Fathers Custody Rights – What Does Visitation Rights Mean?
When parents divorce or separate one of the most important things to consider is who the children live with and how much time they can spend with the other parent. Divorce breaks the ties between husband and wife, custody breaks the bonds of parenting. It is important for each parent to understand that every child has a right to an ongoing relationship with both parents.
Although the tendency is changing, it is true that the typical judicial attitude towards custody most often favors women. For whatever reason, it has been the precedence set in the past and traditionally many judges find it difficult to change their ways. However, with the changing of socio-economic structure of contemporary society, fathers are starting to enjoy a role as parents. When a father has been given visitation rights these rights must not be interfered with.
Ideally, both parents should work together to make sure that the children get to spend the most time possible with each parent. However, as is often the case, this ends in the parent who doesn’t have custody, which is often the father, getting very little visitation time with his children, and frequent bitter arguments about cancelled visits and last minute delays. In order to avoid these situations, many judges now prefer the parents to create a rather detailed custody schedule (known as a parenting agreement or parenting plan) which consists of a specific visitation schedule and also specifies who has responsibility for both the daily decisions and major decisions concerning the welfare of the children.
If your parenting plan has already been recognised by the courts then you already have a visitation schedule that can be enforced by law. Apart from times when it would be reasonable for visitation times to be changed, such as when someone gets sick, or certain appointments need to be made, or other special circumstances regular interference with visitation may even be used as a case for change of circumstances and used to modify the custody decision and even have custody reversed.
At first, the visitation schedule may be more of a trial periods. Either spouse does not know what the future will hold as far as how their parent child relationship will develop. In some cases parents modify the parenting plan without going to court as the needs of the child change over time. Later, however, if either parent refuses to comply with the new arrangement, because the new agreement hasn’t been approved by the court it may be difficult to enforce their rights. Therefore it is most advisable to get any modifications approved by the court.
If you are the non custodial parent make sure your parenting plan is very precise and detailed in when, where, and how you are allowed to spend time with your children. In most states, it is a crime to interfere with custody or visitation rights. It is referred to as “custodial interference”. Depending on the state, parents can actually sue the other person for damages if their custody rights are interfered with, as well as get help from law enforcement.
A common trap that many fathers fall into is not paying child support because the mother is stopping them from spending time with the children. Please don’t confuse custody and visitation with child support. Regardless of how your visitation rights are interfered with, you must always pay child support. There are heavy penalties for failing to do so. Every parent has an duty to support his or her children.
One important study discovered a telling relationship between custody and visitation arrangements, levels of strife and the payment of court-ordered child support. Fathers were more likely to keep up with paying child support when they had frequent daytime visits and overnight stays with their children. The less involved with their children’s lives they became, the less likely they were to keep paying child support.
Are your visitation rights being interfered with? At Child Custody Information you will find invaluable information on out of state visitation including answers to the most commonly asked questions about child visitation laws.
