Recently in Family Court Category

This article is about a mother that gave birth to triplets. During the difficult birth she experienced severe brain damage that has caused her not to be able to raise them. She last seen her children in October of 2007 when they were toddlers, they will turn 4 on June 20th. I dont think that there is a question about if she is able to see her kids. Even if she is not able to fully interact with them. They are her kids and this unfortunate event should not keep her from seeing them. The family of the mother are fighting for her to be able to see her children. The family says she communicates through blinking. Blinking once means yes and not blinking means no. The family filed divorce papers on her behalf, and the husbands says that it is not in the childrens best interest to see their mother. I dont understand this at all... Why would it not be in the best interest for them, no matter what she is their mother! It dont make sense to me how people can be so greedy and selfish sometimes. The court proceding is scheduled for May 13, no matter the outcome, it is evident that this case will serve as a precedent for similiar cases in the future.

 http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/04/22/california.triplets.visitation.lawsuits/index.html

CASA Volunteers: Become a Hero for a Child in Need

            After interviewing my mother for the "Interview a Professional" project I became much more familiar with the CASA program and decided to share it with the group as it may be something many might be interested in.

http://www.casaforchildren.org/site/c.mtJSJ7MPIsE/b.5301309/k.9D58/Volunteering.htm

            Above is the main website for the organization.  I'll include the basics here, along with why I feel it is a great example of the mix of psychology and law that lies at the heart of this course.

            CASA stands for Court Appointed Special Advocate, and is a volunteer based program with the following basic mission:

I personally have never been a child of divorce or separation. My parents were never together as I grew up and that was normal to me. I do however have a nephew who is two going through a separation and a brutal custody battle between his mom and dad. Since the start of this battle I have been paying close attention to his attitudes, his behaviors, and his actions since things have started. Although he is only two and does not know what is really going on, I can tell that he has a sense of some kind of tension between his parents.

With that said I decided to make this blog on children of divorce and how it affects them as well as both the mom and dad. It has always been said that a child who goes through a divorce they will suffer from depression, failing grades and acting out. This is not ALL true now today. Research has shown that if both parents separate their divorce from the well being of their child that the child will most likely still feel loved and do well in life as oppose to those parents who are putting their divorce first and the well being of their child second. This is a website all on the psychological and Emotional aspects of divorce of children and the families. It has some recent and good statistics on many different aspects. It also breaks down the emotional stages of divorce the child is most likely to go through as well as the parents.

I found this website to be very beneficial and it brought new knowledge to me that I did not know or understand before. I hope this blog brings about good discussion and other people's points of view.

http://www.mediate.com/articles/Psych.cfm 

Sam is a mentally challenged man that seems to have an obsessive compulsive disorder who had barely became a father of a young baby girl and he is also a mentally challenged man.  The mom is normal but ditches the father along with the daughter.  So Sam is left alone to raise his daughter and with help from his neighbor he learns that babies need to be fed every two hours.  I am guessing that mentally challenged people have to have a set schedule and if it is changed it has to be changed gradually or else panic or a sense of anxiety will hit them.  His little girl is unbelievably smart; she and her father have a close relationship.  There comes a point where his daughter makes him realize that he is different from the other daddies and where she becomes the adult at a young age.  Sam's friends help them both a lot, "it takes a village to raise a child."  Lucy teaches him to read and finds it difficult at times to make her classmates understand the way he is.  Unfortunately he did not know that he was talking to a prostitute one night, so he got arrested and then they found out that he had a child.  A child can only learn or expand their mind so much depending on the environment that they are exposed to.  At times it will be easy for the child to rebel but discipline can still be added.  As all children they grow embarrassed of their parents so it gets harder for Lucy to deal with her father's special needs.  Because he is special, he could not control his emotions, since the social worker was there, a bit of it was exaggerated, that he poses as a danger to his daughter and other children.  The lawyer that he is trying to talk to is a bit of a snob but he tries, he can't afford her but he tries to impress his boss so he can get a promotion to pay for the lawyer.  His lawyer is a very selfish woman that will only do his case for free because of peer pressure; she is very miserable and treats the people around her like crap.  Lucy convinces her father to runaway with her so they can be together.  Finally Annie shows up even though she has something against the outside world to help testify in court for Sam's sake.  In the end Lucy's adopted family set up a schedule for Sam to spend time with Lucy, so at the same time Lucy may grow up normally.  So are there certain tests that by law a person who is considered to be mentally challege should take just to see if they are a fit parent or not, there are tons of unfit parents that abuse there children and still have them all because they are able to comprehend things the way society wants them to, or makes it seem like they do.  Another thing in real life if the father, even if he is mentally challenged, were to be tricked by his daughter to run away, I am pretty sure he would have been charged with kidnapping.

Can you imagine having one of your children taken away from you by your spouse, and have them take the child abroad to where you couldn't get to them?  Well it actually happened to David Goldman.  David's son Sean was taken by his mother.  David's wife told David and his family that she wanted to take Sean to her home country of Brazil so that her family could see Sean.  They agreed to the trip.  After David's wife and son landed in Brazil, David's wife called him to tell him that their marriage was over and Sean would never return to the US.  This website is David's website to try and bring back Sean.  (Sean is now back in the US.)

http://bringseanhome.org/index.html

 In this article, you will read about what happened and why this custody battle raged on for 6 years.  On December 24, 2009, the father and son were finally reunited and told they could both go back to the US together. 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091224/ts_nm/us_brazil_usa_boy