I get what you are saying. Truly. At the age of 14, a judge will ask a "normal" adolescent (not a special needs or learning disabled, etc) what they want AND why.
My brother fought for half custody and his d's were all asked WHY they wanted that as well. They gave pretty good reasons "at mom's house, it's quiet and we spend a lot of time just us" and "my dad's house has a lot of his family there and there are a lot of cousins to play with so we like BOTH"...and that's what they got.
But it's not quite the same as putting her in the witness stand and boldly asking HER and HER ONLY, to choose.
Btw, that ^^ event, actually did happen to my mil, many years ago.
I can honestly say that from HER description of the court room scene that took place in California about 60 years ago, it was traumatic.
And it changed her life forever. She chose her father, who was warm and who was surrounded by siblings (i.e. her aunts and uncles) whereas her mother had remarried a man whom mil did not know.
She and her mother never had a good bond after that, and she was an only child. (I cannot say they had a good bond before that tbh, but still...) My mil was screwed up by that and later would desperately try to regain her mother's approval and "make up for" not choosing her when she was 9.
It was a big fat source of pain for my mil. As she faced terminal cancer years later (in 2010) and her own mother remained alive, they literally fought about it THEN!
Like they had to hash it out before my mil could die in peace. Made a sad situation into a full blown nightmare.
Food for thought...
M: 57 H: 60 M: 35 yrs S30,D28,D19 H off to Alaska 2006 Recon 7/07- 8/08 *2016* X = "ALASKA 2.0" GROUND HOG DAY I File D 10/16 OW DIV 2/26/2018 X marries OW 5/2016
