I was just granted full residential custody of my two children who are 10 and 11. Their mother was granted supervised visitations for four hours every Saturday for three months. In three months we will go back to court and have the situation re-evaluated to see if her visitation time should go up or down. Their mother has been virtually out of the children's lives for about four years now - she comes and goes as she pleases and just recently came back from a seven month absence because she moved out of the state. She asked if she could attend their activities such as baseball and the Judge said no for now until she builds a relationship with her children. My question is this. If she is granted supervised visits for four hours on Saturdays, can she show up at their school to have lunch with the boys, attend honor roll assemblies, etc. or is she only allowed to see them at her supervised visits with a social worker present? I am not clear on how supervised visits work so I want to follow the rules set forth by the court but I also want their mother to be involved if she chooses to. Does anyone know the legal rules in a situation like this?

It is obvoius that the judge from your writing said she can not attend even organised activities until she works out a relationship with them.

And "droping" by is not a supervised activity, supervised is exactly that, controlled by the court.

The thing that bothers me the most is that the boys mother is making it look as if I have a say in this. She keeps having the children ask me if it is okay if she goes to this activity or that activity when she knows she isn't allowed to. Then I have to say no and that she has to follow what the judge says which makes me look like the bad guy. My children are now getting upset with me because they want me to say that she can go when I isn't my decision. Should I bring this to the Judges attention the next time we go to court?

She is "using" the children to get back at you, to try and make you look like the bad guy.

Tell them the truth, say your mother knows better than that, she knows she can't because the judge said so, Tell them it is not up to you and their mother knows better.

And yes bring it up to the judge to show how she is using the children against you.

My husband has had residential custody of his two children since Apr. 07, even though they have been living with him full time since July 04. Since July 04, the children rarely see their mother and definitely not on a consistent basis. Their mother was awarded 4 hours of supervised visitation each Saturday due to her habitual drug use and instability (evicted from every place she has, living with other people, can't hold a job, gets every car repossessed, moves to different states, etc.) I wanted to know what a would judge would grant her visitation wise if she filed a motion to modify visitation and asked for more time. Right now she has been on supervised visits for about 10 months. Her visits have been up and down; sometimes she cancels for various reasons, sometime it is cut short due to their extracircular activities, most of the time she invites friends and/or other children over when the children are visiting so she really does't spend time with them. Would visitation time increase but still stay supervised, would it just move to unsupervised for 4 hours still, would it change to unsupervised and more than 4 hours? Anyone that knows anything about this, your information would be greatly appreciated.

It can be just anything, the reports of the people doing the supervised visits will hold some weight, most likely if they are looking for more free visits, you will have to go back to show all the reasons they should not have them, but most likely a entire new eval will have to be done

But with judges, often who knows why they rule certain waya

It will depend on how the visits are going and what progress your husband's ex has made. Mostly, it's completely up to the judge and which attorney makes the best argument.

If she has documented proof that she is more stable and has been consistently so, that will weigh quite a bit on the judge's decision, as would any documentation that she has not been stable and has been inconsistent. There are other variables... age of the children and their activities (would having extended or changed visitation interrupt their activities and prevent a quality of "normalcy" in their lives), what plans (if any) she has in place for the care and safety of the children... stuff like that.

It is possible that the judge could extend the length of the visits (still supervised), add more visits per week (still supervised), go to semi-supervised visits... if she doesn't have a good track record, I doubt that it would just go to completely unsupervised visits, but stranger things have happened in family courts!

I have my children living with me full time. Their mother was ordered supervised visitations for 4 hours each Saturday. Super long story on how it got to that point but it involved abandonment, drug use, evictions, instability, moving out of state, etc. When she was granted supervised visits she was living with the supervisor. She has recently moved out of her house and got married. Now because she has to travel to the supervisors house each Saturday she wants to modify the court order. Since she has moved out, she hasn't really visited with the children and hasn't been making plans with the supervisor which is making her upset and not want to supervise anymore. Now, over the past year of supervised visits the children's mother rarely takes her full 4 hours and has a million excuses why - has to work, out of town, visiting people in the hospital, etc. The judge urged her to have her visits with the children alone to rebuild her bond with them but mostly every weekend she had her boyfriend/now husband, friends, other children, etc. there. My questions are: If she hasn't been taking her full visitation time up to this point, will a judge grant her more time? Would the judge grant her unsupervised visits now just because she got married and has a house with a bedroom for them? (Believe me, she hasn't changed. I still believe she is involved with drugs, she still lies to the children all the time, and she can never make it anywhere on time which makes visitations very frustrating. She can't hold a job and she be evicted within a few months.)

First you can never quess what a judge will say or do. A lot will depend upon how the supervised visits were going and their reports. As noted who really knows

I was officially granted residential custodian of my two boys April '07. They had been living with me full time since July '04 when their mother started going into a downward spiral of problems with drugs, living in rehab, moving out of state, etc. Their mother was granted supervised visits with the boys for 4 hours each Saturday for 3 months. It was then up to her to file for a modification and ask the judge to review the case so she could get unsupervised visits or more time. Since April '07 she has been living with the court appointed supervisor and just recently moved out and got married to a man the boys hardly know (the new husband has a long criminal record with abuse and drugs too). She is renting a house and has a room for the boys now but she never lasts in one place too long because she can't hold a job and pay her bills (She is very behind on her child support and has already been placed in jail once for nonpayment and she still isn't paying). Apparently she just recently filed for a modification but did it incorrectly and now is asking me to file the papers for her through my lawyer since she can't figure it out (she is representing herself). She also hasn't been getting along with the supervisor since she moved out of her place and continually will ask the boys to ask me to just let them go to her house for visitation instead, which puts me in bad position with my boys. I feel that the modification of visition from supervised to possibly unsupervised is very important and all the facts in the situation need to be heard and should be heard by a judge. I am not apposed to modifiying visitation in the future if I see her stabilizing herself.

Should I ask my lawyer to file modifiacation for her even though it will cost me money to do so? She always tries to take the easy way out of everything and have everyone else do the work for her. If I have my suspecions that she is still doing drugs, will a judge grant random drug testing? Is it typical to see clauses in visitation orders that situplates that she can't take the boys overnight if she doesn't have a room for them (that is if she is granted overnigh visits)?

First things first. Absolutely not. Do not in any way file anything for her. That's something she has to do for herself and if she can't even figure that out then she doesn't need to get any further unsupervised time with the kids. What you might ask your lawyer to file is a restraining order against her if she keeps putting the children in the middle and telling them to ask you such and such. She need to grow up and be mature about things. As far as living with a court appointed supervisor then unless it's a relative of hers it should have never been allowed. The supervising personel is supposed to be nuetral. It can be a relative but they still must remain nuetral. As far as her new husband goes you need to be careful with that because in most cases if they have been involved with drugs there can be emotional issues and you don't want the children to have to deal with that. If she straightens out for a 3 year period then you can change things but not until the rollercoaster ride stops.

She needs to show she can handle her life on her own. Getting you to do things for her doesn't do that. I totally agree with Califdad.

If your boys are asking why they can't be with their mother, explain to them that she has made mistakes with her life. Until she can show that she has fixed those mistakes it is dangerous for them to be alone with her. And you have to protect them.

Thank you both for your input. I currently have a RO against her that has been in effect since Sept. '03 so co-parenting has been extremely difficult if not impossible. She isn't a stable women. I don't want to get my lawyer involved at all - I feel bad for the boys because they want to see their mother more but they don't know the entire truth to why their mother hasn't been around and she lies to them about it to make herself look better to them. I tried to have other supervised but nobody wanted to deal with her and my lawyer suggested that it would look better if I allowed their mother to chose than have the boys visit with her at the court mandated supervised visitation center so I agreed. Honestly, she rarely takes her full 4 hours each Saturday and lately has been cancelling her weekend visits totally blaming it on the supervisor not being available. Can the fact that she already doesn't take almost 50% her visits be used against her if she finishes filing the modification? She is still very unstable mentally and physically. She is a very good manipulator, especially when it comes to the boys and I see it has being an extremely bad influence on them. As far as the new husband, we have heard stories about him already beating my boys' mother but she knows if she reports it then it may have repurcussions on her visition with the boys. My main concern is for the boys and their safety.

Your on the right track. If she is saying these things in front of the court supervisor then something is wrong because they aren't suppose to allow abuse. That's why its supervised. If she is missing visits then it can be used against her. And if she is being beaten by her new bo then there is no way you could give them up to that situation.

My ex has a vast criminal record. I have custody of our two children and she has supervised visitation for 4 hours on Saturday. She has told me that she is trying to get a court date to modify visitation to unsupervised and receive additional time. She has been arrested twice in the past couple of weeks (contempt for drving w/o a license and shoplifting/resisting arrest). She has supervised visits due to her instability and habitual drug abuse. I still believe she is abusing drugs even though she is pregnant but don't have proof. Can I bring up her criminal acts when she tries to modifiy visitation because it concerns me that her behavior will have many affects on the boys and she will put them in bad situations. All I want for my boys are to be in safe environment.

Can criminal records affect visitation and/or custody?

In FL

Of course they can. When is the court date? Do you have a lawyer? When you go to court bring up her more recient run-ins with the law to the judge. How long has that visitation order been in place? That will have a large part too because if it hasn't been very long she won't even get a court date.

I do have a lawyer and there hasn't been a court date set yet. I am just anticipating it. The supervised visits have been in place since July 07 and the judge told her at that time that visitations could could be re-evaluated after 3 months. She didn't put in a request to modify until May 08 but she is pro se and still can't figure out what to do next to proceed so it hasn't moved forward. I have had my children since July 04 and since that time she has had minimal involvement with them. She has been in and out of church related rehab centers and jail, cannot hold a job, moves from house to house living with people, moved to TN for 9 months, has a 2 year old and is now pregnant again. I want my boys to have their mother in their lives but my only concern is for my boys safety. She has proven over and over again that she makes bad decisions, doesn't have their best interest in mind and the boys are not much of a priority to her. I know she has very minimal visitation now so there isn't much more the judge will take away from her. She has only take 50% of the visitation time that she receives anyway. I just wasn't sure if the judge would consider any of her recent run-ins with the law in re-evaluating visitation.

Lawyers are helpful but yeah like I said your lawyer will help you should she get a court date for a possible modification. Also I don't know if you do this or not but keep a journal of her visits it dosen't have to be anything extraordinary but just a record of the visits that she keeps and those that she misses.

Oh yeah. I have kept a journal of everything (visits, phone calls, convos, etc.) since she tried to get my investigated by DCF prior to having my kids full time. When DCF investigated, they told me that she wasn't a sane person and helped me get a RO and told me then to keep good records. Thanks so much!

My children have 4 hours of supervised visitation scheduled for each Saturday per court order with their mother. She rarely takes the visitation and if she does, it usually isn't for the full time. Lately she hasn't even called the children to even see them Saturdays and when they call her to ask why, she doesn't answer and doesn't call back. I figured she was back into doing drugs even though she is about 7 months preganant! I just found out that she had my children's younger half-brother taken away by DCF. Their half-brother is living with his father and she has no visitation right with him right now. I am not anticipating her calling to see them since it has been over a month and a half but if she does, in light of the new development, I do not feel the children are safe around her. Do I have to send them over to visit with her? Do I have to file something through court to have her visitation suspended? Will DCF take her baby when it is born if she is on drugs? Even though her visitation is "supervised" it really has never been supervised like it should be since the person that does the supervising was a friend of hers because no one else was willing to deal with her. Thanks.

FL