Rockford, Illinois Family Law Blog

A previous post on this blog discussed some of the reasons why a Rockford, Illinois, court might restrict a parent's responsibilities to make decisions for his or her child or even limit or restrict that parent's time with the child. However, although the reasons mentioned in that post would certainly be concerning, it is important to remember that judges cannot restrict parenting time for any reason.

Indeed, as this blog has discussed, our state's laws requires that, before a judge can restrict a parent's rights, the judge must find that a parent did or failed to do something that put his or her child's health or well-being in significant danger. While certainly abuse, drug addiction and the like can qualify under this standard, a parent need not be perfect to have unrestricted parenting time. Isolated mistakes, even if they are somewhat serious, as well as behavior that is obnoxious or designed to annoy the other parent and even many violations of a custody or parenting time orders are not going to be enough to restrict parenting time.

In many ways, co-parenting a teenager is different from co-parenting a younger child or toddler. Your parenting plan and residency schedule should reflect this dynamic, even if you have children in different age groups.

Important post-divorce things to keep in mind for your teenagers are these: They probably prefer to spend more time with friends rather than with family, they are eager to experiment with different activities, they may work (or want to work), they want a high degree of control over their schedule and they absolutely need both parents' support and involvement as they navigate life.

This blog has posted previously about how unmarried couples may choose to resolve their issues with dividing property should they decide to split up.

As many Rockford, Illinois, residents probably know, unmarried couples who have lived together for a long time and who may even have a child together will also have parenting responsibilities to resolve as part of their split. Given the long-term nature of the relationship, a split will mean both parents and their children will have to go from all living together to figuring out how to carry on in two separate homes.

Previous posts here have discussed some items that are commonly held by couples with significant wealth, such as shares in a family business or other investments. These sorts of property are commonly at issue during the course of a high asset divorce or separation, but it is good for even happily married couples to have some understanding of how to get a value on a piece of property when it is not possible to just look up the going market price.

Another item to which couples in the throes of a divorce or other financial crisis may have to pay particular attention is artwork. Like many other types of property, artwork does not usually have a fixed or even readily ascertainable value, so the only way to really know how much a piece of art is worth is to sell it on the open market. A sale, however, is not always a realistic option. At this point, it may be necessary to involve an expert art appraiser, as well as an experienced family law attorney. Still, there are some principles our readers can keep in mind if they own artwork.