North Carolina child custody laws, can a child decide which parent to live with

In North Carolina, a child's wishes is just that - their wishes. A judge will consider their wishes but the child does not decide which parent to live with. Were the parents to allow the child to make the decision, they would be allowing the child to take the role of the parent. It is the parent's job -- and the Court's in a custody case -- to decide what is best for the child.

The court will consider the child's wishes as merely one factor. Most children age 9 and older are able to express a preference. Some counties will allow the appointment of a guardian ad litem to determine the child's wishes.

Once a child has a driver's license, it is tough - however - not to allow the child's wishes because if the parent is not aiding and abetting the child in violating a court order and the child violates the order, the judge has no real choice but to punish the child. So at 16+, unless circumstances strongly dictate against it, the child's wishes actually do matter much more than at an earlier age. Despite this, I have won at trial to have a child of this age live with the more responsible parent against the child's wishes.... The Court MUST Consider the best interests of the child unless one parent is unfit or has acted inconsistent with their constitutionally protected status as a parent.

Check with a lawyer in your county for details about how judges in that county see this issue.

In many states there is not a firm age at which children get to decide which parent they live with. Instead, the judge in certain circumstances may consider the child's preference as one factor among many. The only way to know for sure is to speak with a lawyer in your area.

The father has thirty years of drug addiction and alcoholism, ten years or more of domestic violence against all of us to the oblivian of CPS, the courts and my ex's corrupt attorney got full sole custody of my son such that I knew nothing of it until it was all said and done, and, at 3 1/2 years old, my son sat up in bed crying two nights before his illegal abduction/corrupt change of custody, crying as to why was I going to go away and leave him all alone and why didn't I love him anymore? Only the day after did I find out I no longer had custody and such has been awarded to my long term drug addicted, violent, alcoholic, and mentally ill exhusband. I now, have, after ten years, regained an emergency change in custody when my son was the informant of his father's drug use in another state where he got caught by Panama City, Fl. PD and my son wants to stay with me? What's the law say about that?

I the mother live in Baltimore Maryland, and My child and her father lives in Charottle, North carolina for the past 8 months. As the mother can I go and take my child with me back to Baltimore Md?