Enforcement of Visitation letter

[kittencaboodle]

This is rather an odd circumstance.  I am helping my husband enforce his rights with his kids.  He thought by letting the queen bee do whatever she wanted he was making it easier on the kids.  After one denial of visitation on his oldest daughter's birthday he now feels differently and wants to enforce all the rights he let go by in the first place.

As such he is finally enforcing his midweek visitation schedule.  This will be a first.  However, his ex is a nurse and has odd hours.  That means the kids get up early and go to bed before 8 pm.  He has the legal right to keep them out until 9, at which point they would be crabby and unhappy for school the next day.  

So, we want to adjust the schedule a little bit.  I need thoughts on this letter.  
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As per the Indiana Parenting Guidelines I am writing you to notify you that it is my intention to exercise court ordered visitation, as outlined in the Guidelines, Chapter 3, Section 2, Sub-Section B, Page 17.
"One (1) evening per week, preferably in mid-week, for a period of up to four hours but the child shall be returned no later than 9:00 p.m."

However, I am aware that your schedule with the children requires them to wake up at 5 in the morning.  I am also aware that YSD, SSa and SSb's routine bedtime is before 8 PM.  I would be unable to pick up the children until after 5 pm and would therefore keep them out past the routine bedtime.  Since I have no desire to disrupt their lives, I have come up with an alternative schedule.  

I propose that instead of one night, we separate the 4 hour period into two nights.  The schedule would then be: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm
 
Should these dates and times present a problem for you, respond via U.S. Mail by May 29, 2004 with alternate dates and/or times so that I may have sufficient time to adjust my schedule accordingly to the alternate dates and/or times or offer another alternative. If I receive no response to the contrary, I will assume these dates and times to be acceptable to you and will begin exercising this visitation on Tuesday, June 8, 2004.

 I hope this letter brings to a close any further discussions of "your time" vs. "my time".  This is actually the children's time and any selfishness on our part deprives them of their right to spend time with both actively involved parents.  Please keep that in mind.  

I look forward to seeing (kids).

[Kimberly9]

I am glad that he is going to begin enforcing parenting time with his children.  Good luck!

First my questions:
 does he not have summer parenting time?  Will that affect the weekday visits?

Does he have eow regular time with the kids.  I might add a line that says, "in addition to my Friday to Sunday time with the children"  somewhere in the letter.

Does bedtime matter in the summer while the children are not in school?  Maybe now it would be best to stick to the letter of the order and have them from 5:30-9:00 one night a week.  Then when school starts you could discuss options that would be better for the kids.

Another option, can you make the weeknight visit an overnight visit and drop them off at school the next morning.  Then they could go to bed when they needed to at your house.

I have just a few suggested changes on the letter -- mostly to take emotion out.  Plus, I changed "visitation" to "parenting time"


As per the Indiana Parenting Guidelines I am writing you to notify you that it is my intention to exercise court ordered parenting time, as outlined in the Guidelines, Chapter 3, Section 2, Sub-Section B, Page 17.
"One (1) evening per week, preferably in mid-week, for a period of up to four hours but the child shall be returned no later than 9:00 p.m."

Because YSD, SSa and SSb's routine bedtime is before 8 PM and because I would be unable to pick up the children until after 5 PM, I would not be able to excercise a full 4 hour period without keeping them  past their routine bedtime.

To avoid disrupting their lives, I propose the following alternative schedule:
The 4 hour period will be seperated into two nights. The schedule would then be: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM

Should these dates and times present a problem for you, respond via U.S. Mail by May 29, 2004 with alternate dates and/or times so that I may have sufficient time to adjust my schedule accordingly to the alternate dates and/or times or offer another alternative. If I receive no response to the contrary, I will assume these dates and times to be acceptable to you and will begin exercising this parenting time on Tuesday, June 8, 2004.

I look forward to seeing (kids).

[kittencaboodle]

>First my questions:
> does he not have summer parenting time?  Will that affect the
>weekday visits?
>

He is supposed to.  Unfortunately, he was supposed to have the dates in by April first.  I bugged him about doing that, but, as I told him, this is not  my job.  These are not my children.  I can only legally go so far.  Anyhow, to make a long story short, he didn't submit parenting plans for the summer.  :-P  Part of it is my fault.  We got married mid-march and everything up till then had been wedding focused.  

We're doing this pro-se because his lawyer was full of it and charging us $400 a pop to do absolutely nothing.  We weren't going to pay him this last time until we saw a draft of what we had asked him to draw up.  He wasn't even going to do a draft until we paid him $400 so I told my husband to forget it, I'll do it myself.  And I have.  :-D  I have a whole SERIES of letters we have sent to her.  We're keeping her informed and creating a paper trail to cover our buts.  

>Does he have eow regular time with the kids.  I might add a
>line that says, "in addition to my Friday to Sunday time with
>the children"  somewhere in the letter.
>

Yes he does, and I will see where I can figure that in.  Thanks.  

>Does bedtime matter in the summer while the children are not
>in school?  Maybe now it would be best to stick to the letter
>of the order and have them from 5:30-9:00 one night a week.
>Then when school starts you could discuss options that would
>be better for the kids.
>

It does, because she is a nurse.  Her work schedule makes it so that she takes the children to daycare at 5 in the morning.  Plus, she never lets them stay up late.  :-P

>Another option, can you make the weeknight visit an overnight
>visit and drop them off at school the next morning.  Then they
>could go to bed when they needed to at your house.
>

She would never go for that.  She is very big on following the guidelines, or at least the parts that suit her.  And she's very big on keeping DH locked into "his time".  

>I have just a few suggested changes on the letter -- mostly to
>take emotion out.  Plus, I changed "visitation" to "parenting
>time"
>
>

I noted the change to parenting time and have included that in my letter.

[nosonew]

to the suggestion that they stay overnight one night per week and YOU or DH take them to school, perferably DH.  I am a nurse also, I work 5a-6p, and although I get my kids up early, THEY DO NOT stay up! LOL They go right back to sleep until it is time to get up!  BUT, unless they are aged 12 or older, 9pm is too late, they should be in bed by 8-8:30 if in Jr. High, 8pm in gradeschool.  

How can she argue the overnight thing if her work schedule is that?  And it is called "parenting time" now.  

[kittencaboodle]

>How can she argue the overnight thing if her work schedule is
>that?  And it is called "parenting time" now.  
>

Because to her it's more about screwing her ex than what's good for the kids.  Ugh.