Relocation - Ideas from Outside of Indiana

I ran across What a Move May Mean for the Child very late last night. Still chewing over it this morning. I suggest that everyone take a crack at reading this article from the GPSolo Law Trends & News. (And thanks to South Carolina Family Law Blog for posting about this article in its How Does Relocation Impact Children of Divorced Parents?).

Too long, too thick for condensing easily, I will pick on this paragraph:

Standards for permitting relocation are not uniform throughout the country. Some courts consider reasons given for the move and its potential interference with the other parent’s visitation before determining the best interests of the child. But in New Mexico, for example, the best interests of the child is directly linked to the determination of which parent is the primary attachment figure.

I think it is safe to say that Indiana's standards for relocation are in flux. For how much of a flux, just follow the "relocation" link below.

Indiana does not explicitly recognize a primary attachment figure as an issue in determining the child's best interests (see IC 31-17-2.2-1 and IC 31-17-2-8) but I would not discount the idea as not being implicitly included in the statutory guidelines. More importantly focusing on this primary attachment concept misses the larger and more important point: the psychological effects of moving from home.

If you plan on moving out of state, see the other articles under the "relocation" link below. And read the cases. I had a rather nice lady call the other day who was scared to death to move, she had read the articles but not the cases, and I had to point the differences in the facts. I cannot recall any of the cases mentioning psychological evidence.

If you have a relocation case, I suggest printing off What a Move May Mean for the Child and giving it to your article. Yes, these cases just got a bit more expensive if we include a psychological evaluation but I now think such an evaluation may be very important.