There is no shortage of financial concerns to worry over when a marriage ends. On top of the emotional difficulty, divorces require a splitting of assets and responsibilities, and if you and your ex share small children, you'll also need to consider how you'll divide the financial responsibilitie...

When spouses and partners with children split up, they also need to find a way to split time with their kids. Sharing custody of your children with another parent is often complicated and usually requires a formal custody agreement to be approved by a judge. While every person's situation is diff...

Custody situations are never easy to deal with, but when a child's safety is at risk, it becomes much more serious. The State of New Jersey has a method for dealing with threats to a child's safety, known as an emergency custody order. If you feel such an order applies to your child's situation, ...

While custody arrangements involving visitation are rarely straightforward, time with your children can be a source of joy for you and an opportunity to provide a source of emotional security for your kids. Rules of Thumb It's important to gear what you're doing with your visits to your childre...

Here's How to Process Your Emotions When someone you love files a restraining order against you, it's emotionally devastating. Although it sounds like a cliché, you may truly feel as though your heart is breaking. Science shows that heartbreak is more than a banal phrase. Your brain reads deep e...

A restraining order is a tool essential to protecting people from domestic violence. However, sometimes individuals accused of abuse may believe the order has no merit and is being used as leverage to obtain custody of children. Here is what you need to know about how restraining orders can affec...

Getting a Restraining Order Lifted If a judge grants a restraining order, it means that the judge determined that the defendant committed the acts alleged and that continued protection of the petitioner by the court is necessary. If either a petitioner or defendant wants a restraining order lift...

Divorce and custody proceedings can often lead to emotional, impulsive, and ill-advised actions taken in the heat of the moment. It's tempting to use your estranged spouse's words—recorded for posterity—to undermine his or her case. Your animosity may even extend to your soon-to-be ex-in-laws. O...

When many people hear “restraining order,” they mistakenly believe that such protective orders issued by a court apply only to former or current romantic partners. One recent story out of Franklin, New Jersey, however, makes clear that other types of relationships between people can also give ris...

The Importance of “Stay Put” Provisions If you have a child in a special education program in a public school system, the “stay put” provision is among your family's key rights. These rights apply in the event you choose to dispute a change a school or school board wants to make to your child's ...

On February 22, 2021, New Jersey became the 14th state to decriminalize marijuana for recreational use. Though this new law alleviated concerns about the consequences of marijuana use on a criminal level, parents were left questioning how the law might affect their custody arrangements if they de...

Recently, the New Jersey legislature passed a bill allowing judges (both current and former) to request emergency protective orders when they are being threatened. The bill passed unanimously in both the Senate and the House. According to the New Jersey Globe, the emergency protective order would...

If you share custody with your ex, you may be wondering how your custody arrangement will be affected by the Child Tax Credit, a credit included as part of the federal government's American Rescue Plan of 2021. The credit is a tax benefit that lowers taxpayers' liability. It increased the annual ...

After a divorce, parents often disagree on some of the big issues facing their children as they grow. Some of the biggest disputes can happen over medical decisions, including whether to vaccinate. Now, with COVID vaccines approved for children 12 and over, parents all over New Jersey are facing ...

For those of you who are not regular readers of Page Six, you may not be aware that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have just been back in court. Again. Although they are believed to have combined assets of $500 million, the biggest issue throughout their dispute—they were divorced in 2019—is the ...

Child support — money paid from one parent to the other for the purpose of providing financially for a child — is one of the most hotly contested topics connected with divorce and co-parenting. While the calculation of the amount of child support rests upon a formula and objective factors, issues...

If you're co-parenting in New Jersey and don't have primary physical custody, you're undoubtedly paying child support. While most parents are happy to ensure their kids have the support they need, you're probably also wondering when does support end? What happens if your child is over 18 but in c...

Most Americans are breathing a sigh of relief as the availability of adult coronavirus vaccines becomes more and more widespread. However, the question of whether children should receive the COVID-19 vaccines is a stickier issue. Trends against childhood vaccinations are on the rise, and parents ...

NJ family courts take restraining orders and accusations of domestic violence very seriously when it comes to custody matters. However, a restraining order doesn't have to be a death knell in your parent-child relationship. There are still ways to parent well during this time as long as you are m...

Families have been formed by adoption for centuries. Still, we are just starting to understand the psychological effects that the process has on all parties — including birth mothers.  Pop culture often portrays birth mothers as women with unfortunate circumstances who made decisions of their ow...

Caseworkers assigned by child protection agencies undergo background checks to detect former abuse cases. While the majority genuinely desire to help families and remove minors from harmful situations, others take advantage of their position to access and abuse vulnerable children. That's the st...

The COVID-19 pandemic has been hard on everyone. With the world shutting down, closing schools, job losses, and layoffs, the pandemic has hit almost every family in New Jersey financially, even if no one in the home has gotten the virus. We've had more than 682,000 cases as of mid-February 2021 a...

After a separation or divorce, it's not uncommon – or unexpected, even - to experience strain in your relationships with family and friends. You may not have expected that this strain would spread to relationships other than the central one that you have, recently, systematically severed. This ...

Losing custody of your child is devastating, no matter the reason. However, losing custody of your child during a questionable traffic stop in another state adds insult to injury. Unfortunately, that's what happened to a couple from Manchester, New Jersey, in early December. Raymond Cheley Sykes...

The holiday season can be a real struggle for families, both in New Jersey and all across the country. In any normal year, the weighty expectations of a Hallmark holiday coupled with financial pressures, alcohol consumption, and break from routine can create a pressure cooker. Arguments and famil...