One of the most challenging, time consuming and expensive areas of family law is dealing with divorce and children. And that in a way makes total sense to our custody lawyers in Vancouver.

Often times, parents stay in toxic relationships for the sake of their children. When they decide to separate or divorce, the decision is painful, heavy and loaded with fear and anxiety. The decision comes from a place of wanting to protect children against a bad relationship. But when the decision is made, the division of the couple naturally brings a host of new issues such as where, when and how long are children to spend parenting time with each parent.

The Struggles of Parenting After Separation

What often happens is instead of trying to protect children against the difficult consequences of divorce, some parents often unknowingly expose their children to more conflict arising from their decision to divorce. Instead of keeping the ‘united front’, co-parenting and minimizing damage, parents begin fighting amongst themselves based on emotions that are so intense, sometimes they cloud objective judgment. This then results in fortunes spent, irreparable harm to the parent’s psyche, and most importantly, life-long damage to their children. 

A Good Custody Lawyer Remains Objective

So what is a good family lawyer’s role in such situations? A good family lawyer will show you the objectivity you need to see before you make a decision to settle or litigate in the best interests of the children. The worst situations arising when the lawyer just follows a parent’s wishes and creates more acrimony, expense and loss of resources in an attempt to ‘win’ instead of ‘resolve’.

Our lawyers are objective, and may say things that you may not like to hear. But we stay true to what we see as the best interests of children after having seen what clouded judgments of parents, litigation and involving children in fights does to them. Our only goal is to minimize damage to children and push parents towards amicable co-parenting.

Child and Divorce Issues to Deal with Post-Separation

When you and your partner decide to separate, there are several issues to deal with:

Parenting Time or Custody of Children

Under the BC Family Law Act and the Divorce Act, the only thing that will matter after separation when it comes to children, is their best interest only. So when it comes to parenting time or custody, your interests won’t matter, nor your spouse’s. The law only looks at the best parenting arrangement for the children given their specific needs and situation.

Parenting time comes in a variety of ways, but it can be organized in 2 major categories:

1. The Child primarily resides with one parent, and sees the other parent less than 40% of the time;
2. The parents share parenting time with the child, with each having more than 40% of the time with him or her.

Learn more about parenting and children including relocation, changing parenting time Orders and impact of family violence. 

Guardianship of Children

Guardianship really means being the guardian of your child or children; meaning protecting them. This includes making decisions with respect to their health, safety, residence, food, religious upbringing, etc. Generally, biological parents are automatically guardians of their children.

The Court can take away guardianship of a parent if the court is satisfied that it is in the best interests of the child.

People who are not parents can seek guardianship of children, including grandparents, relatives, step-parents, etc. When it comes to guardianship, again, whatever is in the best interests of the child is the only thing that matters.

Learn more about guardianship including shared and sole guardianship, and day to day and major decision making.

Child Support

Children must be supported financially, both during the relationship and thereafter. Child support comes in 2 forms:

1. Monthly Child Support, also known as the “Table Amount” – this type covers the day to day expenses of the children and is based on a formula that calculates support based on incomes; and
2. Extraordinary or s.7 expenses – these are separate from the monthly child support and include expenses such as tuition, school fees, medical and dental expenses, daycare, etc. This amount is often shared by parents based on their proportionate incomes.

The amount of monthly child support is calculated based on:

• The primary residence formula which only counts the income of the parent who sees the children less than 40% of the time;
• The shared formula which sets off the incomes of both parents against one another and calculates support on the difference.

Learn more about child support including what is NOT s.7 expenses, changing child support orders, or enforcing child support orders or agreements.