[jaybird92]

I am the single mother of a 14 year old boy who wants to relinquish my custody to my parents. I AM NOT looking to relinquish my legal responsibilities (I've perused previous messages). My son's father has never been involved in his life and never wanted him so it's been the two of us from day one with my parents heavily involved. Recently (last 6 months), I have been having more difficulty with disrespect and attitude. Every time I try to discipline him, he leaves my house and goes to my parents who take him in (they live 2 blocks away). He is starting to get physical with me and I finally told him that if he can't treat me with respect, then I don't want him around because I don't trust him. He has chosen and my parents have agreed to allow him to live with them. I relinquish my rights to him so that they can start acting on his behalf with school and insurance and such. The relationship between my parents and myself is good. Do they need to adopt him to be able to add him to their insurance and act on his legal behalf or will giving them custody be sufficient? He is in the process of working with a psychiatrist to receive medication so they will need to be able to make decisions for him.

[Fr_Chuck]

You can not just relinquish your rights to your parents, even though his father is not "in" the picture, he still has all of his rights as a parent, even if he has not used them for years.

So if you give up YOUR rights, he becomes the guardian parent, unless your parents go to court to gain custody, then not only you, but he also has to sign his rights away.

You can allow him to live there, you can give them POA to act on your behalf with him.

But your parents are not doing you any favor, they are allow this behavior from him to happen, and could be part of the cause of that problem, since they don't drag him home when he runs off.

And no they can't add him on their insurance unless they adopt,

[jaybird92]

His father is not only "not in" the picture, but is hiding from accepting his responsibility. I left his father when I was 2.5 months pregnant because it was an abusive relationship. His father did not want him then and did not want to acknowledge him as his when the state of Missouri contacted him about child support (it took them over a year to find him even with his ss# and after they did, he went into hiding again). He is not on the birth certificate either. I don't see how he could be the guardian parent when he is not on the birth certificate and has been hiding from taking any responsibility.

I fully acknowledge that the proximity to my parents is a large part of the problem, but my hope is that now that he is living with them and knowing that if he messes up with them he has no where else to go, he will straighten up. Please don't mistake my actions as not caring because I love my son and this is really tearing me up. I just don't feel that I am left with many other choices. I work 7 days a week, but have my two jobs scheduled so that I am home every night by 4:30. My parents are both retired so they don't have the same time constraints that I have and I'm hoping that this as well will help. I have been looking for help, but at his age, it does not seem like there is any agency or any person out there who is willing to help until he gets into serious trouble and I'm am trying to avoid that.