If you don’t want to keep consulting your ex-partner about your child’s medical care, religious upbringing, education, or any other thing, you should work with your divorce lawyers and get sole or full custody of your child.

Unfortunately, the court can’t just give you full custody—there needs to be grounds for it.

What are the grounds for full custody of child? Well, there are plenty of them you can play around with your attorney. They include:

Physical abuse

Physical abuse often results in scars, wounds, burns, and bruises. The abusive parent may use their feet, hands, and even objects such as belts.

In most cases, parents disguise physical abuse as corporal punishment as there is a thin line between appropriate discipline and abuse.

You can work with your attorney and present evidence when your ex-partner crossed the line due to poor anger management.

When you can demonstrate in court that your ex has anger management issues or mental or psychological disorder that causes them to be abusive to your child, you have a high chance of getting sole custody.

Abduction

Did your ex abduct the child so that they can be with them? This is enough to grant you full child custody.

If at any time your former spouse took your child illegally, you can prepare a watertight case with your attorney and win it.

False allegations

The court deems that if you make a false allegation, you can’t be trusted, and a false allegation of physical or sexual abuse against the other parent is as dangerous as an abusive parent.

Do you have a serious allegation that your partner made that you can prove wrong? You can prepare a case around it and present it in court.

Of course, you can’t be given sole custody for any allegation—the allegation needs to be severe enough that the court deems the parent unfit to live with the child.

Neglect

Neglect is a form of abuse, and the court can easily grant you full custody if you can prove that your former spouse neglected your child.

Neglect can take different shapes. It can be a failure to feed, clothe or groom the child properly. It can also be the failure to provide sanitary and a safe living environment or life necessities.

Unlike abuse, where you can take the doctor’s note or show the scars inflicted, neglect is often difficult to prove, so you need to work hard with your attorney to prove and be given full child custody.

Some of the ways you can prove neglect are if your ex-spouse has been living with the child and is now malnourished, looks too thin, lacks energy, or becomes ill more than normal.

Domestic violence

Does your ex-spouse have a history of domestic violence? You can use this to show the court that your ex-spouse is a violent person, and they can’t be trusted with an adult, let alone a child.

Some of the excellent evidence you can use are police reports you made when your partner abused you, proof from the neighbors, medical reports, and any other relevant source of evidence.

Child custody order violation

Violating the child custody order can range from technical, minor to a significant violation. Of course, the court will give you full custody if the violations are substantial enough.

For example, the chances are low that the court will grant you full custody if the other parent was late for 20 minutes for custody exchanges.

While this might aggravate you, the court might not deem it a violation and give you sole custody.

On the other hand, if your ex-spouse makes a significant change in a child’s life, such as changing their school or their medication without consulting you, this might be deemed as a serious violation, and the court might grant you full custody.

To increase the chances of getting full custody in the future, work with your family lawyers Fairfax VA and draft a tight joint legal custody order. This way, if there is a violation and you have evidence that the former spouse regularly and willfully violates the order, you have a high chance of getting what you want.