Practice Areas
High Conflict Custody
Some custody disputes involve more than parents who disagree about schedules or decision-making. Family violence, substance abuse, serious communication problems, interference with possession, allegations concerning a parent’s conduct, or an inability to keep children outside the parental conflict can transform an ordinary custody case into a high-conflict matter.
In these cases, identifying what can actually be proven is particularly important.
FAQs
What Makes a Custody Case High Conflict?
High conflict can arise from legitimate concerns about a child’s safety or from a relationship between parents that has deteriorated to the point that ordinary co-parenting is no longer workable. Sometimes both are present.
Courts may need to consider allegations involving family violence, alcohol or drug use, neglect, emotional abuse, unsafe supervision, interference with the other parent’s possession, or conduct that places children in the middle of the dispute.
The existence of an allegation, however, is different from proof of the allegation and proof of its effect on the child.
What Evidence Matters?
The most critical piece of evidence is how conflict, violence, drug use, and temperament are affecting the child in a physical or emotional way. For child abuse, bruising is evidence. For emotional abuse, stomachaches, withdrawn behavior, and changes in personality are relevant.
Emotional abuse is far more prevalent than physical abuse and is far more difficult to prove. Likewise, the source of a child’s stomachaches is difficult to prove, and allegations often boomerang back. For example, if mom alleges that the child’s constipation is caused by dad’s outbursts at baseball games, all dad needs to do to change the tables is to point out mom uses corporal punishment if the child doesn’t clear their dinner plate.
Evidence is also very difficult to obtain from young children who are not verbal or not reliable in explaining their feelings. Even if they are able to express the source of their frustrations, most of what they report to the other parent will not be reliable because of the common belief that children tell their parents what they want to hear. Very early on, children of divorced parents know that it makes dad happy if they report mom is a mess or it makes mom happy when they report dad’s girlfriend broke up with him.
Statements made to counselors, teachers, and other trusted adults are often admitted to show emotional abuse. We have had cases where children became nonverbal because of the abuse. Parents will often record children screaming, crying, or making statements against the other parent. Generally, it is not advisable to record your child. Some judges will find that you are recording the child, playing up the situation, making it worse, and wanting the child to be damaged. It is much preferred that a parent write a note to themselves about how the conversation went. Recordings almost never play in court the way one thinks they will.
Why Does Credibility Matter?
High-conflict cases often require a parent to make serious allegations. Exaggeration can therefore be especially damaging. Likewise, oversensitivity, self-righteousness, stubbornness, and controlling behavior ignite the conflict.
A parent with legitimate concerns is generally better served by documenting conduct accurately, preserving evidence, following existing court orders, and focusing on how the conduct affects the child. This is a high ask given that it requires not responding to the hostility.
Our role is to distinguish the important evidence from the surrounding conflict, identify what requires immediate attention, and determine whether the case calls for temporary relief, further investigation, negotiated safeguards, or trial. Defense is also required because the litigation can often spark unintended consequences. For example, a primary parent files a modification to change the child’s school and the other parent countersues for more possession time. Both could happen.
The objective is not to prove that one parent is a bad person. It is to give the court reliable information from which it can determine an arrangement that protects the best interest of the child. The way to do this is to keep your head down and keep moving the ball down the field.
Possession Schedules in High-Conflict Cases
In most Texas custody cases, possession is structured through either a Standard Possession Order or a modified schedule tailored to the family’s circumstances. These schedules define when each parent has possession of the child, including weekends, weekdays, holidays, and extended summer periods.
In high-conflict cases, however, even a detailed schedule may not prevent disputes. Common issues include missed exchanges, last-minute cancellations, refusal to return a child on time, or disagreements over interpretation of the order.
When this occurs, the problem is often not the schedule itself, but the level of conflict between the parents.
How Conflict Affects Possession
High-conflict dynamics can turn routine possession exchanges into repeated disputes. Communication breakdowns, distrust, white-hot hatred for the other parent, and inconsistent compliance with court orders can create ongoing instability for the child.
In these situations, the impact is not limited to the parents. Ongoing exposure to parental conflict can be emotionally harmful to the child and, in some cases, may contribute to anxiety, behavioral issues, or developmental delays. Warning signs are stomach aches, verbalizing that the child has picked a side, a child who tells their parent what they want to hear, tardies, absences, being withdrawn, clinginess and so forth. When the level of conflict is significant and persistent, courts may determine that the existing possession arrangement is no longer in the child’s best interest.
As a result, courts may modify possession to reduce the child’s exposure to conflict. This can include changes that reduce a parent’s time, alter the structure of possession, or shift exchanges to more controlled or supervised settings. In some cases, a parent may lose time with the child if the court finds that a different arrangement is necessary to protect the child’s emotional well-being.
In these situations, courts may move beyond a standard schedule and implement more detailed provisions, such as:
- Specific exchange locations and times
- Third-party or neutral exchange points
- Restrictions on direct communication between parents
- Use of communication applications to reduce conflict
- Supervised or restricted possession in appropriate cases
- Detailed orders regarding enrichment activities allowing each parent a power but also requiring each parent to participate
- Engagement of a parent facilitator
- More possession time, or a period of intense and uninterrupted time with the parent who has been maligned
- Additional time to protect case-by-case situations such as specific religious holidays, other sibling schedules, and drive times to school
- Ordering one parent to do all the driving to compensate the other parent for expenses incurred in moving
- Drug and alcohol monitoring
- Make-up time for interrupted possession
The goal is not to punish either parent, but to reduce opportunities for conflict and create a predictable structure that protects the child’s emotional stability and development.