Ask Me Help Desk - What are my options. If any?

I am a father who has joint custody with physical placement of my two children, 12 and 13, and their mother was granted supervised visitation each Sat. for 4 hours due to many issues she has. Since this judgement A LOT has changed. Their mother married a man who was into the same kind of stuff she was into which has made her a lot worse than she already was... She hasn't seen or spoken to the children in over 8 months! DCF has taken her younger child that she had with another man. In the last 8 months she has gotten herself in a lot of trouble with the law; She has been arrest twice for petit theft, once for grand theft, once for driving on a suspended license, twice for VOP, once for contempt for non-payment of child support, once for sell/poss/manuf roxicode and a handful of warrants for not showing up to court when necessary. Thankfully I have my children and they haven't had to be around any of this but is there anything I can do further custody-wise to protect my children? Is it possible with this evidence to get full-custody and limit her visitations further if she so chooses to ever take it? I don't want my children who are straight A students and involved in sports to be around someone who isn't a positive role model. Any suggestions?? Thank you!

Located in FL.

Sounds like you have reason to get it changed.
I am not sure if seeing if it can be changed or leaving it go for now would be to your advantage.
If you let it go and document every time she does see them then when they are older and she wants more visits you have proof that she was not showing interest and establishing a relationship with them before.
If you go to court and have her supervised visits lessened she may be able to go back to court one day and claim she was not allowed to see them and try to get more time established.

With supervised visits I don't know what the minimum they would be willing to reduce the visits to if you do do that. I would guess maybe 4 hrs a month supervised may be the minimum.

Thanks for your response. To further explain... It was stated in the custody paperwork that she could petition the court for a status hearing after 3 months of supervised visitation to see if she was progressing, visiting with them as she should and establishing a bond so she could be granted additional time. She didn't even try to get her visitation changed until almost a year after she was granted supervised visits (and only because she wasn't getting a long with the supervisor) and then never followed through when she didn't submit the paperwork correctly. I know that if she ever wanted to visit with my children it would have to be supervised by the person noted in the paperwork which she will not want to do. What are any thoughts on just waiting for her to make move (if she ever wants to visit with them again) and then counter petition for less time due to her criminal activity and my 5 years of journaling that shows her inconsistency with communication/contact/visitation with my children? Would it matter either way if I waited, like missing an opportunity? I have wished for years that she would change and be there for her children but she has proven so far she is unable to do so so I feel the need to protect them even more.

From what I've read of mom's criminal activity, the Court will probably send her to jail/prison for a long stretch shortly. Then you can definitely hold off now.

Quote:

Originally Posted by nmo11

and then counter petition for less time due to her criminal activity and my 5 years of journaling that shows her inconsistency with communication/contact/visitation with my children? Would it matter either way if I waited, like missing an opportunity? I have wished for years that she would change and be there for her children but she has proven so far she is unable to do so so I feel the need to protect them even more.

From what you say she is already so inconsistent and not been proactive in getting out of her mess that I don't think you have anything to worry about either.

I don't think you need to waste your time going through court and all because TIME is ON your side. By the time she wants to take it to court you will already be so far ahead that she will be lucky to get 4 hrs a week supervised even.