Need Advice About Summer Visitation Please

Ok, so DH is currently going back and forth with BM about summer visitation. I touched on this in my other blog from today. The CO says she is to get the first half of summer vacation, so a block of roughly 5 1/2 weeks. She wants to take SD to Colorado for 3 weeks to visit her family and wants to take SD out of school 4 days early so she has time to go on her own vacation without SD before she has to go back to work.

DH is asking me what I think he should do. He feels he should make her stick to the CO (I have been telling him this for 2 1/2 years now I'm not sure what made that finally sink in but whatever) and keep SD6 the full 6 weeks. BM doesn't want to do that because then she would have to pay for childcare for the two or so weeks she would have her while she works.

I have argued all along that if he lets BM get away with deviating from the CO when they eventually end up back in court or in mediation or whatever he won't have a leg to stand on when he tries to argue she doesn't follow the CO since he let her get away with it for so long. However, I also don't think we should try to force her to keep SD longer than she wants to.

For one thing, SD is a difficult child with some special needs and BM has demonstrated many times that she cannot manage her behavior. Last year we had the pleasure of dealing with CPS for 4 months because BM gave SD a black eye. CPS investigated and BM did some sort of in home parenting program and the case has been closed. There have been no further incidents but I also don't think we should push our luck.

I told DH I think he needs to go back to mediation or whatever to amend the CO to what they have been doing the last 2 summers so that way they follow the CO but we aren't pushing BM to keep SD longer than she wants.

Thoughts?

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Bummer... so I guess you guys

Bummer... so I guess you guys will have to pick up the childcare for the two weeks she doesn't want her... I wouldn't do it. She's a parent, she needs to make arrangements just like all parents do.

That is what we have done for

That is what we have done for the last two summers.

The CO states that the summer is to be divided in half and it rotates who gets the first half and who gets the second half. During the summer visitation there is to be no weekend visits, nothing. We are supposed to send SD to BM's for summer visitation and not see her again until we pick her up 6 weeks later.

Two years ago, BM declared that she couldn't go 6 weeks without seeing SD so they agreed to her having 3 weeks and they would return to the standard EOWE schedule after that. They did the same last summer. BM was supposed to have spring break last year and didn't take it because she didn't have childcare. She was supposed to have Thanksgiving this year but didn't take it as she didn't have childcare. This is an ongoing theme.

My thoughts exactly!

Primary difference being

Primary difference being other people actually want to spend extra time with your kids while my BM is trying to dump SD back on us so she doesn't have to spend time taking care of her without her family around to do her job for her.

No, the CO says we split the

No, the CO says we split the summer in half. Summer vacation is technically like 11 weeks so her half would be 5 1/2 weeks, it's just easier to say 6 weeks. BM only wants SD 3 weeks and DH is debating whether he should press her to keep SD for the full 5 1/2 weeks rather than the 3 BM wants to take. Basically, BM wants to keep SD only 1/2 the amount of time she is supposed to get.

I maintain that, given the abuse issues and general incompetence BM exhibits, we should not press her to keep SD any more time than she wants but that we should amend the CO to reflect the change in parenting time schedule.

If your husband is the CP,

If your husband is the CP, then he can't press BM to do anything. She is free to take as much or as little of her schedule time as she wants. She can take the kid for just one day, the full 5 1/2 weeks or anything in between.

^This is true. NCP's are

^This is true. NCP's are allowed to refuse or modify visitation.

Ugh - this is a tough one.

Ugh - this is a tough one. In this case, since BM doesn't really want SD for all of the allotted time AND because of the CPS/black eye incident, I would "let her off the hook." BUT, I would write up the change in the summer schedule (3 weeks vs half of the summer) and I would modify the parenting time agreement with the Court.

If you are at all concerned that keeping SD for the whole six weeks would increase BMs frustration when it comes to "dealing" with SD, then it becomes a safety issue, right?

That's what I think too.

The thing about having her for 3 weeks is that BM will be staying at her parents house almost the entire time so there will be someone responsible there to take care of SD.

For the remaining 3 odd weeks SD would be staying in the apartment BM has with her roommates. I don't know these people or the situation but I say if BM doesn't want to keep her then we shouldn't argue it.

I do think they should modify the CO though.