The Best Interest of the Child

Abstract

The term “best interest of the child”(BIC) is used within the legal system to focus attention on the needs and welfare of individual children. However, little is known about parents' perspective of the best interest for their child during divorce. This paper examines parents' and attorneys' understanding of BIC legal criteria in order to examine the similarities and differences between parental and professional concepts. Forty-one parents and 28 attorneys participated for a sample size of 69 semi-structured interviews. Parent responses corresponded with the legal criteria in about one-half of the cases. Although legal professionals and parents ranked similar criteria as most important, differing language and perspectives used to communicate these criteria hinder reconciliation of seemingly divergent concepts of BIC across parties. The clarification of these differences in parental and legal perspectives is necessary to maintain the welfare of the child as the primary concern in divorce cases.

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