Flying unaccompanied

[ocean]

Giggle is right, you wont get a reduction for summer weeks. That is calculated in the amount already..
A lot of information on this site and how the court system works...(a lot of time the courts do not use "common sense" and what is it your papers now is very hard to change...)
You may be able to get some credit for airfare but you already dealt with this in court....

Also, mom can spend the money how she feels fit..NO state requires accountability of how the money is spent but as a CP, my girls get things but if I go get my hair done doesnt mean I used their child support money...The mother is allowed to go on with her life too, just like your DH. I am sure mom is paying for school lunches, school trips, clothes, housing, utilities and your DH needs to help with those bills since he is their father. The courts will tell you , you need to keep paying the child support because mom's bills do not go away when child is with you...she still has to pay rent/mortagae and bills to keep the house for the child...

[MixedBag]

Giggles gives a perfect example....and that very thing happened to me when my OD was 2 1/2 to 3....(though I didn't think I caused it).  Going to a real day care with tons of kids was new to her and so she pitched a fit, hung on to me for dear life....and around the corner they had a window that wasn't too big and up higher like from mid waist and up and I could see that she was just fine about the 30 seconds it took me to walk around and take a peek.

SO OD pitched her fit, I unclung her every morning, and could see she was just fine.

[Giggles]

Mix...what I meant is that we had many parents that wouldn't "un-cling" therfore making the situation worse.  Once we showed them that the children actually chill out once they are gone...they tend to "un-cling" a bit more.

[Momfortwo]

Next year we will be putting in the paperwork to get child support stopped for the time she is with us during the summer and possibly during other visitation periods. Her mother gets enough support while their daughter is with us in the summer to pay for the flights with her flying round trip to be with her, but she doesn't want to use the money for it. She just uses that money for herself so now she's not going to have it. There is no reason for her to get child support when the child is not with her for 2 months or more.

Not gonna happen.  You may, as long as you aren't the one who created the distance, get a credit for the extra transportation costs due to the distance. 

When child support is calculated, especially in income share states where parenting time is taken into consideration, it is done for the whole year and then spread out over the whole year, in states that takes parenting time into consideration, the time that the child spends with the NCP is already factored in.  In states where parenting time isn't taken into consideration, it won't matter. 

What you could ask for is that the child support be spread out over the time that the child is with the CP, which means that the NCP pays more child support when the child is with the CP and none when with the NCP.  But the yearly amount remains the same. 

[jgaff78]

ocean, the mom does not use the money for things for my stepdaughter. Every time she comes for visitation, her hair is hanging down in her face and she is in desperate need of a haircut. At the same time, mom's nails are professionally airbrushed. We buy her school clothes, get her hair cut, etc. We are also the ones to send down extra money for school events (like the Christmas shop last year). And in our state, expenses such as utilities and rent are considered duplicate expenses and are not factored into child support. Both parents must maintain a home for the child so the custodial parent does not receive extra money for those expenses.

As far as getting the support changed. As long as we go back into court and take documentation showing that we are the ones providing school clothes, hair cuts, etc. on top of being responsible for the majority of transportation costs and still paying the child support in full on time every time, the court will rule in our favor again. Mom made a bad impression on the judge up here last time she was in court with us. She threw a hissy fit when we filed the paperwork to get the visitation schedule altered and swore up and down she was not going to let "her daughter" come up here more and that she was going to nail us for the costs of her trip to come up for the court hearing. When we got into the court room she agreed with what the judge suggested (essentially the exact same thing we had asked her for) and when the judge asked if either party had any other concerns, she said no. Then when the judge said court was adjourned, she stood up, slammed her paperwork around on the desk, started muttering about how she had to waste money and take days off work and everything, spun on her heel and stormed out the door. The entire time she was doing this, the judge and his court reporter just sat there and stared at her, completely in disbelief. She made the mistake of showing her true colors and since we live in such a small community, that impression will be remembered.

Also, the clingy thing my stepdaughter does is a direct result of her mother's influence. Her mom babies her constantly. She doesn't remind her not to talk like a baby and mom even does the baby-talk thing herself quite often. She still lets her sleep in her bed with her quite often. She does not support her or encourage her to act her age. She seems to enjoy having her "little girl" and doesn't want to see her grow up. Even one of mom's sisters said she thinks mom wants her to be a baby forever. So that is why we are having issues with her flying on her own. She has been babied and is not able to self-regulate her behavior. She is overly emotional and gets scared easily. We even got a call from her first grade teacher last year informing us that she would cry in class fairly often and would not explain what the problem was. Her kindergarten teacher wanted to hold her back because she felt she was not emotionally mature enough to handle first grade. She gets upset and flustered when things don't go according to plan. I have worked very hard to get her to calm down and to understand that so many of the things that upset her are not worth crying over and that crying will not make it better. I've tried to get her to realize that things will improve a lot more if she opens her mouth and says what is bothering her instead of simply crying about it until somebody figures out what the problem is. She "freaks out" very easily and panics when she doesn't understand something or it requires her to act on her own. She is simply not mature enough to do this on her own yet and mom made her that way. We have been trying to make mom understand that she can't suddenly decide she is mature enough to handle this simply because it is convenient for her. This is a child that cannot be forced into something. When given the opportunity to sink or swim, she will sink. She needs to approach new situations slowly and learn things in baby-steps, she can't just jump in. We have learned this through trial and error and until mom is willing to work throughout the rest of the year to encourage independence, this child will not become mature enough to handle this situation this soon. And for any of you that may still think that we cause this behavior by our actions, everyone who knows my stepdaughter and has seen her with both parents has told us that she is a completely different child when she is with us. They say she is more outgoing, better behaved, and happier. I wouldn't necessarily have believed that if I hadn't seen her change her behavior around her mother with my own eyes. She immediately begins acting 2-3 years younger the minute her mother is in site because that is how she gets attention from her. It makes mom happy to see her "baby" and so she plays right into it.

[Giggles]

As long as we go back into court and take documentation showing that we are the ones providing school clothes, hair cuts, etc. on top of being responsible for the majority of transportation costs and still paying the child support in full on time every time, the court will rule in our favor again.

Sure you could take that to court but it really wont do much good.  The court will view your additional spending as "gifts".  You may have some relief on transportation.

You need to be very careful how you present your case as well. If you go off and attack the BM, the court could very well view you as being hostile and only interested in "punishing" the BM...instead of what is in the best interest of the child.

The BM does not have to account for what she spends the CS on...I know that sucks, but there really isn't much that can be done about it.  Only if you could prove severe neglect will you get any kind of change.

My DH and I go through the same thing with his son.  This time SS came in with under ware so small they wouldn't even fit my DS!!  SS is 16 and my DS is 12!!  So both my DH and I took him shopping...we could care less about the money...we just want to be sure SS has what he needs!!

Many of us have been on this site for years (I've been here over 10 years) we do know what it is we are talking about.

[Kitty C.]

How a CP uses CS has been a big bone of contention on this site since inception of this site, along with all the other major issues that brought us all here in the first place.  Unfortunately, the courts do not require the CP to justify where that money is spent.  Like Giggles, we've had our own issues with this in the past as well, with BM sending SS in second-hand clothes from the SKIN out, including underwear.  When DH found out about it, he pitched a fit with BM, telling her that if she can't budget her money any better so that she can afford the basics, which DH contributes to with CS, then he would file for modification.  She also sent SS in clothing inappropriate for the climate....quilted sweats in the summer and thin t-shirts in the winter.  But when we picked up SS on Xmas the first year we were together, he was dressed to the nines (his socks even matched his outfit!) because she didn't know if we would be going to MY family or HIS family for Xmas. 

But now that you've given more info on how BM interacts with your SD, it puts the whole thing in a different light for me.  If you do go to court, I would strongly recommend that a psych eval. be done on SD, with both parents participating, so that the evaluator can see how the child interacts with either parent and separately.  Depending on whom you talk to and what their qualifications are, what the BM is doing to her could very well be considered mental  and emotional abuse.  And yes, DHS does act on those cases because I've dealt with it firsthand.   Have you ever spoken to anyone at her school about any concerns they have regarding her emotional maturity?  I would also investigate that as well.  Having a 3rd party objective opinion on the situation adds strength to your case.

And having said that, I believe that your SD would probably do quite well if you were to put her on a plane, because it is obvious that you would be able to prepare her properly...but it is also obvious that BM would NOT and it would be severely traumatic to SD.

[MixedBag]

Giggles -- I completely agree with what you said -- though in my situation when I took my girls to the babysitter and they did the clinging thing, I didn't feel "I" was contributing -- however in the poster's case, I understand how the child's BM is contributing.

Having that window where I could see OD calmed down helped me see that it was an act she was putting on.

I sincerely hope this family who has come here for help has a successful experience if they have to send the child back as an unaccompanied minor.  It's scary for all parties the first time -- but it works and it's safe.

jgaff78 -- Think of the child being treated like "certified mail" where someone has to show ID, and sign for them along every step of the way.

As for your other concerns like child support -- I too am on the side of that ain't gonna work.