I think my child's depressed.

[BeachBum22]

Good Afternoon Soc,

I live in MA, ex and child now live in NH.

My ex has legal and physical custody. I have supervised visitation, which I cannot afford to exercise at this time.

I call my child frequently to maintain our relationship. In the few months following my ex's move, I have noticed a change in our child's personality.

I have listened to some previous phone recordings I made of my child and I and the difference in her character is astounding. I feel there may be some serious issues here.

Before the move, our child was a vibrant chatterbox. Now, my child is sullen, barely speaks and gives short answers. She also claims she has no friends.

Part of the problem with my child is my ex monitors the calls. She stays by our child the whole time, I have heard her tell our child what to say and what not to say, and my ex has even gone so far as to listen in on the other line.

 

Questions:

1. Should I consider asking the court for an order to allow my child speak to me on the phone alone, without being monitored?

2. Since I don't have legal custody and I live 2hrs away, what can I do to find out if my child is having problems?



Thank you.

[socrateaser]

>Questions:
>
>1. Should I consider asking the court for an order to allow my
>child speak to me on the phone alone, without being
>monitored?

If you have supervised visitation, this suggests that there is a reason why the other parent is monitoring your calls. So, you can ask the court, but you'll probably be denied, unless you demonstrate that you should have unsupervised visitation.

>2. Since I don't have legal custody and I live 2hrs away, what
>can I do to find out if my child is having problems?

Start driving the two hours and exercising your visitation. Then you will be able to state from personal knowledge that you have seen a problem. Also, if you are exercising the visitation regularly, you will have a better case to get unsupervised.

If you're not able to do that, then for all practical purposes, your not part of your child's life, so the court won't listen to you, unless there is some objective manifestation of distress in the child, that you could report to child support services or that for example, school authorities would notice.

I'm not seeing any objective facts to support the child's distress other than your statements that you think there's a problem. That's just not good enough evidence.