In a Michigan divorce, both parties will work to obtain the most favorable terms possible. Parties may exaggerate claims, such as emotional abuse, in order to forward their own objectives. When deciding a case, Michigan courts are not known to break from the 50/50 equitable distribution criterion. The outcome of the divorce may not be determined by the existence of proof of emotional abuse. However, proving emotional abuse in the context of protecting children may take on a whole new meaning.
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Since Michigan’s courts tend to lean on the side of child protection, emotional abuse against minors will receive a fair amount of attention. Your lawyer should know how emotional abuse can be used or defended against.
The Truth About Domestic Abuse and Emotional Abuse
Emotional abuse is a pattern of behavior that may have a detrimental effect on the victim’s cognitive, emotional, psychological, or social development. It is also known as psychological maltreatment. When a parent, caregiver, or other adult in authority emotionally abuses a child, the effects are virtually always negative and frequently last the rest of the child’s life.
Both verbal abuse, such as calling someone names, and terrorizing, which typically entails scaring the child by threatening them with harm or purposefully putting them in terrifying situations, are examples of emotional abuse. Long-term disregard for the child might also mean excluding them from friends and family, dismissing them as a person, or skipping over their most fundamental emotional requirements.
The court will always use one of the twelve factors for determining the best interest of the child in deliberating on custody and parenting time. Domestic violence or domestic abuse is one of these factors. The parent does not necessarily have to be violent to children. Children don’t necessarily have to witness it. The presence or evident existence of domestic violence is sufficient for the court to take into account. It’s crucial to inform the judge about the violence and your fears.
Emotional Abuse and Child Abuse
We have covered the subject of child abuse very well in our article “What Is Considered Child Abuse In Michigan” and you can read more of it here in our Legal Blog.
In that article we mentioned about the following in the context of child abuse:
A person who is younger than 18 years old and has not attained legal emancipation is referred to as a “Child.”
Abuse encompasses the use of the following words.
“Cruel” refers to something that is cruel, inhumane, sadistic, or torturous.
“Omission” refers to a child being purposefully abandoned or not being given the required food, clothing, or shelter for their welfare.
“Serious mental harm” is defined as an injury to a child’s mental wellbeing or condition that is not necessarily permanent but nevertheless produces clearly discernible manifestations of a significant disorder of thought or mood that materially impairs behavior, judgment, the ability to recognize reality, or the capacity to cope with day-to-day demands of life.
Many studies over the years have demonstrated children who experience emotional abuse, such as routine humiliating, ignoring, or intimidating, are more likely to exhibit undesired behaviors that become more severe as they get older. Low self-esteem, self-destructive habits, promiscuity, substance abuse issues, hostility, difficulties building relationships, animal cruelty, and suicidal impulses are a few examples of these behaviors, although they are not restricted to them.
It is more difficult to identify emotional abuse since it does not leave the same visible signs as physical abuse does. Emotional abuse is harder to spot when it is a kid’s only form of abuse, despite the assertions of many professionals that it is more prevalent among all other types of child abuse.
Proving Child Abuse Is Proving Emotional Abuse
Domestic abuse is not just about physically hitting someone. Domestic abuse can come in many forms. It may come in the form of physical assault, intimidation, stalking, sexual assault, isolation, control of financial resources, threats, and emotional abuse. How do you prove emotional abuse?
From a legal perspective, emotional abuse can sometimes fall into a gray area because the term is frequently interpreted differently by different people.
In many cases, it might be challenging to tell emotional abuse apart from psychological abuse. It is safe to conclude that “emotional” and “mental” abuse are likely to be considered as being the same thing in the eyes of the law because most experts concur emotional child abuse may be summed up as an assault on that child’s psyche.
This is a crucial distinction to make because the Michigan penal code does not explicitly state that molesting children emotionally is illegal. But there are mentions of “serious mental harm” in the definition we just mentioned above of what child abuse might entail.
A parent or any adult who cares for a child could be charged with child abuse if they treated them in a way that had a lasting detrimental effect on the child without ever physically injuring them. In order for this to occur, the prosecutor must demonstrate a causal link between the abuse by the parent and the harm to the child’s psychological or emotional well-being.
This is shockingly simple to pull off because most prosecutors have access to child therapists and psychologists who can testify in court about the harm done.
There are techniques specialists use to try to identify when children are the victims of emotional abuse, even if it can be difficult to identify in a child when it occurs independently of all other types of abuse. These include targeted inquiries about family dynamics as well as approaches like art therapy and imagination play in a supervised therapeutic environment.
There is also already an evolving field in pediatrics helping the state assess signs of abuse called “child abuse pediatrics” in assessing physical manifestations of abuse.
Caveat for Parents, Guardians, and Caregivers
It can be a life changing experience to be accused of child abuse or emotional abuse. It could affect careers, job opportunities, relationships, and overall damage to your reputation. The stigma of such an accusation or even worse, a conviction will stick with you for a lifetime.
Police and prosecutors will turn the lives of parents and other caregivers who are accused of child abuse upside down in an effort to look for indications of abuse. It’ll be intrusive, upsetting, and frightening. Due to the fact that the criminal process differs from an inquiry by Child Protective Services (CPS), it can also mean going through the same trauma twice.
False allegations sometimes come up for reasons that aren’t even malicious. Some unfounded allegations are just the result of misunderstanding. When a child says something that is ultimately misinterpreted, this can actually occur pretty quickly. This can either indicate that a parent misread what the child said, or it could indicate that the youngster misunderstood what the parent said or did.
Many times, false accusations are not the result of innocence. Frequently, parents are falsely accused of terrible deeds by an opposing parent. This is usually perpetrated to obtain a benefit, such as custody of their children, people occasionally accuse their spouse of abusing them throughout the divorce process.
Sometimes a parent just wants to limit the amount of time the other parent spends with the kids. Even worse, some people accuse others of abuse purely out of resentment and self-interest. Fortunately, most judges have the ability to recognize false abuse claims. The courts do not tolerate these kinds of extremely serious accusations very well when they are patently false.
The best precautions against false allegations is to be more proactive about it especially if you’re in the middle of a divorce and child custody case. Here are some proactive and preventive practices you can take to avoid misunderstanding and false accusations:
- Avoid any behavior that can be perceived as inappropriate (i.e. telling children crude jokes, making sexually provocative remarks to them, or indulging in rough horseplay.)
- Avoid being alone with other people’s kids as often as you can.
- Try your best to reach an acceptable custody agreement if you are in the middle of a divorce with minor children.
- Learn about claims of child abuse and neglect. Knowing more makes it simpler to steer clear of circumstances that can be misunderstood.
In the worst possible scenario, you might really get a formal charge of abuse, you need to be more deliberate in your action.
Deal with the accuser directly by checking and questioning the accuser’s credibility and reputation. In most cases, charges of abuse or often solely coming from an accuser.
When the accuser is the accused’s own son or daughter is one issue that can emerge. Typically, parents don’t want to throw dirt at their own children. There are polite methods to refute the child’s or the other parent’s accusation in this situation. The child may have been forced or unintentionally persuaded to make up tales.
You may have to build your own credibility. Get character witnesses to talk on your behalf. Just be consistent in your statement. In the extreme you might be convinced to undergo a lie detector test, just don’t let the police perform the test. Best of all, tell the truth and be consistent in whatever statement you make.
Attack the substance of the evidence being presented. Consistencies are always present in false accusations. Check the gaps in the investigation report itself.
Most important of all, call an attorney to help you sort out all of the above.
You might have the motivation to do it but your pain and anguish might cloud your judgment about what is appropriate in your defense. Your attorney can do a better job at doing all those mentioned above.
In the end, you will be relying mainly on your attorney and the wisdom and sense of fairness of the court.
It has always been a bias in court to lean towards keeping the parent-child bond, so even an abusive parent may get some form of custody or parenting time. Even with much evidence, the court will lean towards protecting child-parent bonds. In most cases, in spite of apparent abuse, the extreme remedy will be supervised parenting time.
The court may still give an abusive parent some form of custody or parenting time. In the event both parents request joint custody, the judge must take abuse into account. If you and the other parent can jointly make parenting decisions, the judge will have to decide whether or not this is allowed. Communications and parental decision-making may be difficult if one of the parties is abusive. One of the key factors to petition for sole custody is domestic abuse.
One thing should be very clear. Domestic violence is not a key factor in a divorce case because Michigan is a “no-fault divorce” state, but it is an important consideration for child custody and parenting time.
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Goldman & Associates Law Firm is here to with information about Child Custody and Divorce in the State of Michigan.