Establishing visitation and child custody orders with your child’s parent is an extremely important part of co-parenting. Furthermore, these orders must clearly specify when a child will be with each parent and how time will be divided for holidays, birthdays, and vacations. In order to ensure effectiveness, visitation and child custody orders should specify how the parents will handle transporting their child between home and extracurricular activities.

Problems With Parents Not Adhering to Child Custody Agreements

In California, parents often have problems adhering to verbal agreements that have not been formalized into child custody orders. For example, some parents may refuse to honor a verbal agreement about custody and visitation if the other parent fails to pay child support. Additionally, a parent may refuse to honor a verbal agreement about custody and visitation if the other parent becomes involved with a new significant other. Problems between parents often impact the well-being of their child.

Why Child Custody Orders are Important

Without child custody orders, either parent can take the child as they please. In fact, without these orders, even police will likely not take the child from one parent and give them to the other. Furthermore, without existing child custody orders, the police will not consider arresting a parent for child abduction for their failure to return the child to the other parent.

Overall, without a child custody order, either parent may take the child without permission, leaving the other parent with limited legal options to enforce their custody rights.

The police can only enforce clear and defined child custody orders which designate which parent has the legal right to have the child on a specific date or at a specified time. Without visitation or child custody orders, or with unclear orders, the police can’t take action.

If you find yourself fighting for your child without orders in place, you can file an ex-parte motion for emergency visitation and child custody orders. Usually, the court will grant some form of temporary orders, pending a full hearing on the issues. These orders can cover a variety of concerns that pertain to your child until a permanent order can be granted.

“Fighting over kids is not only stressful as a parent, but is traumatizing to the kids! My emergency motion got me an order that the police were able to enforce.” P. Johnson
“APC helped me get emergency custody orders when my ex-boyfriend decided not to return our daughter. So glad I had their help during this stressful situation!” P. Johnson.

Get help with your Child Custody Orders today!

GET STARTED!

Violation of Child Custody Orders

If you have permanent visitation or child custody orders and the other parent violates them, your local police department can help you enforce them. Additionally, you can also file an action for “contempt” in court for legal help with the process.

In order to support a potential case, keep a journal documenting all custody violations. Then, if you go back to court, you can explain the other parent’s actions to the judge. Plus, make sure you keep a copy of your visitation and custody orders in a safe place.

International Child Abduction

If a parent abducts their child and leaves the United States, the State Department Office of Children’s Issues will work with U.S. embassies and consulates worldwide to help find the child. In addition, under the Hague Convention, a child who is a resident in one country of the convention and is moved to another country under the convention in violation of existing child custody orders must be returned to the child’s primary country of residence.

International child abduction cases are very complicated. Because child custody disputes are private legal matters between the parents, there is very little the State Department can do to locate abducted children. Furthermore, countries that are not members of the Hague convention rarely recognize U.S. custody orders.

A People’s Choice Can Help

Contact A People’s Choice for more information about the importance of child custody orders. We can help you draft and file a petition for visitation and child custody. Do not wait until it is too late to get your child custody orders. Doing so could potentially jeopardize the safety of your child.

Get help with your Legal documents today!

A People’s Choice can save you hundreds of dollars by preparing your legal documents instead of an expensive attorney!

GET STARTED!

We would love to know your thoughts on this article. Connect with us over on Google+ or Twitter and join the conversation