My son is thirteen years old, and he wants my ex to give up his rights so that my husband can adopt him. My ex has never really been in my son's life and when he did see him he ignores him or treats him badly. Now that he has remarried it has gotten a lot worse. We haven't approached the subject with my ex yet because he moved and does not have a phone. I understand that a lot of people say terrible things about their ex's to the children to sway their decision, but that is not the case here.My ex and I have argued about how he treats him, but not in front of him. He is old enough to realize it for himself. My question is: How old does a child have to be to have the court take their decision into account?

The court will not let your child decide. The father though may possibly agree to relinquish his rights, so that your husband may adopt. Please consult with an attorney.

The child can never decide that the father has to give up his rights.

The father has to do this.

The child can tell the court who he wants to live with ( but this does not seem to be a problem)

So you need to address this with the father, get a phone, write him a letter.

Normally of course when he finds out he does not have to pay child support once he signs over his rights for adoption, he should be glad to

First, please pay more attention to posting instructions. There is a Read First sticky in the Adoption forum that directs you to this forum for legal questions.

As noted, your child cannot influence the courts to terminate his father's rights. No Way, No How. Nor is it likely a court will terminate his rights involuntarily.

You don't say whether there is a child support order and whether he's paying. Generally that's the one thing that will convince the bio father to relinquish his rights, because it will get him out of paying support (because of the adoption, not the TPR).

The above answers are correct. The child can not sway the judges decision in this type of case at all. You can ask the bio father to simply allow the adoption to go through and (if there is a support order) his obligations for support will also be dropped. That is a pretty popular way to sway someone. If the bio father will not do it though your son can always wait until he is an adult and change his name to that of your husband if he really wants to and he will always know who was there for him through thick and thin (like I've said many times).

Thank you for all of your answers. I will take this up with my ex. As I said before, he has no phone and we only know of the town his is renting in, not the new address.