Keeping Your Children Happy During A Divorce

As your children grow older, they are likely branching out into the world of social media. While this is a great way to communicate and make friends, it can also have an impact on your family during a divorce case. When you are going through a custody battle or mediation with your spouse, your teenager's social media accounts can have a huge impact on the way that a case plays out. By working with a family law attorney, you can sort out the different posts and find ways to help use them effectively. In some cases, these posts may cause negative impacts and should be analyzed by a legal team to help when moving forward with a case.

Online Communications

Anything that you write or message to your teenage children over social media can be used as evidence in your child custody hearing. This is why it's important to be aware of the communications that you are having with your child. If you communicate with a teen on social media, you should avoid any negative talk, especially about your spouse or custody in general. You should also try to avoid any attempted manipulation over your teenager. It's important to allow your attorney to build a proper case and create evidence without any meddling.

The opposite effect may also help your case. You can use any messages that your spouse has sent to your child to help represent your case. This includes any negative messages, manipulation, or vague threats towards possible custody. A teenager may give you these messages or they may be part of a public feed on your social media account.

Public Venting

Teenagers often use social media as an outlet for their feelings and emotions. When a teenager is involved in a divorce case, they may decide to vent about it online. It's important to be aware that this venting may be used against you in a custody case. For example, a teenager may rant how unfair you are and about some of changes that are going on with your family. Even if these posts were deleted, they may have already been saved and archived by your spouse or another party. By working with an attorney, you can help suppress this evidence as emotional ranting instead of factual-based content. If the evidence is still being used, you may use positive messages to counteract the evidence and showcase the roller coaster of emotions that a teenager faces.

Photos & Videos

Family photos and videos can act as great pieces of evidence for your custody case. To help showcase the relationship between you and your teen, you can use social media posts of photos and videos. These posts can showcase family events you did together. Not only can you use your teenager's posts, but you can use your own posts to help build a timeline and show the relationship with your teen. This includes attending sporting events, traveling together, or everyday actions like hanging out at home. The pictures and videos can help tell a story and build strong evidence for your case.

Social Media Privacy

Going through a divorce is hard for many teenagers. Allowing them to have a little privacy can go a long way and prevent any account manipulation from other spouses. Early in the divorce proceedings you may have your teenager change their passwords and set social media accounts to private. Not only will this help with a custody case, but it can also prevent other family members from meddling in the case and creating problems. It's also a good idea to communicate with your teenager about their accounts, the custody case, and responsibilities they have when posting online. This can help you keep a positive attitude when going through a custody hearing.

Social media can become very complicated during a divorce case. By working with an attorney, you can sort out different factors and understand how impacts the case. To learn more about issues related to divorce, click here for additional reading.