Florida Divorce * Child Custody * Domestic Violence Law Lawyer | Boca Raton

Ohio Husband and Wife have Children. Husband and Wife divorce.

Wife and Children move to another state. Wife withholds timesharing and visitation from Husband starting in late 2006.

In Fall of 2009, there is a trial regarding Wife’s alleged noncompliance with visitation and timesharing ordered in Husband and Wife’s divorce.

Husband prevails at trial, and Wife is ordered to allow Husband makeup timesharing and visitation.

But Husband’s victory is hollow. In the intervening months and years, Wife has successfully alienated Children from Husband.

Husband is bitter.

Husband suggests that a presumption of rotating equal timesharing between the parents and expedited enforcement proceedings would have prevented his plight.

But is Husband’s perception correct? Or did Husband himself miss opportunities to avoid or promptly remedy the situation?

Nothing is known of Husband’s specific case beyond what was published in the attributed letter below. Rather, the remarks below are based on a composite of countless Husbands (and Wives) who have had similar experiences.

Husband indicates that timesharing was first denied after Wife and Children relocated.

Huh? How is it that Children relocated? Did Wife’s relocation with Children comply with Ohio law?

Did Husband timely challenge it legally? Had he done so, successfully, that might have solved the problem before it started.

And whatever one’s opinion about rotating equal timesharing may be, it simply is not practicable long distance. So such a presumption would not have helped Husband here.

Wife’s first alleged violation was in 2006. Trial was late in 2009.

While justice in family court is, admittedly, not especially swift, by the same token, three years seems like an excessive delay.

Was there really a three year wait for a trial date? Or did Husband delay pursuing enforcement through the courts, instead waiting and hoping that things would somehow just improve on their own?

An astonishing number of parties wait an astonishingly long time before taking enforcement action through the courts. And then chafe when resolution isn’t instantaneous when they finally do take legal action.

Read more in this Cleveland Plain Dealer letter to the editor: Adopt laws to prevent parental alienation.

As children of divorce blossom into their teens, visitation and timesharing becomes more of a challenge for parent and child, especially if the parent lives a significant distance from the child.

Unlike younger children, teens have active, semi-independent lives filled with friends, school, extracurricular activities, other interests, etc.

It can be more difficult for parents to impose their will on their children – and the price of doing so may be too high.

In some cases, extended summertime visitation bears the brunt of sustaining and nurturing the parent-child relationship.

During extended summer timesharing, children should not engage excessively with the parent left behind. This is supposed to be the child’s time with their other parent.

Read more in this Atlanta Journal Constitution article: Summer fun helps kids, divorced parents strengthen bond.

Research studies sponsored by the Australian government raise troubling implications for rotating physical custody arrangements with roughly equal timesharing with children after divorce or separation.

In a nutshell, the studies conclude that young children are happier and do better developmentally living primarily with only one of their parents.

More specifically, babies up to two years old having overnights away from their primary caregiver tend to be more irritable, experience separation anxiety and cling to the parent who is their primary caregiver.

Toddlers from two to three years old having several overnights away from their primary caregiver also tend to experience separation anxiety, as well as more turmoil, eating disorders, aggression and difficulties maintaining concentration.

After three or four years of living with rotating physical custody with roughly equal timesharing, children tend to exhibit poorer attention spans and focus, and boys tend to suffer from clinical ADHD.

More generally, fixed rotating physical custody with roughly equal timesharing schedules, such as are spelled out in court orders, correlate with symptoms of depression and anxiety in young children and are disliked by the children – and their mothers.

The only ones who favor rotating physical custody arrangements with roughly equal timesharing are generally fathers.

The head researcher concludes that rotating physical custody with roughly equal timesharing adversely affects emotional and behavioral development in young children, and that having a primary residence benefits young children.

For children four years and older though, the children’s difficulties are attributed to parental conflict and detached parenting rather than rotating physical custody arrangements with roughly equal timesharing.

Read more in this Health Canal Health News article: Infants struggle in shared care while rigid, shared parenting puts school aged children at risk – new reports.

Ohio Father and Mother have Daughter.

Father and Mother divorce.

Father is awarded visitation and timesharing.

Father is behind in his child support payments.

Mother allegedly withholds timesharing since April.

Father, who has served time for nonpayment of child support, questions why child support orders are enforced with jail, but visitation orders aren’t enforced at all.

More likely, the parents trying to enforce timesharing orders are not going about it the proper way to obtain results under the law. Generally, that will be a contempt proceeding initiated by a motion for contempt.

Under Florida law, timesharing is separate and independent of payment of child support.

Read more in this Cleveland Plain Dealer article: Child visitation rights go unenforced, fathers complain.

Another Florida teacher in the news…

Southwest Florida Husband and Wife have two young children together, two and four years old. The four year old has autism.

Husband and Wife are going through a divorce.

Wife is a special education instructor in an elementary school.

Wife undergoes a psychological evaluation. And is ordered to complete an anger management course and parenting classes.

A truck driver finds the older child wandering the streets, dressed in pajamas.

The Department of Children & Families (DCF) removes both children from Wife’s care.

Wife is arrested for child neglect, a felony.

Wife is suspended from teaching children and assigned to an administrative position.

The trial judge temporarily denies Wife any contact with their four year old, but allows a short weekly unsupervised visitation with their two year old.

Inappropriate and provocative images, allegedly of Wife, are posted on the internet on websites apparently owned by Wife.

Images of the couples’ children, unclothed, are also posted on the internet.

Husband contends that Wife posted the images. Wife denies the charge.

There is no solid proof that Wife posted the images. That would require a computer expert.

Husband’s attorney argues that merely posing for the images, even if she hasn’t posted them, calls Wife’s parental fitness into question.

Trial judge orders that all such images be removed from the internet.

Trial judge orders that Wife undergo a psychosexual evaluation regarding Wife’s sexual propensities.

New images are posted on the internet.

DCF approves Husband as a fit parent.

Husband obtains a domestic violence restraining order against Wife.

Father moves to northeastern Florida, with the former couple’s children, now in his care.

Wife follows.

Wife violates the order of protection by showing up at Husband’s workplace. She denies knowledge.

Trial judge considers that Wife may require more social services, pending her psychosexual evaluation.

Read more in this Marco [Island, FL] Eagle article: Judge orders psychosexual evaluation of former teacher charged with posting naked photos of her children on Web.

Mother and Father have a 9 year old Son.

Mother and Son live in New York.

Father lives in Arizona.

Mother agrees to twice a year visitation between Son and Father, and the New York Family Court so orders.

Mother changes her mind. Mother refuses to send Son for his timesharing with Father.

Father is serving a twenty-seven year sentence in an Arizona prison for rape of three women.

The trial judge holds Mother in contempt of court, reportedly for missing several court appearances at which she would have had the opportunity to defend herself …

And the Court sentences Mother to fifty days in jail. Without providing for bail.

In fact, Mother spends eighteen days in solitary confinement, before the trial judge changes his mind and releases Mother into her attorney’s custody.

Read more in this Gothamist article: “Unusual” Case of Mom, Rapist Dad and Visitation Rights and this New York Daily News article: Judge frees mom jailed for keeping son from rapist dad.

Washington state Father and Mother have two Sons together. They broke up some time ago.

Father and ex-Girlfriend have a Daughter together. They have also broken up.

Father is a glassblower who also runs an organic farm.

Father has no criminal convictions and has never been accused of child abuse or domestic violence.

Father’s timesharing and visitation with all three of his children is restricted.

His timesharing with all three children is required to be supervised. And takes place only twice a month.

At a supervised visitation center. Sons are not legally permitted to enter Father’s house.

Why the requirement of supervision?

Father uses and grows marijuana for medical purposes, in compliance with Washington state law.

Under Washington law, medical marijuana patients “shall not be penalized in any manner or denied any right or privilege”.

Still, family court judges routinely consider state-sanctioned medical marijuana use in making child custody rulings and visitation and timesharing rulings.

Such rulings arguably are not exercises of the court’s power to punish or disciminatory against medical marijuana patients.

They are arguably exercises of the family court’s sound discretion in carrying out their charge to rule in the best interests of the children who are the subjects of the divorce and child custody cases they preside over.

The other parent of the children arguably has an interest in insulating their children from illegal drugs and illegal drug use (under federal law).

And in their children not being left in the care of a parent whose judgment is or may be impaired.

Courts in other states that permit medical marijuana use, such as Colorado, have ruled similarly to the Washington court presiding over Father’s case regarding his Sons.

Read more in this Associated Press article: Medical Pot Can Cost Parents In Custody Disputes and this San Francisco NBC TV news article: Medical Marijuana Weighing on Child Custody Disputes.

You have to think twice about having a child with someone from Japan. Even if you’re from Japan.

If the parents break up, one gets sole custody of their children and the other gets … absolutely nothing. No custody. No visitation. No contact.

Ever. As though that parent had died.

Unless the custodial parent chooses to allow it.

Who gets custody in Japan?

If one of the parents is not Japanese, the Japanese parent almost always is the one to win custody.

Regardless of what any prior foreign custody determinations may have been.

Making Japan the ideal place for a Japanese parent living abroad to flee with their children.

Other nations have been increasingly vocal in insisting that Japan enter the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.

As well as many Japanese family lawyers and parents.

But that would be only the first step necessary to protect the parental rights of foreigners.

Japan’s archaic domestic family law would have to change dramatically as well.

Read more in this Inter Press Service article: Left-Behind Parents Want End to Single Child Custody System and this Conducive Chronicle article: Left Behind Parents.

Grandparents adore their grandchildren. And children often adore their grandparents.

But sometimes their parents or, their surviving parent, doesn’t.

And so it is that sometimes grandparents are denied contact with their grandchildren by one or both of their parents.

Prior to 2000, grandparents had various rights to visit with their grandchildren.

Often they were set out in expansive statutes … many still on the books.

But those rights were all but eliminated in a US Supreme Court decision that year that ultimately rocked the grandparents of the nation.

Today, grandparents’ rights are in truth a misnomer.

But in some states there are still certain situations where grandparents may be awarded custody of grandchildren or, to a lesser extent, visitation.

The most common reason though is temporary or more lasting unfitness (due to abandonment, abuse or neglect) of the parent or parents.

But grandparents haven’t given up. They are tirelessly lobbying to bring back grandparents’ rights to visitation under wider circumstances.

Read more in this Chillicothe [OH] Gazette article: Grandparent visitation rights can be a battle in Ohio.

After divorce, different approaches to parenting can create great conflict between parents.

Sometimes one parent is stricter and has more household rules.

And the other parent is more permissive, laidback and/or trusting than the other. And if that parent travels for business, that parent may leave teenaged children and their friends unsupervised, even overnight.

These parenting disputes can encourage children to manipulate one or both parents and spur them to exercise their rights, real or imagined, over which parent they spend time with.

They can also lead to wild parties and other incidents that result in property damage, risky and inappropriate behavior, and even injuries.

Ideally, parents will work together to provide children with consistency – and safety.

But things don’t always go that well in the post-divorce universe. Sometimes these disputes push parents back into court and into working with various professional coparenting facilitators.

Read more in this Wall Street Journal post: Joint Custody of Teens Plus Business Travel Can Equal Trouble

Virginia Father and Mother have sixteen month old Baby.

Father and Mother are no longer together.

Father is determined to see Baby right now.

Father and Mother argue about it on phone.

Father comes to Mother’s home.

Father aggressively enters Mother’s home.

Father sprays pepper spray into face of older man there.

Mother is affected by the pepper spray too.

Father takes Baby and leaves the home with him.

Police arrest Father and charge him with breaking and entering with intent to commit a felony, child endangerment, child abuse, assault and battery, and domestic assault and battery.

Police return Baby, uninjured, to Mother.

It is unknown whether Father had court-ordered timesharing. And, if he did, how this incident will affect it.

Read more in this Fredericksburg, VA Free Lance-Star article: Man charged in pepper spray incident.

In the Bronx, young single fathers (16 -24) who want to bone up on their parenting skills can participate in the Bronx Fatherhood Program.

The program runs the gamut from teaching dads how to properly feed and bathe their children to teaching them how to interact with their kids’ mothers, so they aren’t denied access.

Most students probably didn’t have good family role models growing up.

Despite this, one alumnus of the program spends several hours every day after work with his toddler daughter.

For him, every day is Father’s Day. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that, according to recent studies, dads are now struggling as much as moms with juggling family responsibilities and work.

This is attributed to a combination of the lengthening work day and dads shouldering more domestic responsibilities.

Read more in this New York Times article: For a Young Parent, Lessons in Fatherhood and this New York Times article: Now, Dad Feels as Stressed as Mom.

Tomorrow is Father’s Day.

And many, many children don’t live with their fathers.

The typical timesharing schedule allows fathers to have their children on Father’s Day.

But that’s one day out of the year.

What about the rest of the year?

Some of the dads who don’t live with their children are divorced. But many were never married to their mothers, maybe only saw them briefly.

As between ex-husbands and boyfriends, studies show that, in general, divorced fathers tend to be more involved as fathers than ex-boyfriends.

Regardless, more fathers who don’t live with their children tend to spend time, and more time, with their children today than in decades past.

Studies tend to show that children have higher self-esteem, are less likely to be delinquent and less likely to suffer from depression when their fathers are actively engaged in their lives.

Newr technologies, ranging from cell phones to web-cameras, make it easier for fathers to stay in touch and involved.

But dads who don’t see their kids much, tend not to use these other means of contact either.

Still, when all is said and done, the degree of contact fathers have with their children reportedly usually correlates strongly with with the character of the relationship between the parents and their ability to co-parent.

So, will your child be timesharing with dad on Father’s Day?

Read more in this USA Today article: Dads who don’t live with their kids find ways to be involved.

From Northwestern Florida:

Mother and Father live separately. Their twelve year old Daughter lives with Mother most of the time.

Daughter and Father are in the middle of an argument on the phone over Father exercising timesharing.

Father arrives at Daughter’s home to exercise his timesharing. Daughter locks herself in a bathroom, to avoid timesharing with Father.

Father gains access to bathroom. Father picks Daughter up to remove her from the bathroom against her will.

Daughter begins to punch, kick and bite Father, drawing blood.

Daughter is arrested on battery charges.

Is something wrong with this picture?

Read more in this disturbing Northwestern Florida Daily News article: 12-year-old punches, kicks father.

Florida Mother and Father have four year old Son.

Mother and Father are divorcing without lawyers.

Just another uncontested divorce.

Mother moves to Utah.

Father alleges in court papers that Mother is unstable and abandoned Son.

But couple agree on a timesharing schedule where Son lives with Father during the school year and with Mother during summers.

Son arrives for summer timesharing with Mother within days of Mother and Father’s divorce being finalized.

Mother’s Boyfriend allegedly beats Son for days as Boyfriend’s wedding to Mother approaches.

Mother and Boyfriend reportedly lock Son in a bedroom and head off to their wedding.

Son dies on Sunday.

Boyfriend allegedly bashes Son’s face and teeth in with a hammer to make identification of Son’s body more difficult.

Boyfriend reportedly wraps Son’s body in plastic and buries it in a canyon in Utah.

Mother is said to have reported Son as missing.

Mother and Boyfriend are arrested on suspicion of aggravated murder, desecration of a corpse, felony child abuse and obstruction of justice.

Boyfriend has a history of criminal convictions for criminal mischief, disorderly conduct and possession of drugs.

Read more in this Seattle Times article: Formal charges expected in death of Utah boy

Wisconsin Mother and Father are divorced for six years.

They have two children together.

Father is seeking a reduction in child support.

He is also seeking timesharing and visitation with his children, something he has neither had nor sought for six years.

The children have a guardian ad litem charged with looking out for them.

The children have trust funds for their benefit.

The funds were seized from Father, in satisfaction of a civil judgment in Mother’s favor.

Father was convicted of beating her nearly to death and then leaving her for dead.

Father is in prison for the attempted murder of Mother.

Father proposes that his parents bring the children to visit him there.

Father complains that he has no income in prison with which to pay child support.

But the seized monies are being applied to that purpose.

The state of Wisconsin advises the family court that it will prosecute additional charges of harassment against Father for pursuing timesharing and the reduction of his child support.

Read more in this Racine [WI] Journal Times article: His victims, his family: Man requests visitation, lower support payments for children whose mother he tried to kill.

New York may not recognize homosexual marriages or civil unions.

But New York’s highest court now recognizes a former homosexual partner’s standing to seek timesharing with a child born during the relationship.

New York surveyed the law developing in other states in carving out a narrow exception to the usual requirement of biological ties or legal adoption in order to assert custody or timesharing rights.

The legal standard to be applied will be whether it is in the child’s best interests.

New York’s Court of Appeals also now recognizes that a former homosexual partner may have an obligation to pay child support to the other parent of a child born during the relationship.

A court must determine that the paying spouse is a legal parent before it can order child support payments.

Read more in this [Boston] WBZ News Radio 1030 article: NY court backs lesbian’s right to seek visitation.

Mother or Father is being deployed.

Other parent acts to modify child custody and timesharing accordingly.

Members of the armed forces oppose modifications of visitation or custody due to military service.

Congressional representatives draw the issue to the secretary of defense’s attention in the belief that a consistent national legal position should be established.

The Pentagon’s official position has been not to have a position, however, recognizing that custody and timesharing rulings should be based on what is in the best interests of the child in each case.

Nonetheless, the defense secretary agrees to give the matter consideration.

One thing is certain. This issue has not been resolved over the last several years and is not going away.

Read more in this Army Times article: Gates will review deployment, custody issues.

A Florida Mother relegated to two hours of supervised visitation weekly after alleging that their Daughters’ Father sexually abused them is drawing a fair amount of media attention.

Prior to the divorce, Mother was a stay-at-home mother and primary caregiver for Daughters.

When Daughters were approximately seven and eight years old, their school and Sunday school both are said to have reported that Daughters were acting out, speaking and drawing in a sexually explicit way.

Wealthy Father allegedly admitted to engaging in sexually inappropriate behavior with Daughters, but an expert witness reportedly characterized that behavior as “within normal limits”.

The court appointed custody evaluator (Evaluator) reportedly initially recommended that Mother be awarded primary timesharing with Daughters.

Days before trial, the Evaluator reportedly filed her report – late – in which the Evaluator reportedly did an about-face and now recommended that Father be awarded sole custody of Daughters.

The trial court apparently did not find Mother’s case persuasive and awarded Father almost one hundred percent timesharing with Daughters, limiting Mother to two hours of weekly timesharing … supervised.

It appears that Mother’s evidence and witnesses were largely excluded.

Mother appealed the trial court’s rulings.

On appeal, the intermediate appellate court reversed on one ground, because Mother was denied a continuance based on the late filing of the Evaluator’s report.

The case was remanded for a new trial, before the same judge.

The outcome at the re-trial was the same.

Read more in this Daily Kos article by Mother: Mothers Lose Custody for Reporting Sex Abuse and this intermediate level Florida appellate court opinion and this MomLogic article: Custody Feud: Fair Hearing Denied.

Michigan Mother and Father are divorced. They have two Boys together, four and six years old.

Father picks Boys up from Mother for timesharing.

The question is: why?

Father puts Boys in the car and meets Father’s brother (Uncle) at a bowling alley with a bar.

Father then allegedly leaves Boys in the car while Father and Uncle bowl and drink … for about two days .. without feeding Boys.

When the Boys are discovered, locked in the car, sometime after midnight, Father is arrested for felony child abuse.

At that time, there are several beer cans in the car, not all empty.

Father reportedly has a criminal history of misdemeanors, including two alcohol-related crimes.

Mother plans to seek to restrict Father’s visitation rights.

Child welfare agency will investigate the incident as well.

Uncle is not charged. Legally, he has no duty to care for Boys.

April is Child Abuse Prevention Awareness month.

Read more in this Jackson [MI] Citizen Patriot article: Dad who left kids in car is arraigned.

In northern Florida, some parents have been traveling to Jacksonville, in another county, to exercise or to facilitate supervised visitation.

Because Nassau County does not currently have a supervised visitation center of its own.

The gas expenses and the travel time make exercising timesharing burdensome for parents of limited means.

As a result, much allowed timesharing is not actually exercised.

So local attorneys are trying to raise the $25,000 that, together with matching funds from the Jacksonville supervised timesharing facility, could fund a local visitation center.

Supervised timesharing might be court-ordered for any number of reasons, including history of:

• domestic abuse and/or child abuse

• substance abuse

• mental illness

• threats of child abduction

Read more in this Nassau County [FL] Record article: New location could link children to parents.

It took Son’s Mother’s death and six years of wrangling in Brazilian courts after Mother abducted Son, for Father to be able to see Son and to bring Son home to the US last December.

Grandparents were right there alongside Stepfather as he maneuvered for years to deny Father any contact with Son and to block Father from regaining custody of Son and returning Son to his native New Jersey.

Since Son’s return just several months ago, Grandparents have repeatedly sought access to Son. Now Grandparents are complaining that Father has denied them access to Son for … a whole month.

It is not clear what the legal basis for their position is, if any.

Father reportedly wants therapists to supervise any contact between Grandparents and Son, at least during Son’s adjustment period.

Not getting their way, Grandparents showed up in New Jersey and filed an emergency proceeding for visitation. The Court would not entertain the matter on an emergency basis, of course, but did set a future hearing.

Read more in this Associated Press article: New dispute over boy brought to NJ from Brazil and this AOL News article: Grandmother Fights for Visitation in Goldman Case.

Father and Mother have (now) 15 year old Son.

Father and Mother divorce.

Father is a lawyer.

Mother suffers from bipolar disorder.

In their paternity settlement agreement, Mother and Father agree that Mother’s timesharing with Son will be supervised by a specified psychologist (Psychologist), or any “doctor” he recommends. Their agreement becomes part of the final judgment.

Psychologist delegates supervising timesharing to his own Daughter, a seemingly less experienced and less qualified social worker pursuing a doctorate in psychology.

Mother reportedly brings two knives (an ornamental dagger and a twelve inch drywall knife) into Psychologist’s office when she arrives for timesharing with Son one day.

During timesharing, Mother allegedly stabs Son repeatedly, seriously wounding him.

Father sues Psychologist (and his business partner) for damages from Psychologist’s alleged negligence … and claimed improper billing of supervision at Psychologist’s rate rather than Daughter’s rate.

Psychologist defends that Mother has never been dangerous in Psychologist’s presence during the time that Psychologist did personally supervise Mother’s timesharing with Son.

Mother is charged with attempted murder and aggravated child abuse, but Mother is found incompetent to stand trial and is placed in an inpatient psychiatric facility.

Dedicated supervised visitation centers typically have strict formal security protocols, trained security personnel and security devices.

The choice of supervisor and the environment in which supervised visitation will take place should be appropriate to the person being supervised and the reason for the supervision.

Too often this is not appreciated by parties and, sometimes, their counsel.

Read more in this St. Petersburg Times article: Father sues over attack on son during supervised visitation.

Mother and Father have Baby.

Mother and Father split up when Baby is less than one year old.

Custody battle begins.

Father is awarded timesharing or visitation with Baby.

Mother allegedly absconds with Baby last December.

Mother reportedly tells Father that she killed Baby. Then recants.

And then says she gave Baby away to a couple.

Mother is arrested for child abuse, kidnapping, custodial interference and conspiracy to commit custodial interference.

Family court now awards custody of Baby to Father in the event that Baby turns up.

Mother now refuses to provide any information about Baby to Family court or Father, apparently due to criminal charges pending against her.

Father seeks to hold Mother in contempt. A hearing on the contempt allegation will take place later this month.

Read more in this Arizona Republic article: Father awarded custody of missing baby Gabriel

A bill has been introduced in the Tennessee legislature that mandates that children of divorce spend half of their time with each of their parents.

There is one exception: where there is “clear and convincing evidence” that one of the parents is “unfit”.

A tough standard to meet. Which may serve to tie judges’ hands in custody cases.

If the bill is passed, children will arbitrarily bounce from one parent’s home to the other’s, without regard to whether that is in any particular child’s best interests in any given case.

At least one legislator is looking to put the child’s best interests back into the legal standard under the bill.

Read more in this Nashville Tennessean editorial: Custody bill goes too far.

California Mother and Father appear before Family Court Judge to determine timesharing and visitation.

Mother begs Judge to protect nine month old Baby from Father.

Mother produces e-mails, allegedly from Father, recounting a father’s murder of his nine month old baby and his own suicide. The sender of the e-mails is identified only as “John Hancock” though.

Judge reacts by saying to Mother that “[m]y suspicion is that you’re lying“.

Only Mother isn’t lying.

Ten days later, Father and Baby are dead of gunshot wounds at Father’s hands.

Father allegedly put strange messages to Mother out on the internet in the days preceding his death, apparently seeking reconciliation.

Community in which Mother, Father and Baby live is angry over Judge’s ruling and behavior toward Mother. Voters picket Judge’s courtroom carrying “baby killer” signs.

Other candidates spring up to run against Judge in upcoming election.

Judge concludes that order of protection would not have stopped Father anyway.

But Judge apologizes for virtually calling Mother a “liar”.

Mother doesn’t want to see any other children hurt by Judge.

Read more in this San Jose Mercury News article: Judge faces election after unpopular decision.

Georgia has a mandatory parenting class for divorcing parents. Just as Florida does.

Still, despite the mandatory class, many divorcing and divorced parents find it difficult to co-parent together and to stay focused on their children, instead of each other.

An attorney who is also an educational psychologist has collaborated with a psychologist to create a new educational program called Co-Parenting Resolutions.

This program can be substituted for Georgia’s mandatory parenting class. In fact, some Georgia judges encourage the substitution.

The course developers claim that their course actually “shows parents how to get along for the sake of the children in matters of custody”. And the creators of the program favor parents taking the class together.

The entire program is eight hours, but only three hours are live and in-person. The rest are recorded on DVD.

One thing is certain: high conflict parents who can’t co-parent will almost certainly make their way back to court … over and over and over again, in many instances.

As described, this program is not suitable for cases where there is a history of domestic violence.

Read more in this Gainesville [GA] Times article: Class helps divorced parents work together for kids’ sake.

California lesbian couple have Twins.

Both partners are listed on Twins’ birth certificates and Twins’ have both partners’ names in their hyphenated surnames.

Shortly after Twins’ births, couple breaks up.

Biological Mother (Bio Mom) then takes up with sperm donor-Biogical Father (Bio Dad).

Lesbian couple had made no formal legal arrangements between themselves or, for that matter, with Bio Dad regarding Twins.

Bio Mom’s former lesbian partner (Other Mom) files paternity suit to get visitation with Twins.

California trial court orders shared legal custody of Twins between Bio Mom and Other Mom on a temporary basis.

Bio Mom, Other Mom and Bio Dad settle case, continuing same terms on permanent basis. Bio Dad’s rights, if any, are not known.

Bio Mom reportedly settled the case to avoid costly and drawn out litigation.

Read more in this Santa Cruz [CA] Sentinel article: Former Santa Cruz lesbian partners settle paternity suit.

Parental alienation.

Much has been written and said of it.

Yet neither the American Medical Association nor the American Psychological Association have recognized it.

Many courts have acknowledged it, however.

And confused it, at least in some cases, with trying to protect a child from a physically and/or psychologically abusive parent.

Resulting in some children being ordered into unsupervised timesharing and, in some cases, majority timesharing, with an abusing parent … to punish the so-called alienating (that is, protecting) parent.

In California, a legislator has sponsored a bill that, if passed, would deny the use of parental alienation in California’s family courts.

Is it better to err in favor of protecting an allegedly alienated parent’s “rights” or in favor of protecting a child from abuse?

Ultimately, that may be the real question on which use of parental alienation in court should turn.

Read more in this Capitol Weekly article: Parental Alienation must be excluded from all custody hearings.

It’s been ten years since the US Supreme Court all but stranded grandparents seeking visitation with their grandchildren out in the cold, but the grandparents of America refuse to be left there … and many state legislators have since taken up their cause, despite the high court’s ruling.

A Wisconsin statute allows a family court to order visitation for grandparents where the grandchildren’s parent has died and it is in the best interests of the children to have visitation with their grandparents.

The Wisconsin Court of Appeals recently held that the statute encompasses overnight visitation.

The children’s surviving father argued that the statute violated equal protection under the law because it treats different types of parents differently based on whether their spouse is alive or dead.

The intermediate appellate court concluded that the distinction was justified by an overriding compelling state interest to protect a child’s interests after the death of a parent.

The father also argued that the overnight visitation awarded at the lower level exceeded the scope of the visitation contemplated by the statute and amounted to an improper “physical placement”.

The appellate court concluded that the plain meaning of the word visitation was consistent with overnight visitation.

Indiana has no statute like Wisconsin’s – yet. Indiana residents and a legislator fighting on their behalf are trying to change that.

Grandparents recently testified before the Indiana legislature about adult children arbitrarily withholding visitation with their grandchildren, maintaining that this hurt the grandchildren as well as the grandparents.

Read more in this Wisconsin Law Journal article: Overnight visitation is not physical placement and this Evansville [IN] Courier & Press article: Grandparents testify in Indy to establish visitation rights.