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Transcript:
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Everyone asks this question and people seem to think that there is a specific age where a child can pick where they live. That is simply not the case. People who decide where the children live are going to be the adults in the room. They’re never going to be children. They’re going to be the
00:15
parents. And if the parents can’t decide, they’re going to be a judge. Now, certain states do have statutes that will allow a child to come in and testify. But the states where I practice, those statutes don’t have a specific age. It’s been my personal experience. Most judges do not want to
00:33
have a child come in and pick one parent over the other. And you can imagine why, right? Because it could be a very, very stressful situation because if you go into court, you’re going to sit on the stand, right? And so is that child. And that child is going to be questioned by
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lawyers and then subject to cross-examination. And no good parent would want to put their child through that. Um, there are other options out there. Oftentimes we’ll hire what’s called a guardian adidam and that’s a person appointed by the court. They’ll come in and they’ll talk to the children
01:05
either usually at school or either at their home and they will ask the questions that you know the judge wants to know from the child and then that guardian will go into court and they’ll report to the court what the child said and that’s a great option that would
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prevent a child having to come in and voice a preference and go through what I consider a very adversarial litigation process. This