Mistake #1: Posting About Your Case on Social Media
Keep your custody case off social media entirely. Do not discuss it in TikToks or Facebook posts, do not criticize the other parent in comments, and never put your child on camera to talk about the case. Attorneys and opposing parties routinely search social media, save posts, and screenshot comments to use later. Once something is posted, treat it as permanent.
Posting about the case does not just create evidence. It also signals to the judge how you are handling the conflict, which directly relates to one of the factors courts weigh: whether you are willing and able to support the child’s relationship with the other parent.
Mistake #2: Sending Hostile Texts and Emails
The same rule applies to texts and emails. Threatening messages, threats to withhold the children, or heated arguments in writing can easily be pulled into a custody case as evidence. Nothing sent electronically is truly private, and nothing you say in the heat of the moment goes away just because you deleted it.
Mistake #3: Badmouthing the Other Parent
Speaking negatively about your co-parent, whether online, over text, or to others who might repeat it, tends to backfire. Beyond the effect on your case, you and your co-parent will likely be connected for the rest of your child’s life, through graduations, weddings, and eventually grandchildren. A hostile relationship makes all of that harder, for you and for your child.
Mistake #4: Bringing Your Kids Into the Conflict
Leave your children out of the dispute entirely. If a judge speaks with your child during a case, one of the first questions is often whether either parent has talked to them about the case or influenced what they should say. Judges are experienced at recognizing when a child has been coached, and it rarely reflects well on the parent who did it.
Children generally know where they feel comfortable and which parent they feel close to. Pulling them into the conflict tends to make them feel like they have to pick a side, which almost never helps your case and can genuinely harm your child.