I have a question about custody and visitation, for anyone who has personal or professional experience dealing with the system (I have none). I'm not going to read anything more into what we know other than what has been factually stated, that mom and dad shared custody since their 2007 divorce and on Sept 21st of this year she was awarded sole custody. Dylan's first visit to dad since this custody change was last weekend when he flew to visit dad on Sun 11/18.
In these cases in general, where one parent has sole custody (mom) and the other has limited court ordered visits (dad) are there guidelines and conditions the parents and court come together to agree to? Does this happen sometimes, always depending on the reasons for the parent's seperation and the split custody? I'm thinking about things like ... if a parent only gets their child one weekend each month and they work that weekend, therefore planning to put the child in daycare - would the courts disapprove of this and encourage the parent to be present with their child? Do they normally work out conditions, say - mom has concerns about the child being home alone and dad doesn't share that concern .. so they mediate that in court and agree that the child cannot be left home alone.
I'm just curious about all of this, as I fugure no matter how amicable the divorce may have been, any "good" divorce would be properly work out in court the best interest of the child (I hope). If anyone has insight, TIA.
Hello!
In answer to your question - I believe that is how it is "supposed" to work, yes. Now as to *if it works like that in all cases, as much as I'd like to say yes for the childrens sake, I'm thinking that because there are so many parties involved, it may not always be so.
Depends on if everyone is on the same page, and genuinely cares about the welfare of the children, I am guessing.
Now as far as my experience, we had a somewhat unusual joint custody agreement proposed (by our 7 year old (at the time, now adult) son); which involved him staying at each parents home for 3 months at a time with alternating weekends. A plan he thought would work because we only lived 3 miles away from each other.
After the judge and lawyers stopped laughing and we started actually talking about it and "tweaking" the proposal (adding alternating Wednesdays etc., ) we decided to give it a trial run, but before doing so, one of the very issues you brought up was a major concern of mine. I worked at home and so was home before and after my child came home from school. My ex at the time worked nights and would be home in the morning to get our son off to school but left for work 2 hours before school let out and would not be home when our child got home from school.
Also, this particular shift often required a lot of overtime which meant my sons father may not be home for hours after his normal time. My ex was not worried about this, he admitted he did not have a "set babysitting plan" wanted to fly by the seat of his pants, etc. The school district did not have an an "after school program", there was were no daycares in the area who picked children up from school and as my ex worked for a very large company and I knew he could easily switch shifts to ensure he was home for our son, I stood my ground and would not sign anything until he did just that - switched work shifts - and the court backed me up on it. Looking back, I can see that maybe I was being too over-protective; I'd lost his older brother to illness less than a year before; but I was not going to sign anything unless I was sure - my son had seen too much instability, he needed stability and routine and again - the court did back me up on this.
Just my experience - I hope it helps some! (Oh btw - my 7 yr olds proposal? Worked like a charm - and he's the most amazing grown up now!)
