Non Custodial Parent Losing Visitation Rights with Teenage Child

[mld]

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

There is a standing court order from 2008 that stipulates joint custody and visitation which has been exercised to the present date. In the order, the non custodial parent (the father) has agreed to allow time for the child to attend horse events that fall on his visitation time. Horse events often fall on weekends during summer visitation. The child is now 13 and believes that she has the right to choose (horse event or not), and does not want to come for summer visitation. I am fairly sure that the next visitation pick up is going to entail calling police to enforce the current court order and that this is going to end up in front of a judge again.

My question is... if and when this goes back to court, is it possible or likely, that the judge will order allow the child the right to choose not to exercise her visitation with her father? The father wants to have visitation and has used it. What are the guidelines in this?

[Neal1421]

The child is wrong, she does not have the right to choose.

How long has dad been allowing the child to attend the horse events on his time?

[mld]

He has been allowing since 2008 when the last court order went into effect. The order states that the mother has to provide a calendar at the beginning of the summer of horse events and the father is to make sure that she goes to events during his visitation time. He agreed to it because, it helped to reach an agreement in court and because he knows his daughter enjoys participating in these events.

As of this yet this summer, no calendar has been provided, and the child is saying she doesn't want to go. The mother has already called and said that she and child are not going to be at pickup destination because the child doesn't want to go. Pickup is tonight, the father is planning on calling police if she isn't at pickup destination.

[aardvarc]

Father can plan that, but it's not going to get him what he wants. Police are likely to tell him that it's a civl matter and that if mom violates the court order regarding visitation then dad needs to take her to court for contempt. The problem with orders like this one, where there are not specific dates or schedule spelled out and included within the order, is that getting a court to enforce the order is problematic at best. Either way, it's not a law enforcement matter, it's a matter to be dealt with in the family court. Dad needs to get some specific language included that more emphatically outlines his visitation rights - otherwise he'll have nowhere to go with things when mom's got the child signed up for activities 7 days a week (yes, other parents really do that to "thwart" visitation).

[mld]

That is exactly what happened tonight. Police came and said that the order wasn't clear enough to do anything other than make a report that the father was there.

I know this is going to go back to court and I think that the mother is will be pushing for the child to be able to choose whether or not visitation happens. Is it likely that a judge will allow for a 13 year old to choose whether or not there is visitation?

[Dogmatique]

It's actually very, very uncommon for the court to allow any child to dictate the terms of visitation unless there has been proven abuse and/or other harm.

[FatherWhoWon]

Hmmm, thirteen is rather young as well. It's not as if she's seventeen going on eighteen and the mother is making an effort to send the child. Thirteen is too young for them to start this kind of thing, and I would also think that a judge would be more sympathetic to dad than a thirteen year old girl.

If the current order states that dad will make sure that child gets to activities on his time, is he the one that's taking her? The way that its worded sounds to me like she is still supposed to go to dad's home, and that he should make sure he brings her. If he does this, he still gets his time and can participate with his daughter in something she enjoys, that is a part of her life.

Or, if its not worded that way, dad needs to make sure he gets make-up time. As long as he enforces getting that make-up time, that could work out even better. Then dad could go to horse events (public places are open to anyone), and also see his daughter on his make-up time.

In any case, I think dad definitely needs to put his foot down, considering that the child is only thirteen. If he doesn't, and things continue to move in this direction, by the time she is sixteen or seventeen he may never see her.

[ksmom]

OP, what discipline does she ride? Does she have her own horse? Are you making sure she's there to get ready, or just showing up at the show?

There is so much involved in getting ready - bathing your horse, pulling & braiding manes (depending on your discipline), cleaning saddles and boots and tack, etc. etc. We are usually at the barn until no earlier than 10pm getting ready for a show and back there at 6am getting horses trailered. Unless we rent stalls, then we are doing all that the day before and warming up at the arena the day before as well.

If you are insisting on only showing up at the show, that may be where your problem is.....