Father is Epileptic

[rockfairy416]

The father of my child is epileptic and typically has one grand maul seizure per month. He is also facing court charge of first degree assault and possibly 9 years jail time. He is threatening to take me to court for joint custody arrangements. I have already agreed that they should have a relationship and have been willing to arrange for him to see him as often as he'd like, but I do not want our child alone with him because of the risk of seizures. What are his chances of being awarded joint custody with this medical condition?

[Waylon]

If you had one grand mal seizure a month, would you consider that to be a good enough reason not to allow you to be alone with your child? If your answer is "no", why not?

FWIW, the judge is not likely to see your medical reason as justification for denying him joint custody. Why shouldn't he have it, since you've already said that you're willing to have him see the child as often as he wants? What if he asked for 50% of the time?

His first degree assault problems are another story, but I'll be honest- I think you'd rather control his access to the child than promote a solid relationship between them.

The father of my child is epileptic and typically has one grand maul seizure per month. He is also facing court charge of first degree assault and possibly 9 years jail time. He is threatening to take me to court for joint custody arrangements. I have already agreed that they should have a relationship and have been willing to arrange for him to see him as often as he'd like, but I do not want our child alone with him because of the risk of seizures. What are his chances of being awarded joint custody with this medical condition?

[rockfairy416]

Thanks for the advice, but the seizures are enough that he can't get a drivers license so if he can't drive for the risk of seizures, how should he be allowed to care for a 2 month old child?
I said I want him to see him, but with another adult around in case he would have a seizure.

[Waylon]

Thanks for the advice, but the seizures are enough that he can't get a drivers license so if he can't drive for the risk of seizures, how should he be allowed to care for a 2 month old child?

He's probably not the first parent to have a condition that causes seizures, and yet others with similar conditions raise children too. How do they do it?

I said I want him to see him, but with another adult around in case he would have a seizure.

I don't think you have the right to set conditions like this, unless you can predict with complete certainty that he's going to have a seizure while he's with the child and that it would result in harm to the child. Not maybe, but positively.

Again, I don't think a judge will award sole custody to you based on this. It's not reasonable. Your suggestion that you want another person around is also not reasonable- who gets to set the rules who this other person can be? Could it be his girlfriend? A neighbor, a friend, or....? Would they have to have some sort of training or experience, medical knowledge, etc etc? You're getting into an area where you're setting yourself up to make a lot of restrictive rules and control him in ways that are unreasonable.

I'll ask you again: If you had one grand mal seizure a month, would you consider that to be a good enough reason not to allow you to be alone with your child? If your answer is "no", why not?

[snowrose]

As the child is only 2 months old, I can see your concern.  If the seizures are lengthy and require your EX to also spend time recovering it could be he would be unavailable to a baby for up to an hour.  This is most likely too long for such a young child.  Would you be willing to allow your EX to choose his companion adult, even if it was a girlfriend?  Would you be willing to remove the requirement for a companion adult after the child reaches a certain age - maybe 4 years old or so - when the child capable of learning to do things like call 911 on the phone if his father has an emergency?

[rockfairy416]

Yes that would make sense to me. Normally his seizures last about 4 min in which his body is convulsing and he goes unconscious. Afterwords he is not himself for a long time. he does not remember his first moments upon regaining consciousness and usually sleeps the rest of the day to recover.
I believe when our son is old enough to call for help and can function more on his own it would be logical for them to spend time without any supervision. The supervision I feel could be pretty much any adult (girlfriend included, although hopefully this would be a significant person and not someone that would be fleeting in my child's life), although his own parents or relatives would be preferred.

[Great Father1]

My wife has Ms and has siezuers as well unpredictable and very scary to witness , iam very scared to leave kids alone with her but what can I do.? I feel for you.