Restoring Your Parenting Time After A Long Absence

Alabama’s laws on parenting time, which state that the children’s best interests are the main concern in parenting plan decisions, imply that children thrive on routine and stability.  When judges set parenting plans, which they only do when the parents cannot reach an agreement during mediation, they choose a schedule that disrupts the children’s routine as little as possible.  The children spend every school night with the same parent, unless both parents live close to the school.  They get to continue the same extracurricular activities they participated in before the divorce.  Adjusting to two households is difficult for anyone, but it prevents additional challenges for children and teens with medical special needs, who tend to have an even harder time coping with spending different days in different households.  Children with special needs have the same right as any other children to a stable relationship with both parents.  To build a successful parenting plan for a child with disabilities, you will need advice from the child’s doctors and therapists and from a Birmingham child custody lawyer.

Family Despairs of Autistic Teen’s Ability to Adapt to Two Households

A couple divorced when their son was nine years old; the parenting plan indicated that, during the school year, the child would be with his father from Saturday afternoon until Sunday afternoon, but would spend the rest of the week with his mother; in the summer, he would alternate weeks with each parent.  The child has severe autism and is nonverbal; he becomes stressed and agitated as a result of disruptions to his routine and engages in self-harming behaviors when upset.  In the years after the divorce, the mother frequently complained that the physical environment of the father’s house was not enough to protect the son from getting hurt when he was upset and that the father did not create a routine that helped the son feel safe and stay calm.  She said that, after returning from the father’s house, the son would be agitated and unable to sleep for days.

When the son was about 13 and grew to an adult height and weight, the father began to feel overwhelmed and stopped exercising his parenting time.  He continued to pay child support, but he did not contact the mother or the court about visiting his son.  By the mother’s account, the son thrived on spending every night at her home, and his emotional state became more stable.  When the son was 15, the father petitioned the court to restore his parenting time.  The judge balked at the father’s lack of effort to resume his parenting time sooner but commended the father on providing financial support and the mother for providing a stable environment for the teen.  The judge advised the parents to work closely with specialists involved in the son’s care to work out a feasible way for the father to spend time with the son.

Contact Peeples Law About Co-Parenting Children With Special Needs

A Birmingham family law attorney can help you if your ex-spouse is following the parenting plan on paper but, in practice, is making your child’s health challenges worse.  Contact Peeples Law today to schedule a consultation.

Source:

scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=10452486253639084951&q=divorce+vacation&hl=en&as_sdt=4,61,62,64&as_ylo=2014&as_yhi=2024