Few legal matters are closer to your heart than your children. When you are navigating separation, divorce, or a custody dispute, your children’s stability, well-being, and future are your top priority. Brunelle | Conklin helps parents in Murfreesboro and Rutherford County navigate custody, parenting plans, and support clarity, compassion, and unwavering advocacy.
Tennessee courts focus on one question: what is in the child’s best interest? Custody has two principal components:
The authority to make major decisions about education, healthcare, and religious upbringing. Parents commonly share joint legal custody and must consult on these decisions.
The authority to make major decisions about education, healthcare, and religious upbringing. Parents commonly share joint legal custody and must consult on these decisions.
Every divorce or legal separation involving minor children requires a court-approved Permanent Parenting Plan using the mandatory state form. A complete, specific schedule matters for enforceability, including school-year and summer time, holidays, exact start and end times, transportation, and exchange locations.
Children grow, parents relocate, and work schedules change. To modify an existing plan or support order, a parent must petition the court and prove a substantial and material change in circumstances. Informal agreements are not legally binding; official changes require court approval.
Under Tenn. Code Ann. § 36-6-106, no single factor is determinative. The court weighs the whole picture and the unique circumstances of each family.
1. Emotional ties between each parent and the child.
2. Ability to provide food, clothing, medical care, education, and other needs.
3. Each parent’s role as primary caregiver and the importance of continuity.
4. Stability of each parent’s family unit.
5. Mental and physical fitness of each parent.
6. Child’s home, school, and community record.
7. Child’s reasonable preference, if age 12 or older; younger preferences may also be considered.
8. Evidence of physical or emotional abuse involving the child, a family member, or a parent.
9. Each parent’s character and past behavior, including criminal history or substance abuse.
10. Willingness and ability to encourage a close, continuing relationship with the other parent.
11. Each parent’s employment schedule and the practical effect on parenting time.
12. Each child’s need for stability and continuity in home, school, and community.
13. Each parent’s ability to cooperate and facilitate effective co-parenting.
14. Each parent’s involvement with the child during the period of separation.
15. The child’s relationship with siblings and extended family.
16. Any other factor relevant to the child’s best interest.
17. Each parent’s willingness and ability to provide a safe, stable, nurturing environment.
Support is calculated under a state model that reflects the share of parental income a child would have received if the family remained intact.
It follows the guideliens, not a parent's personal monthly budget.
Support belongs to the child. Any deviation must be reviewed and approved by a judge.
Wages, bonuses, commissions, self-employment, rental and investment income, and certain fringe benefits may count before deductions.
