A
child visitation agreement (or parenting plan) stipulates the amount of time that a child
spends with each parent. A parenting plan outlines all of the various
rights and responsibilities—visitation times and dates, whether
joint custody, sole custody, or shared custody is awarded, the rights
of each parent to attend school and extracurricular activities, etc.—of
each in writing and is entered by a family law judge.
However, some divorced parents do a bad job at co-parenting their children.
In fact, custodial parents may even prevent non-custodial parents from
spending time with their kids for stretches of time, sometimes lasting
months and years.
Keep in mind, when visitation has officially been established in writing
through a parenting plan, it serves as a legal agreement to which each
parent is bound. If one parent breaches the agreement, there are several
ways to resolve the issue, depending on the circumstances of the case.
When Child Visitation is Withheld On Occasion
If withholding occasionally occurs or the parent sometimes fails to abide
by the parenting plan, it is possible to make up visition time. The make-up
dates can be scheduled by the parents, which is why noncustodial parents
should record the dates on a calender, journal, or online document.
When Child Visitation is Continuously Withheld
If the custodial parent refuses to schedule make-up dates, the noncustodial
parent can take other measures, such as contact an attorney and go to
court to enforce your rights. Keep in mind, other measures should not
include withholding child support since they are not related.
If worse comes to worst, failure to comply with a visitation order could
result in a change in the visitation order. In some cases, there could
be a change in custody where the court may decide to transfer custody
of the children to the noncustodial parent.
If you are interested in modifying your current visitation order,
contact our
Daytona Beach family law attorney at
Law Offices of Robert Stepniak today.