How to Take Custody From an Unfit Parent

[stslough]

My question involves a child custody case from the State of: Texas

Our sons friend has been coming to our home for about 2 years or more. At first he would be combative at time and confrontational. He would always want to fight them and we would send him home. As he has come to trust us he tells us more. According to him, and from what we have seen, his mother is abusive verbally and most likely physically when he was smaller. He is now 15 and actually crys when we tell him he has to go home. CPS has been in their lives a lot but they do nothing. We have made two reports in the last few weeks.

His mother has taken him to a psychiatrist and they diagnosed him with something and she drugs him anytime he gets angry. This will knock him out for the rest of the day and sometimes longer. Since it's from a doctor, CPS does nothing. This boy practically lived at my home all summer and his mother never called once. We made him go hone when we went out of town for a week but the police brought him back to my house (friends of our were house sitting for us) and they asked if he could stay there since it wasn't good that he be at home (no report made my officers). They called us and we said it was fine.

He has actually walked to my house and slept outside (without our knowledge), just because he couldn't take it anymore at his house. She drugged him once and then let him walk to our house (about a mile away), across a busy main road. I was shocked he didn't get hit by a car. He passed out in our garage and we found him when we came home several hours later. Our kids were home and didn't know he was out there. My kids are 16, 14, & 10.

Last week before school started my husband went to the school for a meeting with them and the boys mother. She never showed. The first day of school she showed up and took him and had him put in a psych hospital to get back on his medication. She hasn't seen him all summer and says he needs medication. He was on NO medication the entire summer and was a NORMAL teenage boy. Never lost his temper and was Never disrespectful to us... that may not sound like a normal teenager but I mean he didn't get any more upset or act any different than any normal teenager does.

At christmas this last year we went out of town and she put him in the psych hospital from christmas eve until 3 days after christmas. That broke my heart. Her cursing would shame a sailer.

He's bigger than her now and she can't control him like when he was 8 or 9 yrs old. He gets emotional when she drugs him and then he's coming out of it but when he doesn't have any in his system he is perfectly normal.

NO ONE WILL LISTEN TO US. Is there anything we can do. I'm afraid she's going to cause him actual mental harm by drugging him when he doesn't need it. She does play the race card between her excessive cursing when talking to us. We are white, he is black. That isn't an issue with us at all.

[LawResearcherMissy]

I'm going to answer your titular question, since that's what really needs the answer.

No, you cannot get custody. If CPS has been called and has investigated, and the child is still there, that means that CPS has not found anything meriting his removal. If CPS has not found her unfit, what makes you think you can prove her legally unfit so you can take her child away? "She yells at him and we don't like that he's on medication" are simply not going to cut it. Even if it WERE enough - and it's not - the courts would not just hand the child over to you. The boy would go to a licensed foster family.

I'm afraid she's going to cause him actual mental harm by drugging him when he doesn't need it.

How do you know he doesn't need it? What was he diagnosed with? What medication was prescribed, and at what dosage?

[stslough]

When a child is normal for an entire summer (3 months) with no medication then he doesn't need it. I am a Registered Nurse and have worked with Psych patients. I know when someone is in need of medication. She doesn't want to deal with him but doesn't want her welfare money taken either (her words not mine). We are able to be foster parents but she lies to the CPS officer and lies to the Psych phys. I want him to get a non-biased physician that will listen to him and not what she says.

[Dogmatique]

A nurse is not qualified to make any sort of psych diagnosis (and shouldn't be doing so with someone else's child, especially).

It's also - and I'm truly not trying to be critical here - unlikely that a psych unit would medicate a minor child without there being an actual reason for doing so. These doctors aren't stupid - they'll know who and what to believe. Again, if CPS have investigated and found no reason to remove the child, you are powerless.

[LawResearcherMissy]

When a child is normal for an entire summer (3 months) with no medication then he doesn't need it.

Answer the questions. WHAT was he diagnosed with? WHAT was he prescribed? At what dosage? How long have you been his physician? Oh, wait...

I want him to get a non-biased physician that will listen to him and not what she says.

Legally, you are no one in this situation. The courts don't care what you want - and it's the courts that would need to be involved if CPS decided it were necessary.

CPS clearly doesn't agree with your assessments - and even if they did, you would not be permitted to steal this woman's child away. You'd do well to step off, lest Mom get herself an attorney and sue you into oblivion.

[stslough]

Funny... we got a call from the center where he is at and they are going to do everything they can to not let him return to his mother. She has had all 3 of her children arrested on assault charges against her, even her 11 year old. She hits them, beats them with sticks and has even thrown things, including a weed eater at them - and CPS does nothing.

The CPS case worker can't be found and another investigation is being brought up on that. So all of you are wrong. CPS will be under investigation now for their neglect in this situation and letting it go on for so many years without intervening. We were told it's possible the court could assign him to us as "kinship" because of his relationship with us.
The center representative also told us that there is no need for him to have any medication and they may bring the psych center up on charges as well.

So thank you for nothing. It's sad that you, the responders, refuse to believe the system DOES NOT work all the time and real people only get rhetoric from you...no help.

[LawResearcherMissy]

Horsepuckey. Legally, you're a stranger to that child, and the authorities are not allowed to divulge information to you.

We're not so gullible, but you can go ahead and think we are if it makes you feel better. Never have figured out people who think lying to strangers is satisfying, but whatevs.

[Dogmatique]

Funny... we got a call from the center where he is at and they are going to do everything they can to not let him return to his mother. She has had all 3 of her children arrested on assault charges against her, even her 11 year old. She hits them, beats them with sticks and has even thrown things, including a weed eater at them - and CPS does nothing.

The CPS case worker can't be found and another investigation is being brought up on that. So all of you are wrong. CPS will be under investigation now for their neglect in this situation and letting it go on for so many years without intervening. We were told it's possible the court could assign him to us as "kinship" because of his relationship with us.
The center representative also told us that there is no need for him to have any medication and they may bring the psych center up on charges as well.

So thank you for nothing. It's sad that you, the responders, refuse to believe the system DOES NOT work all the time and real people only get rhetoric from you...no help.

And further, you don't even have STANDING for kinship placement. That's laughable.

And really? This "center" is going to "bring charges" against a medical facility for medicating a child? They TOLD you this?

You're lying.

[aardvarc]

they are going to do everything they can to not let him return to his mother.

Without a court order to the contrary, the center has no legal authority here. Period.

She has had all 3 of her children arrested on assault charges against her, even her 11 year old. She hits them, beats them with sticks and has even thrown things, including a weed eater at them - and CPS does nothing.

Without a copy of CPS's files, neither YOU nor WE can opine on the matter. How many of these incidents were reported to POLICE, at the time they occurred?

We were told it's possible the court could assign him to us as "kinship" because of his relationship with us.

Unless you were told that by a family law attorney who practices in the county in which the children live, it means nothing. Social workers, case managers, therapists, police officers, medical persons, and others in the helping professions are often are WAY off in what they THINK, and what is legally possible. Just like lots of those same types of folks, trying to be helpful, suggest that emancipation is a way out of these situations, when it's not.

The center representative also told us that there is no need for him to have any medication

Unless the center representative is a qualified physician, that opinion in meaningless.

and they may bring the psych center up on charges as well.

The center doesn't bring charges. Law enforcement does that. You have an awful lot of misinformation going on. If you want to try to tackle the problem the RIGHT way, you need to be speaking to a family law attorney. That's the only way you're going to get ACCCURATE information - because quite frankly, you're being fed a lot of bull.

So thank you for nothing. It's sad that you, the responders, refuse to believe the system DOES NOT work all the time and real people only get rhetoric from you...no help.

The sad thing is that you're willing to take legal advice from people who have no business giving it. No one here EVER said the system works all the time. In fact, many of us here have either worked in the system ourselves, or been the victim at the hands of "the system" - and we KNOW it doesn't work all the time (because frankly, NOTHING works all the time). However, there are some legal realities here that aren't going to change, no matter how much YOU or we want them to. If you want to label those realities as "rhetoric", so be it. If you want non-rhetoric, HIRE AN ATTORNEY. Perhaps their delivery of the realities of the situation and the extent to which you have any role in it will be more palatable.

[cbg]

*applauds Catherine wildly*