Austin Texas Family Law Blog

When one parent violates another parent's rights and refuses to allow them to spend court-ordered time with their child, this often adds up to parental kidnapping. Like any form of kidnapping, this is a very serious crime and may result in criminal charges and significant punishment, including jail time and loss of many privileges.

However, not every act that feels like parental kidnapping actually is. This area of the law can get very difficult to navigate. If you have concerns about a potential kidnapping situation in your own family, it is important that you clearly understand how the law applies in your circumstances and what legal options you have to protect yourself and your child.

When a couple chooses to get married, their assets and liabilities also get married, so to speak, unless the couple uses a prenuptial agreement to protect themselves and their property from potential legal issues. Here in Texas, our community property guidelines make divorce much more complicated in some cases, because couples must divide their marital property equally, without much flexibility.

This brings into question assets that may be considered otherwise separate. For instance, in many cases, an inheritance is not considered marital property. However, that may not matter much to the court if the inheritance is virtually indistinguishable from other assets. In order to keep assets separate, they must remain actually separated.

When a child is born, the mother and father of that child generally have the opportunity to assign paternity voluntarily, without proving paternity with any kind of testing. This can create legal complications if the child's paternity is later called into question, and in many cases, another father may have strong grounds to challenge paternity and claim some forms of parental rights to a child.

However, there are a limited number of justifications for challenging paternity that a court will consider seriously. If you are wondering whether or not you have grounds to challenge the paternity of a child, it is wise to do detailed research and use strong legal resources to help you build your case before you launch any legal actions. Even if your case is strong, it is not any easy process, so the more supporting evidence you can provide in your claim, the better.

After the fog of divorce lifts and parents work on getting into the swing of sharing parenting privileges and responsibilities, maintaining a consistent and fair custody schedule often becomes a point of contention. For thousands of families throughout the country, one parent or the other may struggle to abide by the visitation schedule or custody plan, either intentionally or out of negligence. Not only does this place both parents in a difficult position, it almost always creates additional strain for the child at the center of the conflict.

As a parent sharing custody of the child you love, you have a responsibility to put your difference with the child's other parent aside, at least as much as is necessary to create a stable environment for the child. Using custody and parenting privileges as leverage to punish or reward the other parent for his or her behavior is not only potentially illegal, it is truly destructive for everyone in the family.