| re .0
They will probably do an interview with both of you, and will check
school records, etc to see how she's doing in school. The daughter's
opinion will carry a lot of weight at her age.
We had one of these done for my second custody try. The kids were
me for the summer and told us all summer they wanted to stay. I
filed for change. The they went back home and she made nice to
them until after the interview and they thought things were going
to change there. Then after the interview, booom. But because
they said they wanted to stay there during the interview, the judge
gave a lot of weight to the investigation, or at least used that
as part of his excuse.
fred();
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| This may be different because he already has 50% physical custody.
Unless his child says she no longer wants to spend 50% of her time with
Dad, I don't think the judge has any reason to change the arrangement,
but who can be sure about these things.
Did the judge instruct your ex to let you have the children during the
times you are supposed to have them? Or does she think that she can
withold visitation until the investigation is over? How did the judge
leave the visitation issue?
-bb
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| Child services will be reluctant to change the arrangement unless there
is a specific reason to do so such as:
1. Daughter says she doesn't wish to spend 50% of her time with you, and
wants instead to live with mother full time and visit you.
2. Mother will try to use your missed weeks to say that you are not
sticking to the agreement, and are unstable, etc. You should be able
to explain to the investigator along the same lines that Fred
recommended in the earlier note, that you were going through very
rough and stressful problems and that you felt that even though you
wanted your daughter with you very much during that time, you felt it
would be unhealthy for her to have to endure your problems. But that as
quickly as you could resolve your issues you tried to continue the normal
50% custodial arrangement and your ex prevented your resumption and
took you to court. I also assume that you had an agreement with your
ex that she would keep the daughter during those weeks that you were
unable to because of your problems, and you should also explain that to
the investigator. Make sure that from here on out you take
the child every time you are supposed to have her. If you are busy
then arrange for a relative or friend to keep her during the time you
are busy, do no leave her with the mother during any of your scheduled
time unless your are in the hospital or something equal, treat your
relationship with the mother strictly as a business agreement.
Realize that this wasn't like you left the child with a known child
molester or anything, you left her with her mother during the few weeks
you were resolving your problems, who could you trust more to care for
her then her mother during that time!
3. Mother somehow manages to prove that the child is in physical or
emotional jeopardy while in your custody. I'd say that your recent
actions were taken to prevent the child being in emotional jeopardy.
Child services generally does not wish to stick their neck out to
change an order that a judge put in place, unless they have accusations
of child abuse or molestation, or other really bad stuff against you,
or you go to Jail for a period of time, or abandon the child, etc.
In fact I've been impressed by the fact that child services won't
move children even when they are in danger! These folks are
just about useless when considering the best interest of the children,
they tend to leave children with abusive parents until they are killed.
Good luck.
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