:jawdrop: This is so sad! Kids do not want that level of responsibility and they most definitely should not be given it!

Hmmm.... add 1 problem Bio and 1 guilty Bio and you this is what you get.

That's what our judge said to BM. He said, "Do you let them choose whether or not they go to school as well?" }:)

We dont deal with this either

We have my skids their bm only has visitation on wed and sat no over night stays she cant give them the care they need if it was up to me they wouldnt see bm at all. No kid should have the right to yes or no when the court has decieded for them in there best interest thats why this bm i deal with has no rights...

It's actually the Bm who decides. She has demonstrated numerous characteristics of PAS. You can't fight a loosing battle. The police won't get involved other than to write a report that isn't worth the paper it's written on. Everyone's solution is get a Lawyer. How can a father who's paying child support dish out money to fight a battle you know you can't win? If you go to court and represent yourself the Judge gets mad punishes you and makes you wait until all the represented cases have been heard. So you end up loosing an entire days wages. There is no way real way to win.

Kids do exactly what they're taught. Some of these BM's have done nothing but lie, cheat and steal to make it thru life. They raise their children to do the same. A Father who won't accept this is kicked to the curb.

When your own flesh and blood treats you without any respect when you fight for them, How much is any one man suppose to take until he walks away and says screw it?

The sad part of it all is these kids are going to end up being leaches on society.

I know my dh does the very same thing but he wants to her it from them not bm. I just don't know why he thinks it is a good idea to let them say they want to come or not. I have talked to him about it but it does not good. disengage, disengage, disengage!

I have the same problem...ya know how I would long to have EOW away from FSD...instead she is allowed to visit her mother whenever she wants which is not very often (less than once a month) I can tell you right now...if she were made to spend EOW with her mother my life would be so much easier and honestly I think she would be a happier child. I totally agree that children should not be allowed to go when they please unless there are extenuating circumstances to prevent regular plans.

my DH lets his kids decide because they are teenagers and he understands they're getting older and want to be with their friends and are getting jobs. He doesn't see the point in forcing the kids to spend time with him when if he and BM would have stayed together the kids wouldn't have been around all the time.
Now - I posted this weekend about DH have been feeding skids a bunch of crap about how once they're 16 they can choose where to live. At one point i thought this was just to shut them up about how unhappy they are at bm's with stepdad. well now that yss15 is 2 weeks away from turning 16 - he's ready to take Dh up on this offer. WHOOOOOOAAAAAAA hold on just a minute!!
Dh is all excited to have "his little buddy" here and he thinks we'll all get along like the fricking brady bunch - not going to happen. i dispise this child. there is nothing positive about him other when the front door shuts and he is on the outside of it. Dh even went as far to tell me that the only reason BM would deny it is that she'll in turn have to pay us, so he'll just not file for CS and that way she won't have a reason to fight it. well that's great thinking and all DH, but i'm sure she rather likes having a paycheck for housing your children while providing them no other services because she knows if she waits long enough you will buy them the shoes, clothes, and school supplies they need - all while still getting YOUR money from cs. So NO DH i dont think that not having to pay YOU cs will be the motivation for her to just let ss15 move out.
the other thing - how would we get him back and forth to school every day when he wants to stay at his current school 30 minutes away. he eats ALL. THE. TIME - how do we have extra $$ for groceries?? there are so many things besides just havign his kid around that dh DOESN'T THINK ABOUT.
in dh's eyes ss15 shits rainbows so there's no thinking of the bad that comes with this kid - all i can see is bad!!!!!

I was told by legal council that until a child reaches the age of 18 in the state of TX that they can not decide which house to live in or choose visitation schedules. If there is a custody issue, a judge may consider the opinion of a child that is 12-17 but ultimately it is the judge that decides. Not sure if other states are different.

Here in Canada my DH's kids chose to live with him full time. They did not want to live with their BM whatsoever. The court granted my DH full custody based on his kid's decision. They were 10 and 14 at the time.

My dh played around with giving choice to ss this summer. SS had blatantly stated that he dislikes me and the other kids and dislikes being around us and speaking to us. Not to mention a whole ton of other issues. But anyway, he and bm talked and both felt that if ss didnt want to come he shouldnt be made to. SS is 12. So dh did offer ss the option on 3 different occassions to "skip" his visit. All 3 times he choose to skip it. Dh sort of offered these options randomly and at other times it wasnt an option he just told ss he would be there to pick him up.
I appreciated not having him here. I am sure my kids did as well. I dont necessarily think it is "right' though. In part, I think my dh did it to see what ss would say. Dh wants to believe that deep down in his heart ss loves us all and wants to be with us but just "pretends" to dislike us because he has anger issues. I think he thought ss would choose to come. It's funny though, when I referenced later those visits he missed, dh had already turned it around in his mind that ss was just being thoughtful-knew dh wasnt feeling well and didnt want him to drive to pick him up. HA! SS had just thrown a fit like a month prior on our 14 hour car trip home from vaca because he wanted dh to take him back to bm's that night because we werent going to be doing anything fun. It would've added another 3 hours on to the 14 hour trip. So I dont think he was being sensitive to dh's needs. I am talking he spent literally hours whining, yelling, crying and complaining in the car demanding to be taken home.
But anywho I was thinking about this opting out of visitation thing this morning actually, but from a different perspective. If my ss can choose to opt out of coming to see all of us-can myself and my kids be given the same privilege? As in, "Oh, i dont really feel like seeing ss this weekend so we are skipping visitation". If he is given the authority to choose whether he is coming to our home and spending time with our family, then shouldnt the whole family also get the option on whether we are inviting him on any particular weekend? I guess that's why kids are not typically allowed to decide.
All of ss's missed visits were just because he didnt' want to be here. He had no sporting activities, bday parties, etc-dh and bm both have always tried to be flexible so he doesnt miss out on things, but he is involved in very little so its rarely an issue.