Divorce and Children With Disabilities

If your child has a disability (physical, cognitive, or emotional), then many divorce issues require unique considerations to ensure your child lives the best life possible. All aspects of the divorce can be affected, including child custody, parenting plans, child support, and the division of the marital assets. Additionally, your child may need additional medical care to treat and care for their disability.

According to Psychology Today, the divorce rate in marriages in which there is a child with disabilities is as high as 87%.

At the Law Offices of Adrian H. Altshuler & Associates, we have the experience and working relationships with special needs professionals to protect your child’s future. Some of the issues we review with parents include the following:

Helping your child understand the divorce process

Divorce is hard on all children, no matter their age or their health. Divorce on children can be especially difficult because you don’t want your child to feel that they are the cause of the divorce. It helps if both parents are united. Parents with special needs should help their children understand why the parents are divorcing. Your child may benefit from counseling with a child psychologist.

Understanding your child’s disability and your child’s needs

Our Franklin divorce lawyer can work with you and your doctors to understand what type of disability your child has, what medical care they need, what education needs they will have (such as where they will attend school and what type of individualized plan can best help your child), and what unique challenges your child will face – physically, cognitively, and emotionally. We need to understand what care each parent should provide, when outside help is necessary, and how much your child can function on their own.

We can begin our review by identifying your child’s healthcare providers, the medical equipment that can help your child, the medications your child needs, and what types of non-professional support can help your child.

Physical and legal custody decisions for children with disabilities

Generally, children with disabilities need to be able to rely on both parents as much as possible. That reliance helps both the child and the parents. We handle two types of child custody in Tennessee:

• Legal custody. It helps if both parents are engaged in rearing their child. It becomes critical for both parents of children with special needs to have a say in the legal custody issues – which doctors treat your child, what parents should do in the event of an emergency, where the child will attend school, and other long-term decisions.
• Physical custody. Your child needs stability. Normally, children of divorce should stay in the same school and with the same friends. Parents need to assess their ability to take care of their child, including when they need to work, when they need help from doctors and other family members, and the overall logistics of caring for their child’s disabilities.

In many cases, unless a parent is unable to care for their child, it helps if both parents have joint legal and physical custody.

The parenting plan agreement needs to focus on the child’s special needs

The parenting plan addresses the details of visitation, the transfer of a child between homes, communication with the child by both parents and many other practical issues. Our Franklin family lawyer will help you address the following parenting plan requirements:

• Where any equipment that your child may need — such as prosthetics, wheelchairs, and inhalers — will be kept or how the equipment will be transferred
• The terms for transferring the child, including how the child will be transferred, when the transfer will take place, and how the parents can communicate if there’s a problem, such as the need for a parent to work when the parent would normally have custody of their child.
• Who will tend to the child’s daily needs if they cannot take care of their own needs – such as dressing themselves, bathing, choosing what clothes to wear, and their daily nutrition?
• Who will take the child to doctor visits, school, and other appointments?
• Ensuring that parents will be home if healthcare professionals make house calls.
• Ensuring that the other parent (the parent who is not taking care of the child each day of the year) can communicate with their child.
• Ensuring open communication lines between parents – such as communicating what medications are being given to your child and when.
• Protecting their own mental and physical health.
• Giving additional consideration to any emotional concerns such as anxiety or depression that may affect your child when they switch homes or during the transfer.

Psychology Today also recommends that parenting plans address steps to minimize conflicts between parents.

Child support

Normally, Tennessee focuses on the income of each parent and the number of children being supported. For a child with special needs, there are often additional expenses and concerns. For starters, our family lawyer will help determine which parent’s insurance policy covers their child. Medical bills, educational bills, and daily living costs can be much higher for a child who has a disability. We’ll help negotiate or litigate the correct amount of child support for your child.

Care for your child as an adult

Parents normally do not need to pay child support once their child turns 18. Support for children with special needs is a notable exception. If a child has a disability, parents need to support their child for the rest of their lives. In addition to providing child support, parents should review other issues, such as estate planning documents (wills and trusts), to determine who will raise the child and who will provide for the child’s financial needs.

In addition, family planning also includes reviewing your child’s eligibility for government benefits. Generally, government benefits are subject to a “means test,” so it is important to review when and how your child can qualify as part of the divorce discussions.

We can also review if a spouse is eligible for alimony because they need to stop working or take time off from work to care for their child.

The needs of the other siblings need to be considered

Parents need to ensure that their other children can lead healthy, productive lives. The needs of the siblings of a disabled child require attention, too. These needs include custody decisions, parenting plans, child support orders, and other legal and practical issues to ensure your other children live their own lives – while also being good siblings to the child who has a disability.

At the Law Offices of Adrian H. Altshuler & Associates, we have nearly 35 years of experience helping protect children when a marriage ends. Our Franklin divorce lawyer understands the unique challenges in helping children with disabilities when parents divorce. Contact us today to schedule a consultation. We have offices in Franklin, Brentwood, and Columbia, Tennessee.