professionals to read the extensive research in this area) leads to a sceptical view of genuine abuse claims, pushing victims into a corner where they have to prove not only the abuse but also their credibility.
The Child’s Voice — Often Silenced, Rarely Heard
While proceedings revolve around their futures, it is my experience that children’s voices are frequently marginalised.
They may not be directly consulted, and when they are, their testimonies are often discredited due to their age or perceived susceptibility to manipulation.
In abusive scenarios, this silencing can trap them in harmful environments.
Again, there is a lot of social science research in this area which supports these contentions.
I’ve written on this topic in more depth previously too if you’re interested.
The crucial part that needs to be emphasised here though is that for children, the end of court proceedings doesn’t signify the end of turmoil.
The tension between parents, the polarisation of familial relationships, and the emotional strain of navigating these dynamics can have long-lasting psychological effects.
Custody decisions based on misapprehensions too often also thrust children into unsafe environments.
I have read story after story online of children now grown, who have described the horror of telling their truths as children, only to then be handed over to their abuser and removed from their protective parent in the process.
They describe heartbreaking years of torment and the loss of their childhoods, which then, of course, significantly also impacts their adulthoods.
There are also dozens of stories online involving (almost always) fathers who were granted care of their children, despite allegations of abuse, only to then go on to to kill their child(ren).
What the general public perhaps also needs to understand too is that family courts, being the very secretive places that they are, have extremely limited measures for providing accountability.
They don’t directly conduct research on the long term outcomes of their cases.
They often hamper social science researchers from accessing the data and information that they need to empirically demonstrate the patterns that have long been known.
And to my knowledge (having researched in this area for years now), family court judges and lawyers read very little of the social science literature that is produced in this area, and do not recognise the need to update their social understandings on these issues as they need to.
Towards A More Compassionate Approach
In our quest for justice within the family court system, we need to shift our focus towards a more compassionate approach that genuinely priorities the well-being of the children involved.
One pivotal aspect of this is the continuous education and training of legal professionals.
It’s essential that those operating within the family court system undergo ongoing and specialised training tailored to understanding the multifaceted intricacies of abuse and its profound impact on children.
They need to wholly understand and accept how patriarchal prejudices define relationships and understandings in this area.
They also need to understand and acknowledge the gendered nature of abuse — as repeatedl ydemonstrated empirically by social science researchers.
And they need to understand and acknowledge just how prevalent abuse of (predominantly) women and children in our societies is.
I speak from long years of experience when I say that family court professionals do not tend to have the necessarily understandings in this respect.
And that even where some do have a part of this picture, it is too often tainted by a culture of denial and failure to appropriately empathise with victims of abuse with the family court.
Without the necessary knowledge and understandings in this area, judges and legal professionals cannot make informed decisions.
A compassionate approach is also need to ensure the amplification of children’s voices.
Every child, regardless of age, needs to be given a platform where they can candidly express their feelings, fears, and experiences.
Again, speaking from experience both as a practitioner, and having researched in this area for many years now, this is frequently not provided.
Children’s stories / voices shouldn’t be just a procedural step either — as I have seen demonstrated in case after case — but a genuine effort to understand children’s perspective, communicated in age-appropriate ways.
Lastly, there also needs to be acknowledgement of the emotional toll that prolonged court proceedings on children.
The longer a custody case drags on, the longer these young souls remain in a state of uncertainty, which can exacerbate feelings of insecurity and anxiety.
It is, therefore, critical for courts to adopt a sense of urgency — for our governments to appropriately resource such urgency — which will prioritise timely resolutions in custody battles.
This not only serves the child’s “best interests” but also ensures that their mental and emotional well-being doesn’t deteriorate further during an already trying time.
Compassionate strategies — something legal systems are not generally known for — are necessary to pave the way for more empathetic and effective family court systems, where children’s best interests can truly reign supreme.
