What’s The Right Child Support Arrangement For Your Child?

When getting divorced with children, parents may be ordered to pay child support. If one spouse has primary custody, the other parent may be ordered to make monthly support payments. This helps to spread out the high cost of raising the child between both parents.

That said, a child support order may need to be modified in the future. If the order is issued when the child is an infant, life can change a lot in the next 18 years. Potential reasons why a modification may be needed include:

• Job loss: The child support arrangement is based in part on income, so losing a job can make it impossible to make monthly payments.
• Income reduction: Even when a parent is still employed, a modification could be needed if they experienced an income reduction. Maybe their hours were cut, for instance, or they lost their job and took another one that pays less.
• Cost of living changes: When the cost of living goes up, a child support modification may be needed to help the custodial parent keep up with inflation and rising costs.
• Changes to the child’s needs: On the other hand, child support may need to be increased if the child’s needs change. Perhaps the child suffers from an injury or illness leading to a long-term disability, for example, so the cost to raise the child goes up substantially.
• New parental responsibilities: Finally, if the parent who is paying support has new responsibilities – they get remarried and have another child, for instance – then they may be able to petition the court to have their former support obligations reduced.

One of the most important things to remember about child support laws is that the standing court order must be followed. A parent cannot “modify” the order on their own, even if they have a valid reason – like job loss. They still have to go through the proper legal process to ask for a modification, so this is when it’s important to talk to an attorney in Waukesha County who has an in-depth understanding of both child custody and support laws.