Visitation Enforcement Help

[LeahToTheExtreme]

I am a StepMom asking for advice on behalf of my husband. My husband has joint custody with his ex-wife of their two children. His visitation schedule is from Friday to Monday every other weekend and on opposing weeks Friday to Saturday. Along with alternating holiday times and sharing school breaks. For the most part he is able to pick them up from school but he is insales and on some Fridays he is unable to pick them up. I am home withour other children and am able to pick them up but his ex wife has gonedown to the school and notified them to not release the kids to me. Nowit is my understanding that from the end of school on Friday they arein his care and he should be able to decide to designate someone elseto pick them up on those fridays only? She also has told the school not to allow him to add anyone to the emergency cards, she also told the school she would rather not provide them with a copy of current court docs and even signed a form saying as much.  My husband went down to the school and talked with the principal and he was very rude and said that he did not want to get involved, that he had been doing this for a long time and would follow Mom's wishes. And although my husband did state that they have joint custody the principal was very flipant about it and ushered him out of his office. We were advised to write a letter to Mom explaining that she needs to refrain from interferring with his parental rights and to also write a letter to the school saying as much and include a copy of current court docs.

Both Mom and Dad have discussed this particular issue. On someoccasions she has agreed to have me pick up the kids and then changesher mind when she is upset about something. She gives "her"permission for me to go to the school to pick up and then changes hermind. I have picked them up half a dozen times this school year. Lastnight it was a go, then she got upset because she wanted some clothesthe kids wore back (the kids have a set of clothes at Dad's and clothesat Mom's so no bags go back and forth) so she got in a tizzy about theclothes and decided that I couldn't pick up then 15 minutes beforeschool let out I was given the green light. She won't agree to add meor any of Dad's family members to the emergency card but has her own onit.

The reason for wanting to pick up from school in actuality is tominimize contact as much as possible. As much as everyone's tried toget along it just doesn't happen and ideally picking up and droppingoff on neutral ground by 3rd parties is best. So the back and forth onpermission to pick up is on ridiculous matters. So my question was tofind out if Dad has any rights to say I want this person to pick up onmy day to cut the control strings on this issue.  There is no first right of refusal and the only other provision is "whenever feasible, both parents agree that when child-care is needed, the other parent will be considered as the care-provider of choice for the chrildren for periods of time exceeding 8 hours."

Can anyone give me some examples or some input on what to write in these letters?

I also was wondering if there are any guidelines on Mom calling during Dad's visitation. She calls anywhere from 2 to half a dozen times a day? It becomes very irritating for everyone including the kids. She is grilling them about what they are doing and on one occasion my step daughter was supposed to have a sleep over with her cousin at her Grandparent's house, but Mom decided she didn't want her to go and made my step daughter promise she wouldn't go even though Daddy said it was alright (btw, my step daughter is only 5 and as you can imagine this was very confusing).

Thanks for any Help!

[gemini3]

Regarding the school issue, depending on what state you are in there are laws regarding access to school records.

We had the same issue with the picking up thing.  We got around it by filing a copy of the custody agreement with the school and the school board, along with a letter we got from this site, and my husband also gave me power of attorney.  The next time I went to the school and they tried to say I could pick them up I told them there was a PoA on file and they had to give the kids to me.  They were pissed, but it worked.  I haven't had any issues since.

Before you do that though, I would read up on what the laws in your state are regarding such things.  There are also some examples of letters you can write on this site.  Go to the home page and teype "school" in the search field.

Regarding the phone calls - this is beyond excessive.  Has he tried talking to her about setting up a standard time to call?  Say, between 7-730P?  This could help, if she agrees to it. 

If she won't agree - just because she calls doesn't mean you have to answer every time.  As long as you let her talk to the kids once a day while they are with you she can't do anything about you not letting her talk to them the other 10 times.  I recommend keeping a log of how many times she is calling - the date, the time, and who she got to talk to (when she does).  That way, if she tries to take your husband to court over it he will be able to tell the judge that she's harassing you guys, and that he let's her talk to the kids once every day they are with you.

[LeahToTheExtreme]

How did you go about the Power of Attorney? Any suggestions on where to get the form?

[Kitty C.]

A lot of this will be based upon what is in the custody order.  If both Mom and Dad have joint legal, then he has every right to have access to all information at school, including what information he wants about his family on any emergency contact info.  She has no say-so over that if there's joint legal.  Give a copy of the order to the school.  If they still give him the run-around, tell them you will be talking to the school atty. and/or the superintendent.  Usually that will make them back off, but if they don't then follow through.

If his parenting time starts at a specific time, like exactly when school is out, then the BM cannot interfere with what he does with the kids on his time (unless they are being abused, of course).  If there is nothing in the CO that states only the parents can pick up/drop off kids, then if he wants you to pick them up, that is his right.  Then if she denies allowing the kids to come with you, that is a contempt for interference with visitation.

Go back through the CO with a fine tooth comb.  If there are specifics in there, dates, times, who's allowed to do what when, then you will have to follow it to the T.  But if it is NOT mentioned in there, then she cannot make the rules on it.  Rule #1 in court orders:  if it ain't in there, it doesn't exist.  Tell her if she has a problem with it, she will have to file a petition with the court to get it changed.  Thing is, the courts won't even consider it, since if you already have a custody order, they will not seriously consider a modification unless there is a 'significant change of circumstance' regarding the child.  And allowing you to do pick up's and putting his information and p/u designee on the school emergency info do not qualify.

Also check the order very carefully on how comunication is supposed to be handled.  Sometimes there will be a clause stating CP is allowed 1 call per day while child is with NCP, or something similar.  If there is no mention of anything like this in the order, then IGNORE the calls after the first one.  If she continues, then file a report with local law enforcement for harrassment.  Do not play her game.

[MixedBag]

I wanna reinforce what Kitty said about being prepared to follow through.

When you say you're gonna do something, whether it be to the other parent, to a doctor, or to a school official, you better follow it through.

[LeahToTheExtreme]

Thank you both for the feedback. I have gone over the CO front to back and back to front. It actually does not have any times for drop off pick up stated. In fact it is very vague.....

" Weekday and Weekend Schedule:  The children will be in the care of the Father as follows: every Friday and every other weekend from Friday until Monday.  The children will be in the care of the Mother as follows: at all other times."

My husband just recently went back to court and this including changes on Holiday and school breaks is the schedule they agreed upon in mediation. There is NO mention of him specifically picking up and dropping off. In his original parenting plan the only other statement pertaining to this slightly is "whenever feasible, both parents agree that when child-care is needed, the other parent will be considered as the care provider of choice for the child(ren) for periods of time exceeding 8 hours". But other than that nothing else.

With that said, I actually followed your advice along with advice given to me by attorney's on another web-site who are actually the ones who also directed me here. It was suggested to write a letter to Mom assuming that she was acting this way in ignorance not understanding that she was in fact violating Dad's parental rights. And to also write a letter to the school attaching copies of the CO. So my husband sent Mom a letter asking her to please refrain from hindering his visitation and to stop violating his parental writes. We also wrote a letter to the school, which actually included verbage I found on this site, and included copies of the CO along with a copy of our Power of Attorney. The school was extremely responsive and in fact pulled out the emergency cards and added me on immediately and assured us that they would be notifying the teachers that I am able to pick up regardless of what Mom says (she has been emailing directly to the teachers by-passing protocol with the office telling them not to release the children to me unless she gives her express permission). The loop-hole in this though is that Mom seems to have a lot of sympathy from the Principal and he is in fact the one that denied my Husband originally from adding me or anyone else the the cards including his own parents and he was not in on Friday when we dropped this package off. So we spoke with office staff that seemed very knowledgeable about the documents we dropped off (as we went over the documentation with them right then) and completely understood the inappropriateness of the situation.

Mom also received her letter in the mail and quickly responded with an email. Her response wasn't as good however, she said that she was fine with 3rd party pick up but she would be the one to designate who the third party would be for my Husband (obviously she still doesn't get it). She also said that she was going to petition the courts to give them parenting classes together because she feels that they are off track and they need to spend time together parenting to get away from the others that are influencing him because his children and her should be the priority in his life (YES she actually wrote that! And YES I would be the "others"!) Apparently the child we have together should not be a priority and me as his wife does not count (sorry....emotional outburst).  At the point when that email was read (last night) she has no idea that my name is on the emergency card nor does she know that the school will allow me to pick up now without her permission. She is claiming that her reason for not being comfortable with me picking up (she still calls me his girlfriend, refusing to acknowledge that we are married) is because she says that he went out of town and I came to pick them up without her knowing he wasn't in town and she doesn't see any value to the kids having a visit without their Father there because they only come to see him. We actually are a pretty big family....6 kids including these 2. And they refer to each other as brothers and sisters. The incident she is referring to actually went more like this. I arrived at her home (she had just moved back from Lake Havasu as she just left husband #2 quite abruptly and moved in with her parents at the beginning of summer) and got out of the car when she came out, the kids ran to my car to go see their sister and while they were saying their hello's I told her that James actually had to leave out of town as the new job he started abruptly required him to leave. I said that I would love to have the children and I was willing to continue their schedule regardless of whether he was in town or not. That since she was trying to start nursing school I understood how important it would be to have a consistent schedule that she could rely on and the consistency would be good for the kids as well. She agreed that they could stay with me, thanked me and we drove off to go to a movie. An hour later I had her screaming at me on the phone that we had tricked her. After 45 minutes of getting yelled at she calmed down and said the kids could stay (and no I don't know why I stayed on the phone and allowed her to yell at me, I should have hung up) but then she proceeded to call non-stop for the rest of the day and the next day asking the kids do you want to stay there? Are you sure you don't want to come home? over and over again, until I finally did just that and took them home and have since retracted my offer. She also said that she felt it was rude and inconsiderate on my Husband's part to not speak with her about taking this job as she felt it would take away from him being with his kids and she would have advised against it but he took it because I manipulated him into it.

I am hoping that things are now rectified with the school. Do you think we should wait and see if the school continues to support my Husbands rights or should we notify the school board of this and possibly file a complaint against the Principal himself? When my husband spoke with him months ago, even though he tried to tell him that he has joint custody the Principal said it didn't matter, that he was staying out of it, he would leave things as is with Mom only having people on the card she ok'd....he had been doing this for a long time so he knows more that my Husband. My Husband was so shocked by that he was rendered speechless. I actually spoke with the man a week ago and when I pointed out that they had joint custody and that it wasn't right that she had people on the cards and he wasn't allowed to add anyone the Principal ushered me out with the statement that things stay the way they are. We don't want to be vengeful but at the same time shouldn't he be held accountable for his behavior since he is in a position of authority?


The CO also states "Each parent may have unrestricted telephone contact with the children during the children's normal waking hours." Does that mean she call excessively?

[Kitty C.]

Re:  the phone calls.........after the first one or two of the day, let it go to voice mail or answering machine and make sure you have caller ID.  If it continues to piss her off, you may get some 'important' information recorded in her own voice that you could possibly use later in court.  If she continues, file a report with local law enforcement for harrassment.  If you have to go that far, make sure that this issue comes up in any future court proceedings regarding custody, so that the court will implement restrictions on how often she can call and when.

As for the school, it sounds like it's not cut and dried yet.  The principle can still maintain his original stance, but if he does, inform him 'politely' that this IS a legal matter and that if he fails to comply with a court order, you will be forced to go to the superintendent and/or school district atty. to get it enforced.  School districts ARE required to follow the letter of any custody order that directly pertains to them.  It's no different than if a parent was NOT allowed to pick up a child via CO, but the school allowed them anyway, and then something happened to that child.  The school would end up liable for it because they failed to comply with the CO. 

Thank God you happened to go there at a time the principle wasn't present and found understanding school personnel willing to adher to the order.  And now that they have a copy of the CO in file, they don't have an excuse that they (meaning the principle) didn't know what it entails.

And as for the BM, I think she does 'get it'.....she just doesn't want to give up control.  Problem is, in many custody cases too many CP's are given way too much control, when it should be equally shared by both parents.  She will continue to try to dictate what your DH and you can and cannot do with 'her kids'.  Don't capitulate to her.......and you are right, you should have hung up on her a whole lot sooner during that one call!  Stand your ground with her and with the school, follow through, and know what your rights are....and if she ever says that she has the right to do something that is NOT in the CO, tell her the only way she can have authority to do that is if the court gives her that authority, so she will have to go back to court and ask for it.  And unless it is a 'significant change of circumstance' that is having a direct effect on the children, she won't have a chance to get it enforced.

[LeahToTheExtreme]

Thank you. This has been  a work in progress to slowly cut control ties. And it will take a long time if ever. I know from personal experience because I have been divorced for 9 years with 3 boys from my previous marriage and it hasn't been until last six months that we actually can converse like normal people.....it just takes time. Because eventually your kids aren't little anymore and they grow up and I don't know any adults who don't know exactly what their parents are about.

I appreciate your input. It makes the calls/texts/emails easier to deal with for my husband and myself because we now feel empowered because we are informed.