What Separated Parents Need to Know About Custody and Child Support

Hi, friends! About a year and a half ago, we ran an interview here with Dr. Jennifer Nadolny (you can read it here). She's a respected family law attorney in Essen, Germany, who specializes in custody cases. Back then, she told us about problems in the system, bad expert evaluations, and court rulings with devastating consequences.

In her newest book, “Familienrecht im Alltag” (“Family Law in Everyday Life”), she lays out which legal questions matter for separated parents and what they need to keep in mind. Who decides about medical treatment? Who pays for what? Which decisions have to be made together? We talked with her about all of it:

Dr. Nadolny, you wrote an entire book on legal questions for separated parents. Why do you think so many parents can't pull together after a split? 

Many parents are still so caught up in the conflict between them as a couple after the separation, so hurt, and so focused on holding on to power and enforcing claims of ownership, that they can't turn their attention to the child and put their own needs second. 

The more amicable the separation, the more amicably the questions about the child are usually settled. But when one parent is blindsided and left, it's not unusual to see narcissistic tendencies as a reaction. That's understandable in part, but the children suffer.

My goal is for children of separated parents to have a happy, healthy childhood, too. For that, parents need enough tools to know their rights and responsibilities and to protect their kids. 

Of course, there are also situations where only one parent escalates and the other keeps trying to bring the communication back to a factual level and look at the child together. In those cases, too, it matters that the parent knows their options: which motions they can file, what support is available, how children can be protected from manipulation, how to deal with authorities, especially the youth welfare office, and so on.

What do you think are the most common things parents fight about after a split?

The most common disputes after a separation are usually about custody and visitation. Child support plays a big role, too, and it can loop right back to the visitation question. For example, there's often the mistaken belief that no support has to be paid in a shared parenting arrangement, where the child spends roughly equal time with each parent. In those cases, money ends up shaping the visitation schedule, when the child's well-being should always be what guides how time with the parents is arranged. 

Another big fight is over where the child lives, meaning where their home base is after the separation. Here, too, I see again and again that it isn't about preserving the child's routines and the continuity they've known. It's about asserting power. But smaller, everyday things can also blow up into major conflicts.

The question of who gets to pick the child up from daycare or school can actually escalate to the point where it lands in family court. Even seemingly trivial things like haircuts, the child's hobbies, or how to plan a vacation can lead to truly devastating clashes. That's why it matters so much to me that parents know how these questions can be solved in practice, how the courts have answered them, and how we can reduce the potential for escalation. 

One chapter of your book is about how long a mother may breastfeed her child. Could a father who's separated from her really forbid it?

A father can't forbid it. It's an intensely personal matter between mother and child. But in practice, I keep seeing breastfeeding turned into evidence of an overly close bond between mother and child, which then gets used to claim that the child's welfare is supposedly at risk. That's utter nonsense, and it doesn't hold up developmentally or biologically. Even so, it's often presented that way in custody or visitation proceedings. The most absurd accusations can come up, for example that the mother is “intolerant of the child's bond” with the father because she's still nursing, and so visitation can't be set up the way the father imagines it.

There have even been cases where a mother was accused of being unfit to parent, or of compulsive tendencies, because she breastfed her child for longer than a year. People often say breastfeeding only serves the mother's own needs. Yet the World Health Organization recommends that babies be exclusively breastfed for the first six months and then continue breastfeeding alongside solid foods until age two. Both the WHO and Germany's National Breastfeeding Committee agree that there is no upper age limit for breastfeeding and that the decision rests entirely with the mother. It would be great if the courts paid more attention to expert opinions like these.

Child support is another huge issue. There are studies showing that only a shockingly small share of fathers actually pay the full amount. How can that be? 

Those studies match what I see in practice. Here, too, it's important that mothers know what support their child is entitled to and what that support is meant to cover. Many mothers don't know, for example, that besides the standard amount set by the support table, there are also additional needs and special needs, such as when braces have to be paid for or the child needs tutoring. Some mothers also don't realize that they themselves may be entitled to support for caring for the child, even if they were never married to the child's father.

I also see again and again that mothers don't pursue their children's support claims because they're afraid of the fight with the child's father. That's understandable and very human, but it's not the right path. Above all, it isn't the mother's claim. It's the child's claim to support, which the mother is asserting on the child's behalf. And something many people don't know: anyone who doesn't pay support can, under certain circumstances, even be committing a crime. 

Support proceedings can also drag on. Often, the parent who owes support gives no information at all about their income, which is essential for calculating the amount. In that case, you may have to file a two-step motion: first asking the court to order the other parent to disclose their income, then, once that's provided, asking for a specific support amount. There are sometimes really stubborn cases where people still don't provide any information even though a court has ordered them to. In those cases, the only option is to ask for a coercive penalty, meaning a fine or even detention. 

Is there a case from your many years of experience that touched you especially?

Every case is unique, but of course there are some extreme ones that stay with you as an attorney. Mostly those are the cases where children were sexually abused by their father and were still made to have contact with him, or were even placed with him. I find it almost impossible to understand how courts sometimes handle this issue. Children are called liars, and people still reach for the theories of Richard Gardner, who glorified pedophilia, even though Germany's Federal Constitutional Court has rejected PAS (parental alienation syndrome). 

I've also been moved by cases where children were taken into protective custody because of a conflict between their parents and spent some time in a group home or residential facility, and then we managed to get them back to their parents. I'll never forget the cases where the child's wishes were first ignored and then, with determination and persistence, we were able to enforce the child's rights. Seeing life come back into children who were previously struggling with behavior problems, weighed down, and apathetic is like nothing else.

What do you think is the most important thing that keeps exes out of court? 

Respecting the child's bond with the other parent (what German courts call “bond tolerance”), personal maturity, willingness to reflect, and the ability to compromise. These are all qualities that are hard to reach in a separation, especially when your own pain hasn't been processed yet. Not just putting up with your child's bond with the other parent but actively encouraging it, even though that parent has hurt you emotionally, is an especially hard thing to do. Some parents have this ability, it can develop, and it can also wither. It takes a big person on each side to put their own concerns and wishes second and find compromises, so that the child gets not only the most practical solution but also the gentlest one. 

That said, I have to point out that there are also plenty of situations where going to court is unavoidable to protect the child. That's especially true when the other parent completely escalates and uses physical or psychological violence against the child or the other parent. Unfortunately, many judges still haven't heard of the Istanbul Convention, a European treaty on preventing violence against women and domestic violence, or at least it's applied far too rarely. In court proceedings, people are quick to talk about “high-conflict” parents without looking at who is actually the one escalating. Both parents often get stigmatized too hastily, which serves neither the case nor the child. It absolutely depends on the individual case, and contrary to what many courts believe, I think it's far from irrelevant which of the two parents is fighting more or less. Stamping parents with the “high-conflict” label doesn't solve the problems of the parents or the child, but it often makes things easier for the courts. We need a rethink here for the sake of the children.

What does it do to kids when their parents fight in court?

According to one study, one in two children shows psychological problems after court proceedings. That's alarming, and it also reflects reality. 

Court proceedings expose children to all kinds of situations that can't be reconciled with a child's well-being. They're questioned and have to reveal their innermost feelings to a complete stranger, the judge, in a very short time. In many cases, nobody handles them sensitively, let alone holds the hearing outside the courthouse. The child also has to endure conversations with the guardian ad litem (a court-appointed advocate for the child) and with the youth welfare office. Again and again, strangers come in and not only intrude on the child's home, looking at everything and talking with the child, but also pepper the child with questions. In many cases, an expert evaluation is ordered, and the child is put through the wringer with tests and observations of how they interact with their parents. 

Anyone who tries to tell you this isn't that dramatic and that kids have a certain resilience has some catching up to do on child development and child psychology. Court proceedings can be necessary, but there's no denying that most children suffer because of them. 

On top of that, many children are manipulated by one parent or even both. The hearing gets rehearsed in detail, the child is promised gifts, or threatened with withdrawal of love if they don't side with that parent. You can only begin to imagine the pressure and stress kids are under in these proceedings, and it doesn't surprise me at all that many children gradually develop behavior problems. The child's entire nervous system is on high alert. That's why it was so important to me to give parents options and tools to protect their children, including from manipulation, and to guide them well through court proceedings. 

Many children can't make sense of these situations and have nothing to hold on to. Visitation schedules get “tried out” on the backs of children, and afterward the child is asked how they liked it and how they acted, so the child is questioned yet again. But children aren't pieces of furniture that can simply be shoved from one spot to another. Children are beings with body and soul, and they're more sensitive than many an adult could ever be. Anyone who believes kids don't pick up on much is badly mistaken. I want to raise awareness of that, among parents and among professionals alike.

There's another thing. When children love both parents but are caught in a serious loyalty conflict, they sometimes feel they suddenly have to choose between Mom and Dad, and then they turn toward one parent and radically turn away from the other. That's ultimately a coping strategy, but it isn't healthy for the child. That said, you can't conclude that a child who turns away from a parent always does so because of a loyalty conflict or because they've been manipulated. You have to look at the individual case and find out exactly why the child is rejecting a parent. Has the child had bad experiences with that parent, or even experienced violence? Or is it a coping strategy, because the child is being manipulated and is witnessing the parents' fights up close, to the point that they see no other way out than to use the survival strategy of turning away from one parent and toward the other?

Do you notice anything where a lack of legal knowledge often leads to escalating conflicts?

There's a stubborn belief that a child of 13 or 14 can decide for themselves which parent they live with. There's an equally persistent belief that the parent the child currently spends most of the time with can simply move away with the child, no problem. Neither is true, and depending on the individual case, both can lead to devastating conflicts and decisions. 

The belief that child support goes away in a shared parenting arrangement is also a mistake that can lead to fights over visitation. Then parents haggle over every single day to get close to a 50/50 arrangement, wrongly assuming they won't have to pay support anymore. 

I also see again and again that people turn to AI for legal questions. In many cases, though, it gives wrong legal information, which can of course significantly fuel a parental conflict that's already simmering.

What advice would you give couples who are thinking about separating? 

That always depends on why the separation is happening and how it ultimately plays out. Where violence is involved, it can usually only be sorted out through the family court. The same goes when one parent keeps the conflict at a boil and is only out to hurt the other parent, in a narcissistic way, to make their own resentment and pain easier to bear.

But if parents have simply grown apart and can't find common ground anymore, yet still have some level of objectivity left, then out of love for their child they should settle everything concerning the child as calmly and thoughtfully as possible, with the help of a mediator or an attorney if needed. Because no matter how great the disappointment or resentment toward the other parent, without that person the greatest gift of all, your own child, wouldn't exist.

You can order the book HERE.