Five gates stand between an item and the record: relevance, authentication, hearsay, best evidence, and privilege — each runs separately, and passing one is never admissibility by itself. The Evidence Center quotes every governing section verbatim from the hash-verified corpus.
The practical work is commonly earlier than court: preserving what you lawfully hold from day zero, organizing items against the issues, and understanding the mandatory-disclosure exchange the family rules impose on both sides.
Children are protected participants, not witnesses-in-waiting: Rule 12.407 generally bars a child's deposition, subpoena, or attendance without a prior court order, and courts commonly hear about children through studies, evaluations, and guardian ad litem reports instead.