Pick up time

[johnw]

Dear Soc,
              to make a long story short, for approx 2 1/2 years I did 100% of drop off and pick up, which was fine with me, of my 2 kids, ages 7 and 10. Since January, my ex started dropping the kids off to me on Fridays at her request, as she was often coming this way anyway. Several weeks ago she took me back to court for more child support. Since court there have been 3 weekends that the kids were to be with me. It was established drop off was at 6pm Fri, as it always had been. She has dropped them 2 Fri's at 6:30pm, and tonight she committed my daughter to a sleep over birthday party at a friends without my consent, and had my son call me at 6pm to say he had to be somewhere at 7pm and mom would take him. It was already 6pm and she couldn't get him to me in enough time for me to get him to his event.

My questions are:
How do I enforce her dropping the kids to me as set, at 6pm?
How do I keep her from committing my kids to party's, etc, on my time without my consent?
Depending on your thoughts on the 1st question, how do I go about going back to me picking them up at 6pm?

[socrateaser]

>How do I enforce her dropping the kids to me as set, at 6pm?
>How do I keep her from committing my kids to party's, etc, on
>my time without my consent?
>Depending on your thoughts on the 1st question, how do I go
>about going back to me picking them up at 6pm?

Court orders are not optional. They are ORDERS. Unless your order gives you as parents authority to alter the orders by agreement as necessary, then either of your personal waiver of anything contained in the order is technically contempt of court, regardless of whether the waiver is in your favor or adverse to your interests.

So,  send a certified letter to the other parent stating the applicable text of the order and where you believe that you can prove that she is violating it, and then tell her that unless she immediately confirms with you that she intends to continue to adhere to the orders going forward, that you will immediately file a motion for contempt.

The purpose here is two fold: (1) you want her to get mad and respond in writing with an inadvertant admission that she has violated the order, because then you will have everything you need for the contempt signed sealed and delivered. People frequently use these opportunities to explain their rationale for their actions without realizing that by explaning why they did what they did, they are admitting to the contempt.

(2) You want evidence that the other parent is on notice that you know she is playing games with you. The judge will recognize that this is really all about money and control, and not about the kids, and mom will get her butt spanked in court.

Make sure that the letter you write shows you as a "sad and lonely" dad that just trying to get access to his child. You want to let the other party know what they're doing wrong and why, but you don't want to seem like a control freak. Remember, the court may read whatever you write, and you want to look like the white knight, not the dragon.