Can A Father Be Made To Have Visitation

I am a 43 year old disabled mother of a 13 (nearly 14 )year old autistic/mentally retarded daughter. My daughter is very low functioning. She is unable to feed herself or to care for herself. She is not potty trained and has no self help skills. She is mobile and a very happy child. She is nonaggressive. Basically its like having a big 2 year old.

Her father and I have divorced. As you can imagine being handicapped myself its not easy to care for a handicapped child..especially one who doesn't sleep well...as my disability requires I get sleep. Since he remarried, her dad wants to see her less and less and would be very happy if I put her in a residential facility and relieved him of his paternal duties altogether.

Her teachers and the director of our spec ed department testified last summer in court that it is best to keep a handicapped child in their home environment as long as possible as oppposed to having them placed in a residential facility.

Since May we have begun to receive respite care in our home for our daughter. This help is provided to help parents who wish to keep their children home as opposed to going to a residential facility. She attends school during the day here in town. The respite worker has been available to help both me and my daughter's father. Yet even though he has help he still seems to want our daughter less and less..making MY responsibility to her more and more.

As things stand right now, he gets our daughter every other weekend...the weekend includes the Sunday night. And he takes her to school on monday morning. He also gets her one night a week at 6 pm and delivers her to school the next morning at 8 am (or to me if school is not in session.) He agreed to take her a week in summer and a week at Christmas.

Tonight he phoned and in a very bullying and harassing manner TOLD ME he would not be getting her during the week at all. That he would get her every other weekend but the weekend would not include the Sunday night. And that he had no intention of ever keeping her more than 3 nights at the time which means no week vacation for me in summer or at Christmas.

I feel this is extremely unfair. My attorney here, I believe, doesn't really want to fool with this, but its MY life. It might be trivial to him but its a matter of my mental health and my physical health at stake here. My attorney has lead me to believe that there's little I can do. That a judge can't MAKE him take her.

Is this true?

We live in Mississippi..she is our only child and I receive $200 a month child support. As things stand she is with me about 72% of the month and with her dad about 28% of the month with the majority of that being sleeping time. We have joint custody at present.

He is not a bad father. He does not mistreat our daughter. It has only been since he remarried that all of these problems started.

I feel as if I am getting the extremely short end of the stick here. Is there anything that can be done to MAKE him help me?

No one can physically make the dad see your daughter unfortunately.
Sorry

Your attorney was correct...Visitation is a right not an obligation. I'm sorry that your ex is being such a ....horrible father to your daughter. When is the last time you had a child support modification? With the decrease in vitiation and if 3 years has past since the last child support review, you might want to consider a modification of support. Perhaps you could look into after school programs for your daughter to give you a little more relief ? You could request that Dad, since he isn't pulling his parental weight, would be required to pay for this care. Just a suggestion.

Good luck...My lil' one is Autistic and I know how stressful "doing it alone" can be...

Another suggestion...The Autism Society has many programs for children...summer camp, after school..ect...They have low or sliding scale payment requirement. You might want to check it out. Also if your daughter is not receiving SSI you should apply...she may qualify for benefits.

Good luck
Bay

Thanks for taking the time to read.

Thanks very much for your suggestions. Unfortunately I live in a small town in MS so as far as after school programs..there are none. Sounds like I'm pretty much not gonna have much of a life. I've not even been to see my brother in about 4 years.

If visitation is not 'required' what happens, God forbid, if neither parent wants visitation. The child becomes a ward of the state??

The judge told us in court he'd n ever had this happen. Usually fathers are in court wanting to spend MORE time with their children..not less.

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Quoting Jayne Deaux

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Thanks for taking the time to read.

Thanks very much for your suggestions. Unfortunately I live in a small town in MS so as far as after school programs..there are none. Sounds like I'm pretty much not gonna have much of a life. I've not even been to see my brother in about 4 years.

If visitation is not 'required' what happens, God forbid, if neither parent wants visitation. The child becomes a ward of the state??

The judge told us in court he'd n ever had this happen. Usually fathers are in court wanting to spend MORE time with their children..not less.

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My sister in TN has a similar problem. My nephew is autistic, cystic fibrosis, you name it he suffers from it. He's 14 yrs old with the mind of a 4 year old. His father in Fl wants nothing to do with him, so the last time the CS order was modified the Judge in FL increased the amount above state guidelines due to my sister needing extra care for thier son.

I'm not real familiar with MS's laws on this, but try getting a consult with an attorney to find out if something like that can be done in your state.