OD does not want to go back.....now what?

[DeepInTheHeart]

Hi all,

I'm CP of two. X filed for custody in April. Got his hands on some money and having too much time and not enough sense he decided to invest it in making my life h&ll.
Prior to the end of the school year I offered him the entire summer with the kids. He only sees them about every 3-4 months...his choice as he gets 1, 3, and 5th weekends each month plus the usual holidays. He just doesn't use any of it. Anyway, I offered and he turned it down saying he didn't have the time to spend with them and didn't have child care.
We get to court for emerg. temp. custody hearing. He doesn't get ETC and is PO'd and has no bones about letting the newly appointed GAL know about it. So, all of a sudden he up and demands to have the kids for June (Hearing was end of May). I up and arrange it in all of about 5 minutes flat- GAL tells me "I'm impressed!"
So the kids have been with him for a month (first time he's spent more than a week with them since the divorce two years ago).
Now, my mom holds a family camp for all the kids in the family and my kids attend this camp every year. So, Mon, the kids fly back to me so that I can take them to camp. Mind you, this camp is almost exactly halfway between X and I. Does he take responsibility for getting them to camp? No. His solution is to fly them back to me and let me do it. I say nothing.
The kids get off the plane and OD launches into a semi-hysteric tirade and flat out states "F****d if I'm going back!". Now, I have an issue with the use of the "F" word and OD knows this so it clicks to me REAL fast that she is trying to make a point. I tell her to watch her language and tell me what she's talking about. This is what I get:

SM sleeps until about 10am. The kids are left to get their own breakfast. OK, no big problem. They are a month shy of 12 and 13...they don't have to be spoon fed and are somewhat self-sufficient. The problem is that the only breakfast food or close to breakfast food they have are donuts and brownies....so the kids have been eating donuts and brownies for breakfast for a month. OK, not optimal but it's not going to kill them. Then they tell me that X and SM rarely cook and have cooked dinner a grand total of two times in the past month...the rest of the time they eat out or order in...fast food. OK, problem. Substandard breakfast plus a constant diet of fast food- NOT cool and NOT adequate. And yes, we are talking McDonalds, B'King, Wendy's, Pizza Hut- not Black Eyed Pea or the Mason Jar where you can get a meal that is fairly decent from a nutritional standpoint. Lunch is Top Ramen and/or sandwiches. All of this adds up to some pretty poor nutrition and OD struggles with her weight as it is.
Next is that SM gets up and makes the kids a long list of chores to do. According to the kids they do 3-4 hours of chores a day. A bit excessive in my book but it's not going to kill them. SM then gets on the internet and stays on the computer all day. She is essentially just a "warm body" present to cover the adult supervision function. The kids tell me that she ignores them all day except to check up on their progress on the chores and yell at them for not doing them well enough. So the kids finish the chores and want to go outside. SM will not let them go down to the neighborhood park, three houses down, by themselves and she never wants to take them. She tells the kids that they can play in the back yard. OK, nothing to do in the back yard so the kids spend the remainder of the day, until they go to bed, parked in front of the TV either watching TV or playing video games. X comes home and veg's in front of the TV until he goes to bed and tells the kids that he's too tired to do anything (like play a board game or even have a conversation with them) because he's worked all day (8 hours).
OD says that she and her sister are being treated like maids and that she is tired of being cooped up in the house all day. She then starts yelling about how X makes her stay in the same room as him anytime she's on the telephone- with him listening to her side of the conversation- and that X and SM read all of her e-mail and that SM has taken the liberty of answering some of OD's e-mail for her and was outright rude to OD's friends. She has no privacy. X and SM have her (and her sister- YD) so clamped down and terrorized with these Gestapo privacy invasions that she was afraid to tell me what was going on and that she wanted to come home two weeks ago.
The final straw was SM screaming at OD in the airport for leaning on a window ledge. SM, according to both kids, started screaming at OD for "not knowing how to behave in public", causing bystanders to stop and stare, and then made OD sit on the floor at her feet, telling OD loudly that if she was going to act like an untrained dog then she could sit on the floor at SM's feet like a dog.

So, end result is that OD does not want to go back to X and SM's house. She's telling me that she will run away if I make her go back (they are supposed to go back from mid-July until the first week in August) and is threatening to make a "colossal scene" at the airport to keep from having to get on the plane.
I, myself, have serious concerns about the almost complete lack of adequate and proper nutrition in the house coupled with the utter and total lack of any meaningful physical activity/exercise. OD has gained 20 pounds in the month she has been up there- 19.7 but close enough.
I also have serious concerns with the fact that while there are adults present, in the vast majority the kids receive almost NO interaction from them and the little interaction they *do* have is X and SM completely invading their privacy (including going through their belongings, diaries, address books, journals, etc.) and controlling their every interaction with ANYONE other than X and SM. X gloated to me that he was installing a program that would capture and log all of the kids e-mails.

The bottom line problem is this: OD is 12 years old- 13 next month. She's not a small child and when she gets mad and decides on a course of action......I don't know that I can FORCE her to get on the plane. Even if I can, there is a very REAL possibility that she WILL run away. I have family in that area and she has their telephone numbers, and knowing OD like I do...she says what she means and means what she says....so I can definately see her doing it. She's not a bad kid, does well in school, is trustworthy...but when she gets riled up she will push back.

Any advice or ideas?

Deep

[smtotwo]

Call the GAL immediately and if you have to bring DD's back to speak to GAL I'd do that TODAY also.

At worst he'll file contempt against you, and as most of the NCP's here will tell you a contempt against the custodial parent  is a mere slap on the wrist if that.

[DeepInTheHeart]

One of the issues that X brought up in court was that the children have not been to a dentist since the divorce in 2002.

His GF's (now wife's) mom works in a dentist office. For TWO YEARS X has been promising to take the kids to his, now, MIL's employer as he can receive a discount. When some time had passed and he had not done so I told him I was going to take them to a dentist in my area (we're 250 miles apart). X then stated that he would not pay ANY portion of a dental bill from any dentist but MIL's employer. His reasoning was that it violated the intent of the "In network providers" clause as that clause requires the parties to use network providers for the most cost effective care. Any party going out of network, except in extraordinary circumstances, has to pay 100% of all costs of doing so. As he receives a discount from his MIL's employer he feels that qualifys it as "most cost effective provider".

So for TWO years I have waited for him to take them to the dentist. I took them up to his area while I was at a dog show in the area. He had unlimited access to them for an entire week- didn't take them to the dentist. Now they have just gotten back from spending an entire month with him and he STILL has not taken them to the dentist as promised.

I've made an appointment for them to see a dentist next week. He's had his chance and he blew it. I gave him the chance to do the right thing and he failed to do it. I e-mailed the GAL and let her know this too. It was something that could be done in the most cost effective way by his method, I wanted to give him the opportunity to participate in their care and needs, he's in the middle of a custody case and screaming his head off about the kids not going to the dentist- yet he doesn't have the sense that God gave concrete to get off his butt and do what he's been saying for two years that he was going to do. Since we're tangled up in court ANYWAY I figure if he doesn't pay his portion I won't have to go out of my way to ask the court to make him pay it. I can promise you right now that if they have a bunch of cavities, I'm going to ask the court to make him pay the whole d*mned bill.

To give you some background so that you understand a bit better why his self-rightious, holier than thou, yarking about their dental care TRUELY pisses me off:

1) During our ENTIRE marriage, he provided health insurance for the kids a grand total of ONE MONTH- while the kids were with my mom and sister during our honeymoon (we had the kids first and then got married) and that was only because I refused to go, leaving my kids with family, unless they had insurance in case something happened. We got back and he cancelled the insurance on them.

2) During our ENTIRE marriage, he had health insurance available through his employer which he could cover the kids on. He REFUSED to- saying we couldn't afford it. Yet we could afford a brand new 17" SVGA color monitor to the tune of $780 when his old monitor went out? Imagine that.

3) During our ENTIRE marriage, I was the ONLY parent to provide health insurance coverage for the children. Except for that brief 2 month period in #1, I am the ONLY parent to provide them with health insurance coverage during their entire lives.....until the divorce was finalized.

4) During our ENTIRE marriage, the kids never ONCE went to the dentist. The kids were born in 91 and 92, we divorced in 2002- you do the math. He refused to provide me with the funds to take them and after paying for the health insurance and the other bills that we decided I would cover, I had NO money left. I was working in retail for $6.50/hr, he was working in an industrial trade at $12.50/hr with overtime....and refused to contribute one dime to taking the kids to the dentist.

5) The ONE time the kids have been to the dentist, it was after we separated, was on MY insurance that I provided for the kids and his Mom took them so that I didn't have to miss work. He was, according to the temp orders, supposed to pay all out of pocket and co-pays. His Mom ended up paying them for him.

So he has never spent ONE D*MN DIME on their dental care himself.

His hands are so dirty on this issue that it isn't even funny but, yet, he sits there with his holier than thou attitude trying to make ME out to be the A$$**le.

I'm with you on your previous post. I have some time and I am the one who is supposed to take the kids to the airport to send them back to his house.....but at this point I do NOT see that happening. The only reason they were going back was because I was being nice and offering him ADDITIONAL time- by the parenting plan, I have the kids in July so I am well within my rights to NOT send them back- although I am not B*tch enough to screw up X's plans to take them to Disney the first week in August. It's pre-paid, a lot of money has been invested and the kids want to go and have been looking forward to it for several months. I'm just not going to send them up before that to be ignored, fed a piss poor diet and locked up in a house with no physical activity or exercise.

I'm having them speak to the GAL next week. I want to let them have fun at camp and not have to worry about any of this crap for at least a week.

Deep

[Kitty C.]

A red flag just went up for me................

With your ex's history of promising, but not delivering, do you have PROOF that he's planning this trip to Disney?  Cuz if it were me, I wouldn't even consider it for a minute unless I saw original, unrefundable tickets for each child.

As for the time in July, from what you state is in the parenting plan/CO, you would NOT be in contempt if you didn't put them on that plane.

But I would HIGHLY question that Disney trip, what with the previous broken promises and the contention already present with the current court proceedings.  The kids may be really looking forward to it, but can you imagine how they will feel when they get to him and he drops the bomb that Disney is off (probably never existed in the first place, just a ploy to get you to send them back)??  It's a given that your oldest WILL split, and no doubt drag the youngest with her!

[DeepInTheHeart]

The trip to Disney pre-exists his filing for custody and his sudden demand for summer visitation. It is something that has been planned for close to a year and was paid for last fall.

I'm not worried about the legitimacy of the Disney trip and think that they might all just have fun. I want them to spend time with their dad and I don't expect them to spend themselves stupid entertaining the kids on a daily basis BUT when you KNOW that the children don't know anybody in your area (as far as playmates) then you should know that you are going to have to make an extra effort to get the children out of the house for physical activity and that going to the neighborhood park is a good way for them to meet kids in the neighborhood that they can play with and form friendships with. It doesn't cost anything except some minimal effort and time on your part and pays off big. Instead, dad and SM can't even do that and won't let the kids go themselves. They keep them confined to the house, laying around watching TV and playing video games while dad and SM pretty much ignore them.

At least at Disney they'll be doing SOMETHING and there's a lot of walking involved. The kids won't be cooped up turning into tube heads and they will be getting at least some minimal exercise.

Deep