How is child custody decided in Tennessee?

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In Tennessee, if you have a child during your marriage and you go through the divorce process, or if you have a child out of wedlock and you have a separate proceeding, the court is going to look to…

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a parenting plan or a custody order that is in the best interest of your children. And there are 14 factors in some what we call catch-all factors for our courts to look at in making a decision as to what’s in the best interest of the children. The court will go through weighing the evidence,

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on each of those factors, and then we’ll say this factor weighs in favor of mom, this factor weighs in favor of dad. Combining all those factors, a court will then say this residential parenting schedule, this holiday schedule is what’s in the best interest of the children.

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In Tennessee, courts are directed by the legislature to try to fashion a parenting schedule that is as close to 50-50 as possible. The other thing courts will do on a custody decision is make a determination as to who is going to make decisions about the children’s major life events, such as education, extracurricular activities, non-emergency health care. And the court will go through the same factors in making those decisions as well.

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