Don’t delay reporting instances of abandonment and neglect.
Posted July 6th, 2016.
Categories: Custody Tips, Family Law.
Timing is everything when it comes to reporting instances of abandonment, abuse or neglect by the other parent in a child custody case. If a parent is guilty of a minor indiscretion (or even a more serious act of parental misconduct), it must be reported or acted upon right away or it may be of little value to you.
Assume, for example, that a non-custodial parent left a young child alone, locked in a car, while he went shopping. If he did this ten years ago, the custodial parent is unlikely to gain any ground by citing this misdeed for the first time a decade later. Similarly, assume the custodial parent left her children alone in her home while she went out all night with her girlfriends. If the event is seven years old, it may be of little significance now.
Worse yet, a parent who tries to report an outdated act of abandonment or neglect by the other parent many years after it happened, may be accused of not reporting the misconduct on a timely basis and thus accused of negligently or intentionally concealing the acts.
Therefore, parents should address acts of abandonment, abuse and negligence as soon as possible after they occur.
