Can I hold my daughter from her father since he made such horrible false accusations and has been MIA for 7 months?

Business Questions 6 views 2 answers
Have a final parenting plan with the court. I have sole custody but the father has visitations every other weekend. He hasn’t seen her for 7 months and now wants to see her. He sends me really mean text before saying he’s going to tell my daughter that I was suppose to get an abortion, asked my boyfriend to adopt her, if I stop taking his child support then he will leave me alone, and the last thing he sent 7 months ago threatening me he that he has a video of her saying a man is touching her (which is totally false). What are my rights? Can I hold him from her until he trys to take me to court?

Attorney Answers

2
Courtney Story ·
Family court typically does not like parents to withhold a child from visitation with a parent who has a visitation right unless there is an emergency such as the child is in danger. The courts would prefer you address changes to residential schedules/visitation through legal channels such as mediation or court hearings. The parenting statutes offer ways to change the PP. NOrthwest Justice Project has good packets with the forms. That said, if you do withhold the child, the only way the father can enforce the residential schedule, absent your agreement, is to go to court. You may want to consider trying to modify your PP to provide more parameters around the father's visitation rights, such as no overnights, supervised, etc., based on his lack of consistent visitation and the threats he's made. You may also want to follow up with the DSHS/child support division to collect on his back support.
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Yale Lewis ·
If you think that your daughter would not be safe spending time with her father per the parenting plan, then you should file an ex parte motion suspending the parenting plan for 2 - 3 weeks until you can go to court to address it. In the meantime, file a petition to modify the parenting plan and allege a substantial change of circumstances. The substantial would be that the father has not seen the child for seven months, has not paid his child support, and is threatening to do harm to you and to her. This is a fairly process-intensive procedure, so your odds of success are much higher if you hire an experienced family law attorney.
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