Need Advise Please

[jakerr]

I have temp custody of my daughter until our court date  in november. I was told to give the mother reasonable visitation in which I have since the begining. She asked me if she could keep her a little longer this time since it was the mothers birthday. I agreeed. When I went to drop her off after putting the child in the car seat. she got in and said that she was leaving the state for the time that she had her rolled up her window and left. It was my understand that the visits were to be here in this town until court.  She has been definate of everything. I have read my papers and it only states to give her reasonable visitation.


What is my next move?

[snowrose]

If the child is with her now, there's not much you can do.  I sincerely hope that she brings the child back as there are a lot of folks on here who have gone through the non-custodial parent taking the child away and not bringing them back.

If she does bring the child back, maybe you could put a requirement in the paperwork that you must be given X days notice for travel outside the state and that you must be given a valid address and telephone number where your ex can be reached.

If she doesn't bring the child back then file paperwork immediately to get the child back.  Most states have a residential requirement of 6 months to a year and you want to have your papers going through well before your ex meets residential requirements somewhere else.

[Davy]

IMHO, you should not wait to discover when this child will be returned home.  When the court order specifies "reasonable" it means what would be consider normal among rational thinking people.  To me, "Reasonable" is just not the number of days but is inclusive of pertinant info. involving the child.  We are all parents that love the child. 

If a parent has a demeanor of being defiant or unreasonable then you may CONSIDER asking for a welfare check on the child and asking authorities to demand to know when the child will be returned.  That is the least bit reasonable of course since you will need to be home to receive the child.  You should be perpared to file a missing child report if the child can not be located or immediately making a trip to retrieve the child (with custody order in hand) if there is any more indications the child is at risk of not returning home.  This would all be considered reasonable among  rational men and women especially those that have had a child missng. 

State and Federal statues dealing with custodial interference, custody orders, missing children, etc  do not consider residency.

[mdegol]

Wait and see.

Personally, I don't think that COs stop people from doing things that are illegal. I mean, if you are going to kidnap a child, you are going to do it whether there is piece of paper or not. What you need to evaluate is: does she have ties to the state, job, home ect... Does she usually abide by laws? As far as requiring notification when she takes child out of state, I also wanted that for my CO. However, my lawyer talked me out of it. One thing is: Do you want to know it just to know it (a control issue) or for some legitimate reason? My lawyer made an excellent point. One is that if you require notification for her, then likely notification will be required by you too. I live in Mass, so a short one hour drive in any direction takes me into a new state. It would stink to have to call bf and tell him that we are going to dinner in Rhode Island. I have "let it go". He is free to do as he pleases during his parenting time without me knowing his every move and I am free during my parenting time without having to tell him my every move. Just as long as the other one shows up with child at the predetermined agreed upon location at the predetermined agreed upon time.

If she is going to kidnap a child, she isn't going to give you a valid address anyway. As long as you can contact her via cell phone for emergency, almost doesn't matter where she is. And I think her mentioning it shows that she isn't going to take off, since she likely would have stayed silent to get a good head start. Try not to worry. Of course, all of this is assuming she is a (relatively) reasonable human being. If not, you prob can't do much unless she commits the illegal act anyway. Good news is: if she pulls that, she will end up in jail and likely NEVER have unsupervised visitation with the child again.

[ocean]

When was the child supposed to be home?  When did you verbally allow her to take child until? After that, go file a police report since you are the custodial parent at this time. They may not do to much until you make a stink but at least you will have a report for court. If it goes days/weeks, then you demand the child be returned through local police.
Do you know where child is out of state? family?
Next might be for an emergency hearing to return child....Does she have lawyer?

[MrCustodyCoach]

Update?  Did she return the child?

[jakerr]

Yes but believe me she was not happy.

[MrCustodyCoach]

Keep your cool and stay focused.

[snowrose]

Definitely keep cool.  It's to your advantage to be the parent who has self-control and who is resilient.  But if I were you I'd still put a requirement in the paperwork that you must be given X days notice for travel outside the state and that you must be given a valid address and telephone number where your ex can be reached.

I agree that if the person is open to doing things illegally that they'll do so no matter what the paperwork says, but having paperwork that shows what is acceptable and is not acceptable is to your advantage should you ever need to go to court again.