Facts: Mother and Father divorced after a 20-year marriage that produced eight children. At the time of trial, six children were still minors; the two eldest had reached adulthood.

Father had worked outside the home (including as a pastor), while Mother was a stay-at-home parent who homeschooled the older children.

In late 2020, Father’s admitted affair devastated the family. The five oldest children, who were upset by Father’s infidelity, became resentful and fearful of Father and firmly aligned themselves with Mother during the divorce. This caused Father’s relationships with the oldest children to deteriorate. Those older children also began to negatively influence the younger children’s relationship with Father. The three youngest children (then ages 10, 5, and 2) started to withdraw from Father under their older siblings’ sway.

In November 2020, Father filed for divorce. The trial court immediately implemented a temporary parenting plan. It granted Father visitation with the children every Saturday and warned both parents not to speak badly about the other or discuss adult issues with the children. The court specifically ordered Mother to encourage the children to attend Father’s visitation and facilitate a quality relationship between the children and Father. A few months later, the court also ordered the entire family into counseling to address the growing rift.

Despite these orders, Mother struggled to comply. In 2021, she failed to follow through with counseling for the older children as ordered. Tensions escalated when Mother (with help from one of the adult children) pursued an order of protection against Father on behalf of the younger kids. This order was prepared by the parties’ then-18-year-old son without a lawyer and filed by Mother. It was granted ex parte (without Father present) and temporarily stopped Father’s visitation. The trial court later found the abuse allegations lacked merit and that Mother and this son had “substituted their judgment” for the court’s while flagrantly violating the court’s directives.

Mother also violated court orders by allowing the teenage siblings to insert themselves into Father’s visitation time with the younger children, even though the court had explicitly ordered those visits be only between Father and the younger kids. In one incident caught on video, the older siblings physically huddled around the younger ones to “shield” them from Father during an exchange, which the trial judge described as “almost cult-like.” In an audio recording, Mother told Father she would throw into the street any toys he gave the children. The trial court found these actions demonstrated to the younger children that they should fear their Father and showed a concerted effort by Mother and the older kids to undermine Father’s relationship with the younger ones.

By September 2022, the trial judge remarked it was one of the worst cases of parental alienation the court had ever seen. The judge warned that if the situation did not drastically improve, the likely result would be the younger children living with Father full-time so that he could repair the relationship.

In early 2023, the crisis came to a head. The guardian ad litem requested emergency relief. The trial court entered a temporary order noting continued parental alienation by Mother and the older siblings, which the court characterized as rising to the level of emotional abuse. Finding the younger children “in danger of immediate and irreparable harm” if the alienation continued, the court took the drastic step of temporarily transferring physical and legal custody of the two youngest children (then ages 7 and 4) to Father. Mother’s parenting time with those two was limited to alternating weekends, opposite the weekends when Father saw the older minors. Father was given sole decision-making authority for the youngest children’s education, healthcare, and religious upbringing during this period. Mother retained custody of the other minor children (ages 17, 15, and 12 at trial) per the existing orders, and all the children were ordered to continue counseling.

The final divorce hearing took place in August 2023. By that time, some improvement had begun. Mother had made efforts to improve communication, and Father reported progress rebuilding trust with the younger kids. Still, significant issues remained. The three eldest minor children (17, 15, and 12) were firmly bonded with Mother and remained distant toward Father, despite some recent visits. The two youngest had settled into Father’s care but continued to become quiet and reserved immediately after leaving Mother’s house, needing time to “readjust” to Father’s home.

In November 2023, the trial court entered its final order splitting custody: Mother remained the primary residential parent for the three older minor children, while Father was designated the primary residential parent for the two youngest. The court also ordered that the entire family continue counseling to address the strained relationships.

Mother appealed the trial court’s decision to split the children and award Father primary custody of the youngest two. Mother argued the trial court abused its discretion by separating the two youngest children from their older siblings and by refusing to award equal parenting time.

On Appeal: The Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s decision in all respects.

Under Tennessee law, courts must resolve parenting arrangements based on the children’s best interests. To fashion a parenting plan that serves the child’s emotional and developmental needs, trial judges evaluate numerous statutory factors, e.g., each parent’s caregiving history, the child’s relationship with each parent, each parent’s willingness to facilitate the child’s relationship with the other parent, etc. One factor can outweigh all others if the circumstances warrant it.

Generally, Tennessee courts recognize a preference for siblings to remain together, but this is not a controlling factor. While there is a rebuttable presumption against separating siblings, siblings can be separated when the facts of the case require it.

Here, the Court of Appeals found no abuse of discretion in the trial court’s custody arrangement. The trial court correctly focused on the factor regarding each parent’s willingness and ability to facilitate a close and continuing parent-child relationship with the other parent. The proof overwhelmingly showed that Mother’s behavior had severely undermined Father’s relationship with the younger children. The Court of Appeals agreed that Mother’s persistent alienating conduct was a paramount concern that justified the unusual step of separating siblings in this case:

[T]he trial court stated that this factor “has been the paramount concern of the [trial c]ourt throughout this case,” noting that, at the beginning, “it was probably the worst case of parental alienation that [the trial court] ha[d] seen.” Specifically, the trial court found that Mother permitted the older children to alienate the younger children from Father, in direct defiance of the trial court’s orders…. The trial court found that this reaction from the youngest children is consistent and demonstrated that Mother was not facilitating and encouraging a close and continuing relationship between the youngest children and Father. The trial court also considered the parties’ history in this case and found that Mother interfered with the trial court’s orders on at least three occasions. Specifically, the trial court found that Mother: (1) failed to follow up with counseling for the older children in June 2021; (2) signed her name to an order of protection drafted by Bradden, which prohibited contact between Father and the children; and (3) allowed some of the older children to participate in visits with Father when the trial court directly ordered that such visits were solely intended for the benefit of the younger children. The trial court further found that, as per the older children’s testimony, the older children participated in these visits for the “protection” of the younger children, which the trial court found “blatantly contradictory” to the trial court’s April 22, 2022, and September 27, 2022, orders. The trial court found that the actions of the older children “prevented [Father] from having a quality visit and working on the relationship between the [younger] children and Father,” and that the trial court may have considered a different parenting arrangement had the visitations with Father “been conducted in a manner that the [trial c]ourt intended two years ago.”

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Although the record shows that Mother has made progress in her communication with Father and in her willingness to encourage all of the children to have a close relationship with him, some of Mother’s actions, particularly the language she uses to speak with the children/about Father, remains concerning…. [W]hile Mother’s actions have undoubtedly improved, there remains progress to be made in her facilitation of a close parent-child relationship between the youngest children and Father.

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While the separation of siblings may rarely be ordered in permanent parenting plans, such an order is not ipso facto against logic or reasoning. Indeed, the facts of this case lend itself to such rarity given the history of the parties, the continued behaviors of the older children, and the progress Father is making in his relationship with the youngest children. In short, the trial court ordered Father to be the primary residential parent of the youngest children, with the majority of parenting time, as a last resort and in an attempt to preserve Father’s relationship with the youngest children. This hardly constitutes an abuse of discretion.

There being no abuse of discretion, the trial court’s decision was affirmed.

K.O.’s Comment: If you find yourself accused of not supporting your kids’ relationship with their other parent, address it immediately. Advocacy for your children should never cross into actual alienation. Facilitate the visits, curb the negative comments, and follow court orders to the letter. Not only is this in your children’s best interests, but it also protects you from the nightmare scenario of losing custody due to alienating behavior.

Source: Ford v. Ford (Tennessee Court of Appeals, Middle Section, January 16, 2026).

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