When parents are talking about a divorce in West Virginia, sometimes the subject of whether children should be kept together or not after the divorce. In other words, one of the children does not have the same parenting plan as the other. The first question often asked when it comes to this subject is do the courts ever award parenting plans in a way that the children’s time does not necessarily always align?
The answer to that is it depends, but it is more common that you’re going to see a parenting plan where the kids don’t necessarily have the same amount of time with the same parent in instances of older children. There could be other instances where the court’s going to look at keeping the children living under different parenting plans, even when the children are younger, but in most instances it happens when it comes to the older children. What the court is going to be looking at when it comes to placement of the children is who is generally in the best interest of the child. It’s important to know that there are more specific reasons than that that the courts will look at placements, but this is a general theme in these types of situations.
What the court will do is a child analysis and try to look at what’s best for that child or children. You might have the court determined that one of the children should be residing with one parent versus the other. It may be a case for example where you might have one child that has special needs of some sort and it’s best to place that child with one parent or another. The court overall is generally going to be looking at what is in the best interest and best interests of the child. In many instances, that means that one child is going to be spending more time with one parent or the other. In very rare instances, the court sometimes will actually appoint a Guardian Ad Litems on the case. This is rare, but it does happen from time to time. This usually happens in an instance where the interest of the best interest of one child might not necessarily be the best interests of the other child.
It might be in the best interest of one child to have time with for example their sibling or siblings or it might be in their best interest to have more time away from those siblings. This is just something else to be thinking about in the event that one may think that a Guardian Ad Litum might be appointed or should be appointed as well.
