| |||
 | |||
        | |||
  Where minor children of the parties are involved in a divorce, child support, child custody and visitation arrangements must be agreed upon by the parties or determined by the court. For parents who generally agree on custody and visitation issues, it nevertheless is often useful to work out details such as holiday schedules, vacations, transportation, and so forth. If parents are unable to agree on custody or visitation matters, custody mediation is required by the court, before the court will consider or decide the matter. Although limited mediation services are available through the court system, we will often recommend that a private mediator or co-parenting counselor be engaged, in order to help parties come to agreement, or to provide a more detailed assessment of the situation in a recommendation to the court. In some cases, experts are employed to prepare an in-depth custody evaluation and recommendation for the court. Often, this recommendation will become the basis for an agreement regarding custody. If the parents remain unable to agree, they are entitled to a trial on the issues of custody and visitation. At a trial, the court will consider all of the evidence, including the evaluator's recommendation, and will then make a final determination based on an assessment of what is truly in the best interests of the child or children. In determining what is in the best interest of children, courts often focus on the children's need to have a continuing relationship with both parents. The focus is not so much on parental rights, but on the developmental needs of the child. Only rarely will a court exclude a parent from contact with his/her child. Child support is normally fixed pursuant to the California Child Support Guideline, a complex formula which takes into account the earnings of each parent, the number of children involved, and the time-sharing arrangements between the parents. In addition to the base support provided by this guideline, each parent is expected to contribute to other expenses of the children, such as uninsured medical expenses, extracurricular expenses, child care expenses, etc. |
|