Ensuring a secure future for your kids is not just a legal task, but a caring responsibility. When picking legal guardians, it's crucial to avoid common mistakes:
Not Planning for Contingencies: Consider what happens if your first choice for a guardian can't fulfill the role. Think about different scenarios. Choose multiple backup guardians to provide options if your initial choices don't work out. A solid backup plan will ensure your kids' stability.
Not Leaving Specific in Instructions: You can provide a detailed plan on how you'd like your kids to be raised, from religion to education. Making these wishes know takes the guess work out of your kids' futures.
Not Clearly Expressing Preferences: Avoid potential disputes by documenting your preferences on who you don’t want as your minor’s guardian. Documenting who you don’t want will settle arguments, even if your extended family members disagree with your choice of guardian. If you are divorced and have primary custody of children from that union, you will definitely want to make it clear how much influence your former spouse and their family can have.
Decide Without Pressure: Your decision should be free from external pressure. Don't name someone a guardian to avoid offending them or to appease their ego. Your decision about who should raise your child is your decision.
Give these key considerations thought when choosing a guardian:
Parenting Skills Matter: Guardians need more than willingness; they need parenting skills. Consider their experience raising children and whether they have their own kids. Focus on their ability to nurture and parent your kids.
Check the Living Environment: Consider whether your kids would move into a potential guardian's home and neighborhood. Assess safety, locality, and local education to ensure a comprehensive approach to their well-being.
Values Alignment: Choose guardians that share your values. While an exact match may be hard, aligning values as closely as possible is important.
Balance Financial Stability: The potential guardian’s job situation and financial stability is a very important factors to consider, as adding children into the mix will raise their living costs exponentially. However, a financially well-off guardian who doesn’t really like children may not be best. Consider setting up a trust for your children so their guardian may raise them with financial stability.
Consider Life Stage: When evaluating guardian candidates, their age and where they are in life is another crucial factor. A young candidate might be too focused on their career and starting a family of their own to care for your children; however, an older candidate might not be ready to parent again.
If you are not able to care for your children and haven’t appointed a rightful guardian, the courts will step in and a judge will make the final decisions of your children’s future. Your child could be placed in the foster system while waiting for a court decision.
Judges appoint who they think is most appropriate based on the limited information that they hear. If you are divorced, the court may appoint your former spouse as a guardian to shared children. Close family members aren’t guaranteed to be named guardians. Judges try to work in the best interest of your child, but they may appoint a guardian to raise your children that you never would have picked.
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