What “Best Interest of the Child” Really Means in a Tennessee Termination of Parental Rigths and Adoption Case
This Isn’t About Who Loves the Child More
Tennessee judges are not weighing who cries the hardest, wants the child more, or has the most heartfelt story. They are considering at least twenty (20) factors that you must be aware of. A few of the factors are:
The effect a termination of parental rights will have on the child's critical need for stability and continuity of placement throughout the child's minority;
Whether the parent has demonstrated continuity and stability in meeting the child's basic material, educational, housing, and safety needs;
Whether the parent and child have a secure and healthy parental attachment, and if not, whether there is a reasonable expectation that the parent can create such attachment;
Whether the parent, parent's home, or others in the parent's household trigger or exacerbate the child's experience of trauma or post-traumatic symptoms;
Whether the child has emotionally significant relationships with persons other than parents and caregivers, including biological or foster siblings, and the likely impact of various available outcomes on these relationships and the child's access to information about the child's heritage;
Whether the parent has demonstrated a sense of urgency in establishing paternity of the child, seeking custody of the child, or addressing the circumstance, conduct, or conditions that made an award of custody unsafe and not in the child's best interest;
Whether the physical environment of the parent's home is healthy and safe for the child;
Love matters. But love alone does not answer those questions. One of the biggest misconceptions we see is the belief that court is about punishing a parent or rewarding someone else — It isn’t. Judges are not there to simply grade moral worth. They are tasked with choosing the path that offers a child things like permanency, predictability, safety, and emotional continuity. The “Best interest of the Child” is not a slogan. It’s not a vibe. It’s not a popularity contest. In a Tennessee termination of parental rights and adoption courtroom, it means carefully weighing the factors set forth in T.C.A. § 36-1-113 to determine if it is in the best interest of a child to terminate the biological parent’s rights.
If you’re involved in an adoption or termination of parental case and wondering how your situation fits into that reality, you’re asking the right question. Experienced family law focused lawyers, like Page & Cook, PC, do think about this differently than other general practitioners.
That difference matters.