laws on housing for children

[scottm]

i am trying to find a place to stay with my girlfriend and her 2 daughters and my son. i am wondering if we have a 2 bedroom apartment and give the 2 girls one room, and my son the other, then we just make our room out of the living room area if that would be ok with the courts?  i am going through a custody fight with my sons mom and i want to make sure i do everything correctly. It is really hard to find something with 3 bedrooms that we can afford in our area. we live in indiana also.
thanks

[ocean]

Usually all they need is a bed each and once they get a little older, they prefer boys/girls separate rooms.
Do all the kids live with you full-time? If your son visits every other weekend, you can get a daybed or pull out couch for him for the few nights a month you have him in the living room so you have the bedroom. Get a little drawer or buckets under the bed or closet so he has an area to put his own things/toys.

[scottm]

well we have not been through the custody stuff yet, so we are kinda doing week on week off, but im trying to be optomistic and planning for him to live with me. So what i do now is i have a futon for him in the living room and a small dressor with his toy box all next to it, its like he has his own little area there, the girls who are with there mom full time so they live with us they have there own room. Girls ages are 2 and 3, my son is 6. My girlfriend and i will sacrifice the extra bedroom for him and we will take the living room if that will work? But i wonder if i would be best getting a 3 bedroom place somewhere??
thanks for your response

[ocean]

First doing the week on and week off is GREAT! I would focus on keeping that It is hard to take away custody from mothers but half and half it good as long as you are both in same school district or close enough to drive to and from school.

If you are going to get him half time/full time then eventually he will need his own room. Once you get custody down it will be hard to move out of the school district so if you plan a move, maybe do it now if you can. I think what you have set up now is fine and probably better than you going into court saying that you are sleeping with GF on couch.

When you look at different places, look and see if you can covert a dining room into a bedroom, or split a big bedroom. Harder when you rent to make changes but some landlords will let you do what you want. I have seen garages turned into a room too with a window/door. Keep looking and you can say you are looking for a bigger place in the school district but he has his own bed/space in this house too.

[scottm]

thank you for your input, the week on week off thing is from what our lawyers came to an agreement with until the court date, but she doesnt want that she is wanting to fight for full custody. So i just want to be ready for anything thrown my way, and be prepared just incase i was to get him or whatever would help to get him.

[Kitty C.]

Delay, delay delay...........

The longer you have 50/50, the harder it will be for her to prove to the court that her having sole custody is necessary.  Talk to your atty. about it......

[ocean]

Good idea Kitty...if you push it off until school starts and can show he does well at school on your weeks (attendance, homework done, passes spelling tests on your weeks) then it will be hard to say it should change. She probably wants sole or "normal" visits so she can get more child support. Each side can put off a court date at least once.

[Davy]

" So i just want to be ready for anything thrown my way, and be prepared just incase i was to get him or whatever would help to get him. "

You may or may not get away with manipulating the bed/space situation ... depending on the practices in a particular juricdiction/venue or the opinion of any social investigation that could vary from case to case.

More importantly, the judicial standards in some jurisdictions may give rise to a morals clause in a court order stating something like "no member of the opposite sex over night in the presence of children".   In this matter it appears 2 X's that could choose to complain.

Bottom line is that there are many issues that may have an  impact on your son's  custodial arrangment.   It is best to focus on your child(ren) in all ways.

[scottm]

my son is definitely my main focus, and my priority, everything else can wait. i want to do everything the correct way, i try to read all the parenting stuff i can and get other opinions on decisions just to see if i am making the correct ones. i try to research everything when giving him information on questions he has because i never want to feed him with false/incorrect answers. i try to do whatever i can, we do homework everynight i have him, all through the summer and now that he is back into school. so im thinking it might be best for me to move back into my moms house so he has his own room and i can sleep on the couch. i just wanted to be able to prove i could take care of him on my own. we do 50/50 visitation as of now, but she still trys to control that. i just hope the court date comes soon so she cant make the rules as we go. 2 weeks ago i was supposed to pick him up, i went to get him he was screaming in there house her mom was holding him in the room so he couldnt get to me, my X said you cant have him, she didnt have a good reason to why well the police came it was a big ordeal, i did nothing to get in trouble i just left. well she told one of her friends the next day she did it because i had my girlfriend with me when i dropped him off, and she thought that wasnt right. so once again she just uses him to hurt me.  its it is the worst pain!

[ocean]

Is there a court date soon? Call the court or look online and see if you have a court date.

Take your police report and have your lawyer call hers...and see what the deal is for her not releasing child to you and causing him to witness all of that. Sometimes her lawyer may tell her to behave so it looks good in court....

Have you seen child since then?