Emotional Child Abuse in California

[eyeswideopen]

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

Hi Folks,

I'm so sorry this is going to be a long post but I need advice. I live in San Diego and have been separated from my ex for over 5 years. From day 1 of us separating he has used our daughter to insult me. At age 2 she was coming home saying mommy is ugly mommy is mean. Fast forward 5 years and we are here.

There have been alot of issues with her (not) wanting to see her father, many times in the past 6 months she would throw tantrums and not want to go with him. I put her in counseling for a few months and things seemed to be getting better.

He only sees her every other Saturday 5PM to Sunday 5PM so contact is limited at best. This past weekend he picked her up and she was excited to see him. But at 8 she called crying asking to come home. This has happened before and I said no I will see you tomorrow, try to sleep, etc. I then receive a call at midnight from her father telling me to come pick her up as she's been crying for over 3 hours. I said no because if I give in this time she will know she has to cry for at least that long next time before I will come get her. I felt SO bad but I didn't want to give in to the tantrum.

I showed up Sunday to pick her up. At pickup he tells me I need to do something to make her stop crying. I said I dont have a problem this is happening at your house its your issue. My child and I start walking to the car and she says they were calling me dummy and retard. Of course this isnt the first time we have had issues so I go back to his door and say we need to talk.

So much to get in to but during the talk he calls my child a liar, says she is always making thigns up, she is a brat and will be sorry she treated them like this when she gets older, his wife gets angry and starts yelling that she doesnt give a f*** if my kid never comes back to their house. I ask her dad if he wants to give up custody and he doesnt answer me but tells my child if she wants to come back to their house she better act right.

Then in the car she starts telling me her dad says I hired a "spy" to watch him at work (yes I did hire a PI since he is self employed and making "only $10 hour" working "part time" but has 3 BMW's and a 500k house hard to afford right?), cheated on him, was put in jail before, etc. This is all being said to her at 1 in the morning after she said my mom loves me more than anything in the world and her dad told her if she loved you why wont she come pick you up. Her father and wife are Middle Eastern and when my child was crying his wife told her white people are psychotic.

In the past he has called her fat, told her she should behave better since he pays to see her, just so much mean things.

I am so fed up. I called CPS and thye said it will take 5-10 days to decide if they will investigate an emotional abuse case. I am going into the courthouse tomorrow to file an emergency order to stop visitation until this is investigated. He makes her out to be such a brat and horrible kid but she's pretty cool. Strong willed and stubborn but a good person. Just last week her teacher gave glowing reports on her actions in the classroom, said he is recommending her to be on student council next year (she's already been on for 2 years), her teacher uses her as a guide for new students since she makes them feel so welcome, uses her as a motivational tool for when new ideas are introduced into the class, she is a Pop Warner cheerleader, attends the best school district in San Diego, just sat for the GATE test last weekend, uses her recess time at school 3x a week to help her former teacher tutor english challenged students learn to read, I dont what more to say except she is awesome and I am appalled that her father is doing this.

I truly feel the night she spent with them last weekend was a night of terror and hope to get some help through the courts. She told me last night that she is afraid to go back to their house because they will be mad she told on them and will be mean to her. If anyone out there can help with advice I would appreciate it.

[Mr. Knowitall]

If you wish to pursue this, get yourself a really good custody lawyer. It was, no offense, not wise to bring CPS into this with what they are very likely to find an unfounded complaint or a complaint that doesn't merit investigation before consulting a lawyer.

[aardvarc]

CPS doesn't tend to rush into investigations of emotional abuse. Not that it's not a horrible thing for a child, but it is an area that is almost 100% SUBJECTIVE, difficult to measure, and is at least partially attributed to the child's level of coping skills, and not just 100% centered on the alleged actions of the parent (in other words, what one child might brush off easily might be emotionally crippling or damaging to another child - so the actual actions in and of themselves aren't the KEY to such investigations). CPS tends to focus on what can be DOCUMENTED - so their cases tend to center around physical abuse and neglect cases where a photo tells the big part of the story (injuries, or living conditions that are unacceptable, like no food in the house, no running water, infestations, etc.). There's also the issue that there is a difference between what CPS will call emotional abuse, and what most lay persons (particularly parents of a child in question) will deem as emotional abuse. Typically, parents are, unfortunately, allowed to be mean, unsupportive, name callers, and many other things, including just plain BAD parents who don't emotionally bond to their children. It's not that these things aren't at A LEVEL abusive, but the burden for CPS to conclude an investigation with a finding that emotional ABUSE sufficient to need an intervention or stoppage of visitation occurring is pretty high - and I won't go into the grisley details, but suffice to say that most such cases centering on emotional abuse tend to include elements of the child being exposed to things that even well rounded adults would cringe at (exposure to pornography, violence against other people or animals, etc.).

It's also not helpful to a possible "alienation of affection" claim that it started when the child was 2, and is now 7, unless there has been some pretty spectacular documentation of such events over time (from outside sources like the school, teachers, therapists, etc.).

At least PART of the issue in this particular case is that there is the common spectre of "the evil step mother" - who isn't helping matters and doing her own share to help build a healthy relationship between father and child - and is exacerbated by a father who apparently isn't prepared to put his foot down and demand that his child receive better treatment - from either the new woman or from himself. If you're planning to head to court to try to intervene, particularly if asking for something like supervised visitation, you might try asking that such visitation, at least for a time, NOT include step mom.