[Chayvoe]

I am a 27 year old single male, who pays $350 a month I child support to a woman who barely makes that a month. The mother to my child does not allow me to see my daughter or visit. I would really like to know how I can get visitation and lowering of my child support! Thanks!

[ScottGem]

First, child support and visitation are usually kept separate. Child support is generally proscribed by law as a percentage of your income per child. It has nothing to do with what the mother's income is.

Second, is your visitation court ordered? If it is, then you need to go back to court and get them to enforce the order.

[stinawords]

He was asking if you had a court order for visitation. Because if you do you get a court date in the same court and have it enforsed. She will get a warning first then if she continues not to abide by the court order she can be held in contempt. If you don't have a court order for visitation you need to go to the court that ordered your support and request visitation. The judge will set up a schedule of visitation for you and she will have to go with it. As for the support I don't see you gettting it lowered because it really isn't that much.

[ScottGem]

Well I was exepcting you to use the Answer This Question or Quick Reply feature to give us more detail since your question wasn't detailed enough. If you let us know whether there is court ordered visitation, how that works and what the mother is doing to stop you from seeing your children, then we can provide more detail on how to fight it.

[tawnynkids]

Well, I have to differ just a little bit Scott. Child support is also based on mom's income. Child support is based on many factors. The main ones being income of each parent, tax status, dependents/any hardship claims, possible "new spouse" income, percentage of time spent with each parent, medical insurance premiums paid. There are other factors that can be counted but those are the main ones. If a modification is warranted you would have to go through the court/DCSS to find out. You are eligible to ask for a modification any time there is a substantial change of circumstance to household income, job status, marital status or change in custody. If you go through the DCSS usually you can only do a modification once every three years (may vary by state).

As far as the custody/visitation issue. As stated above we would need to know if you have a current order for any visitation. If you do not have one then you would need to file an OSC (Order to Show Cause) to establish a custody/visitation order.

[cdad]

The formula's for figuring child support varies widely from state to state. Scott is correct ( for some states ) and so is tawnyNkids ( for other states ) In general terms custody and child support are tied together the first trip through the courts. That's what gives you the base for setting child support. After the initial decisions by the court then they run as separate issues.

[Fr_Chuck]

Child support as noted is set by state law and depends on incomes. As for as visiting, you will have to take her back to court