The mother and father (now divorced) have a mutual written agreement filed with the court regarding the care of the child. The child has lived with the paternal grandparents all of his life except for a 3 month period. The mother has not seen or spoken to or called about (or e-mailed, etc) her son for 18 months. She is living out of this state. The agreement stipulates that she will see the child for overnight stays less than 7 nights per year, may have visitation for 2 weeks at holiday time and may have summer visitation for 6 weeks each summer. They were divorced in 2010. Can this mother continue to have this sparse contact with her son? Is the father required to allow such treatment of the child over and over? This is not the first time since 2010 this situation has arisen.

If you want to file to change the visitation order and use abandonment as the grounds, go ahead.