Question

What are the pros and cons of this current legal standard for child custody cases?

Answer 1

Pros

It provides an oppurtunity to give custody rights when parents could not reach mutual negation. Rights of child are given primacy.

Children preferences, if they are if certain age and above , help resolve the dilemma in many cases

Provision of sone form of joint/shared custody that affirms the caretaking status of more than one parent/adult.

The legal system recognizes the fact that disputes are not exclusively marital and therefore may not involve divorce per se. Some parents may be unmarried and perhaps may never even have lived together , or even child custody disputes may arise after years of successful co-parenting because one parent seeks to relocate for work.

Cons

The vague "best interest of child" term . What is best cannot be determined just by theoretical models.

The process of evaluation best interest is time consuming apart from being vague .

Specific tests to assess questions relevant to custody appears inadequate on scientific grounds

Some of the construct like "parent alienation syndrome" appears hollow when subjected to scientific scrutiny.