Need more child support? Talk to our attorneys

On behalf of Johnson, Sclafani & Moriarty, Attorneys at Law posted in Child Support on Friday, October 28, 2016.

If you split up from your child’s other parent when the child was an infant or toddler, the child support that you agreed to accept, or that was set by the court, may not cover all of his or her needs once your child gets older.

While even babies are expensive to rear, their needs usually are relatively simple — food, shelter and clothing are the basics. Of course, that doesn’t mean that a parent doesn’t go above and beyond that bare minimum, just that there is no clamorous urgency to shell out more in those precious early months and years.

But when kids get to middle school and beyond, their worlds (and their wants) expand exponentially. All that peer pressure can cause the custodial parent’s wallet to really take a hit, and suddenly the monthly sum of child support can appear to be rather paltry indeed.

What options does the custodial parent have if he or she feels that the child support payments are no longer sufficient?
All situations are different, and thus, must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. The best case scenario is that you are able to engage your child’s other parent in a heart-to-heart talk about your child’s changing needs. This may result in a voluntary increase in the amount of child support you receive each month. Or perhaps their other parent might be willing to take on an additional expense — private school tuition or the fees for music lessons or extracurricular activities, maybe.

But this isn’t a perfect world. Our attorneys realize that not all non-custodial parents will be willing to voluntarily increase the amount they fork over each month, which is why we can order them into court for a child support order modification that better reflects the current circumstances.