How Much Supervision Is Involved In Supervised Visitation?

If you have heard about supervised visitation after divorce, your mental image probably does not seem much like a recipe for family togetherness.  Doing jigsaw puzzles in a quiet room, surrounded by social workers with clipboards is not the best way to get your children to open up to you, especially when you consider that getting children to open up to their parents is not easy even when the parents are still married to each other and share a rich vocabulary of inside jokes.  The good news is that supervised visitation does not always mean that the visitation must take place during daylight hours under the watchful eye of professionals who have no pre-existing relationship with the family.  Supervised visitation can simply mean that another adult family member, in addition to the parent exercising supervised parenting time, must be present whenever the children are with the parent.  A family member who lives with the parent is always the obvious choice.  While this is certainly less stressful for children than brief visits at a court-run visitation center, it is not always a perfect system.  A Birmingham child custody lawyer can help you if the family member who supervises your ex-spouse’s parenting time does not provide adequate supervision.

If Your Former Mother-in-Law Supervises Your Ex-Spouse’s Visits With Your Children, Will It Bring Stability, or Just More Drama?

An Alabama court ordered a child’s paternal grandmother to be present during the father’s supervised parenting time.  The father’s drug abuse had contributed to the breakdown of divorce, and he continued to use drugs after the divorce.  The court ordered supervised parenting time at the mother’s request, and it ordered the paternal grandmother to supervise the visits, since the father had often depended on her for childcare help before and after the divorce.

Several problems arose, however.  First, the grandmother was too caught up in the vicissitudes of her son’s drug addiction.  Several times, she called the police and had him arrested for domestic violence and for using drugs in her home, but she later voluntarily dismissed the restraining orders.  Second, the grandmother had kidney disease and required dialysis; this interfered with her ability to supervise the child without help.  She testified in court that the reason she had requested the son’s release from jail after she had called the police on him was that she had no one else to transport her to a dialysis appointment.

When the mother requested a change of person to supervise the father’s parenting time, the father objected, saying that there had not been a material change in circumstances that warranted changing the parenting plan.  The court ruled that it always has the jurisdiction to change the person authorized to supervise parenting time, and that this does not constitute a change to the parenting plan.

Contact Peeples Law About Co-Parenting Under Less-Than-Ideal Circumstances

A Birmingham family law attorney can help you if supervised parenting time has failed to prevent drama in your family.  Contact Peeples Law today to schedule a consultation.

Source:

scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=2520426692827976883&q=divorce+grandmother&hl=en&as_sdt=4,61,62,64&as_ylo=2014&as_yhi=2024