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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Aug 2010
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    3

    Default Visitation and Conflict with School Activities

    My question involves a child custody case from the State of: Kentucky. I have custody of my two children, ages 10 and 14. There is a visitation order in place that stated that my ex-husband has visitation every other weekend. He is to pick them up from school on Friday afternoon and return the to school on Monday mornings. He hasn't kept them on Sunday night for several years and I take them to his house on the weekend and pick them up. The issue is with our son's high school varsity soccer practice and his games. Every school day, he practices after school or has a game. He also has games every Saturday. His father does not want him to play, period. When I go to his home to pick up our son for games, he makes it a point for them not to be there, making it impossible for our son to attend his games. Both my son and I have asked if he could stay with me on Friday night for practice and come to his father's after his Saturday games. The soccer season ends on October 14. His father has refused and stated that what he wants to do is more important than a stupid soccer game. I have no desire to keep him away from our children, I just want my son to be able to play soccer, as he wishes to do. Another issue is that our daughter does not want to visit her father. There have been issues not related to the soccer games that involve he and his girlfriend fighting in front of the children, him throwing her out in the middle of the night with the children there, and him telling me to tell them to forget they have a father. I do not know how to handle the situation.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Apr 2009
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    Somewhere near Canada
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    35,894

    Default Re: Visitation and Conflict with School Activities

    Basically, you cannot schedule games during Dad's parenting time. How long has your son been playing?

    Have you tried offering makeup time?

    Your daughter cannot choose whether or not she wants to visit dad. Are these family arguments happening every single week?

    Are the kids in counseling?

  3. #3

    Default Re: Visitation and Conflict with School Activities

    If the father does not want to work with you on the games, then he's just being a dick. The activity is short-lived and you've offered make-up time. I have a hard time seeing a grown man not wanting to support his son -- let alone taking him to the game himself on Sat.

    The daughter cannot decide whether she wants to visit or not. Get her into counseling, talk to the dad about her feelings, and remember it is your duty to help the kids facilitate a relationship with the other parent (meaning... make sure they keep visiting). It is a sucky situation, but teenagers feelings are all over the place. While she is on a anti-visit kick now, six months from now she might want to live with dad...lol

  4. #4
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    Apr 2009
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    Default Re: Visitation and Conflict with School Activities

    Quote Quoting mershu
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    If the father does not want to work with you on the games, then he's just being a dick. The activity is short-lived and you've offered make-up time. I have a hard time seeing a grown man not wanting to support his son -- let alone taking him to the game himself on Sat.

    Dad is being a dick because he doesn't want to lose HIS parenting time with HIS child?

    Interesting.

    Even though the child has OTHER games every night after school?

    Where are you reading that Mom offered makeup time?



    The daughter cannot decide whether she wants to visit or not. Get her into counseling, talk to the dad about her feelings, and remember it is your duty to help the kids facilitate a relationship with the other parent (meaning... make sure they keep visiting). It is a sucky situation, but teenagers feelings are all over the place. While she is on a anti-visit kick now, six months from now she might want to live with dad...lol

    Facilitating the relationships entails MUCH more than simply "making sure they keep visiting".

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Aug 2010
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    3

    Default Re: Visitation and Conflict with School Activities

    Yes, I think Dad is being a dick. I would like to say that I'm not trying to be argumentative but when do the feelings of the kids come into play? Our son has played soccer since the second grade and his dad has never attended one of his games. Not a single game. Why should our son have have to give up something that means so much to him? He tried out for the team and earned his spot. He's said that he wants to be there for his team. He's worked hard to get to where he is. I'm not scheduling the games, that is a school thing. It's not a rec team that he can goof off and not worry about being kicked off the team. I offered to bring our son there after the games but dad wasn't interested. That doesn't speak to him wanting HIS time. There for a while, he had the kids every weekend. When the visitation was being hashed out, I offered him Wednesday nights, too, but he didn't want them. I have always told both of them that I will not keep them away from their father. I have sat down and talked with both of the kids and I've tried to talk with him about how they feel but the conversation always evolve into how no one cares about how he feels and that the kids are wrong.

    About the problems with he and his girlfriend. The last blow-up occurred on June 5, when I got a phone call from our son at 10:30 on a Saturday night when they were at his house. He asked me to come and get them because dad and the girlfriend were fighting and dad was in the background yelling for him to tell me that they weren't fighting. My son told him that he wasn't going to lie to me. I told them I'd be there and 20 minutes later, I was. When I pulled up in front of his house, all of his girlfriend's furniture and clothes were sitting in the front yard and the kids were moving her stuff out of the house. The week prior to the blow-up, she had purposely cut in front of him with her car while he was pulling a boat behind his truck AND her boys were in the truck with him. The week following this, dad talked trash about the girlfriend and expected the kids to agree with him. This isn't the first time he's done that. Before the week was up, they were back together and he expected the kids to forget about it like nothing had happened. She has thrown candles at his head, called him a MFer and dared him to hit her. He's thrown her out, she's left and come back during the night, sleeping in the carport. Social Services has been involved, also, because the girlfriend's sixteen year old daughter threw a book at the ex and he grabbed her by the arms, pinning her up against the wall. Several weeks ago, he slapped her. My kids witnessed those exchanges, too. Is this what any parent would want their children to witness?

    In 2008, there was a situation where my daughter came home with bruises on her backside from where he had hit her with a belt because he got mad at her for mentioning his prior girlfriend. I contacted Social Services, they spoke with me and my daughter, then they told me that because the marks were confined to her backside, it showed that he was in control and hadn't been trying to actually hurt her. They told me that if he actually hurt her, then I could call them. He DID hurt her. It hurt for her to sit down!

    Again, I'm sorry if I have come across as hateful, that wasn't my intention, but it doesn't seem right to me that this allowed to go on yet I am the bad guy because I don't forec them to go.

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