Q: My judgement does not specify who drops off our children for their fathers visitation every other weekend.
The judgement does state he is to return them to me. I have helped him out off and on with meeting or picking up or dropping off for the past few years in order to support his relationship with the kids. For the past couple of months I have been meeting him for both drop off and pick up but he is late most of the time on both occurrences. He has also been forfeiting his holiday time and scheduled weekend visitations but not informing me beforehand. He will mention something to my youngest in a text message and I then overhear an conversation and find out only to have to track him down to confirm. I told him I will no longer met him due to his inconsistent behavior and he can pick up and drop off going forward. Since no one specific is named as the one who drops off, would I be in contempt? I have no intention on keeping the boys from him. I am not denying his visitation. Just want to put a stop to him dictating my schedule. He has forfeited most visitation with them the past 4 years.
A:
Given the pattern of him being inconsistent I suggest you go back to court and explain to the Judge what is going on and ask the Judge to modify your current visitation schedule. It is better to get the parenting plan formally modified then to start making changes on your own that could get you into trouble. It is easy to pick up a form at the courthouse or online that is to file for a modification of the parenting time. I might suggest proposing that the children are picked up and dropped off at your house and that a time limit be set for the window when this exchange is to take place. If father misses the window then you and the children are free to make other plans with your day.
Also I might ask the Judge to set a time within which the father is supposed to notify you if he isn't going to make the visits and that it specifies that he notifies you, not the children. You will have to figure out what the consequences will be if the pattern of not notifying you continues. You don't want to cut of the children from having contact with their father but you do want to protect them from constant disappointment. Maybe ask the Judge to suspend all visitation until father completes a parenting time class where hopefully he will learn to consider the negative impact of his behavior on the children.
It wouldn't hurt to contact a lawyer and have a consultation and come up with a proposed parenting time plan that you think might work better then the current plan. The cost of the lawyer could just be limited to one meeting to do a proposed plan and you could do the rest without paying a lawyer to help.
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