Picking Up a Child from Daycare Outside of Parenting Time

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

The court order that is about to be in place states
Weekday parenting time shall be every Wednesday overnight from
after school until 4:00 p.m., or after school, whichever occurs later.
b. Weekend parenting time shall be alternating weekends, beginning
on Friday at 6:00 p.m. until Monday at 4:00 p.m., or after school, whichever occurs later.

Based on this wording, can my almost ex-husband go in and pick up our daughter from daycare during my parenting time, without me being notified, or giving permission? He has done this twice now, and while there is no ramifications for it now as we don't have a court order, it does cause me to be concerned when I go to pick her up from where I think she is, only to find out she has been gone for hours. Especially when he then doesn't answer his phone for hours either.

We will have joint legal and physical custody.

Your basic parenting time schedule includes absolutely no information about daycare.

Why is your ex- picking up the child? When you asked your ex- not to do so on your time without at least informing you, why did your ex- refuse to agree?

I asked him nicely the first time, last week, not to take her without telling me he was doing it. I told him that is scares me when I can't find her and he said he ws sorry and that he wouldn't do it again. Then he did it again just a couple days ago. He laughed and told me that he can do whatever he wants because he is her dad and the courts have not told him he can or can't do anything, and there is nothing I can do about it. The first time he did it was because his mom had the day off of work, so he picked her up and dropped her off to his mom. It wasn't even so he could hang out with her. I am pretty sure she was with him the second time, but I am not certain. I, on the rare occasions he does ask me for extra time I say sure, no problem 99 times out of 100. Infact I did that just a couple of weeks ago for Thanksgiving. It just concerns me because I show up to daycare to pick her up and then I can't find her for hours after daycare tells me that her dad came and picked her up. When he had her the second time, I went to pick her up from daycare after work and didn't get a call back from him or anyone in his family until almost 9pm on Tuesday night, which is way past her bed time. I had gone to all the places I could think of that they would be and called everyone in his family. I was seconds away from calling the police.

I keep forgetting that daycare doesn't count as school even though that's what we call it. I apologize about that. The proposed court order is word for word though. So since it doesn't mention daycare specifically, does that mean he can pick her up whenever on my parenting time, even after the order goes into place? And not have to tell me? Or is he limited to the hours that are set forth in the court order without having to ask me for my time? We do have a right of first refusal in there, as well, but it is limited to not being able to excersize parenting time for more then 24 consecutive hours. This is a new behavior for him, and I am scared it is going to continue, or worse, escalate.

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Quoting readytoleave

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I asked him nicely the first time, last week, not to take her without telling me he was doing it. I told him that is scares me when I can't find her and he said he ws sorry and that he wouldn't do it again. Then he did it again just a couple days ago. He laughed and told me that he can do whatever he wants because he is her dad and the courts have not told him he can or can't do anything, and there is nothing I can do about it. The first time he did it was because his mom had the day off of work, so he picked her up and dropped her off to his mom. It wasn't even so he could hang out with her. I am pretty sure she was with him the second time, but I am not certain. I, on the rare occasions he does ask me for extra time I say sure, no problem 99 times out of 100. Infact I did that just a couple of weeks ago for Thanksgiving. It just concerns me because I show up to daycare to pick her up and then I can't find her for hours after daycare tells me that her dad came and picked her up. When he had her the second time, I went to pick her up from daycare after work and didn't get a call back from him or anyone in his family until almost 9pm on Tuesday night, which is way past her bed time. I had gone to all the places I could think of that they would be and called everyone in his family. I was seconds away from calling the police.

I keep forgetting that daycare doesn't count as school even though that's what we call it. I apologize about that. The proposed court order is word for word though. So since it doesn't mention daycare specifically, does that mean he can pick her up whenever on my parenting time, even after the order goes into place? And not have to tell me? Or is he limited to the hours that are set forth in the court order without having to ask me for my time? We do have a right of first refusal in there, as well, but it is limited to not being able to excersize parenting time for more then 24 consecutive hours. This is a new behavior for him, and I am scared it is going to continue, or worse, escalate.

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I am confused... I don't think I ever asked a question about relocating, although I have thought about it as wishful thinking.

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Ok, because he is her dad he CAN pick her up from daycare even if its your day, unless he is ordered not to do so. However, what he CANNOT do, is keep her past the hour that you would normally pick her up, on your days.

Therefore, you could certainly take him to court for contempt for violating the parenting orders. He has no right to keep the child away from you during your parenting time, and I suspect that the judge would rip him a new one for not only doing that, but for not letting you know where the child was.

Okay that is something I can completely be on board with. I would rather she be with one of us than at daycare anyways. My main issue is not knowing where she is, and her not being with me during my parenting time. So if and regrettably when since believes he can do whatever he wants and whenever he wants, this happens again, what would be my course of action? Do I wait to get her back and then file a motion? Do I call the police so that there is some sort of record of it? Do I warn him that if he continues to violate my parenting time that I will be forced to take action?

As a side note, since there is a difference between daycare and school, would he be able to do the same thing once she is in school? I can't imagine him just going and taking her out of grade school, but at the same time I couldn't imagine him taking her out of daycare and not letting me know either.

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Quoting readytoleave

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Okay that is something I can completely be on board with. I would rather she be with one of us than at daycare anyways. My main issue is not knowing where she is, and her not being with me during my parenting time. So if and regrettably when since believes he can do whatever he wants and whenever he wants, this happens again, what would be my course of action? Do I wait to get her back and then file a motion? Do I call the police so that there is some sort of record of it? Do I warn him that if he continues to violate my parenting time that I will be forced to take action?

As a side note, since there is a difference between daycare and school, would he be able to do the same thing once she is in school? I can't imagine him just going and taking her out of grade school, but at the same time I couldn't imagine him taking her out of daycare and not letting me know either.

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Why not go ahead and file for contempt now, since he has done it twice? Yes, unfortunately unless you get the judge to order that he may not remove the child from daycare or school, on your parenting days, without your permission, then he will be able to do that even once she starts school.

Okay very good. I am pretty sure that he can't be found in contempt right now because it isn't actually a court order just yet. We are going this next week to hopefully have everything finalized. If he shows up, which is another issue entirely.

But I am going to look into modifing the order so that it includes something that prevents him from doing it during my parenting time. Especially during school. Daycare is one thing, but I don't think she should get pulled out of math class one day just because he gets irritated and wants to prove that he can do whatever he wants without any regard to anyone else.

Thank you for your responses.