Your Ex Won’t Let You See The Kids?

If you’re having problems with your ex husband or wife not letting you see your children, you have several remedies through the court system. These same remedies are available to unmarried parties who share a child together.

The first option, is to get a child custody and visitation order, if you do not already have one. You’ll need to go to court and file a motion to obtain specific custody and visitation orders. For example, this would lay out the child’s weekly schedule during school, summer and holidays. Once you have specific days set for visitation and a formal order of the court, you can enforce that order. For enforcement purposes, it is important that your custody and visitation schedule be specific and not contain vague amounts of time such as “reasonable visitation,” as such orders are hard to enforce.

If you have a custody and visitation order but your ex is still not letting you see the child(ren) on your scheduled time, you can contact the police to assist you in enforcing the order. This is where it becomes important for you to have an order in which it is clear what days and times you are to have custody of your child. It’s hard for the police to enforce an order that says “reasonable visitation”. It’s much easier for them to enforce an order that includes language such as, “every Wednesday from 3:30 PM to 8:00 PM.”

If there have been repeated incidents of the other parent not letting you exercise visitation, you may want to file a motion to request modification of custody and visitation to give you primary custody based on the other parent’s refusal to follow the court orders and interfering with your court ordered visitation. You also have the remedy of filing an action of contempt, but those tend to be very difficult, long and costly.