How To Get Your Unsupervised Parenting Time Restored: It Shouldn’t Take A Year And A Half
Whether you are happy or relieved that the court ordered you to exercise supervised parenting time with your children depends on the circumstances. If you were previously not allowed to have any contact with your children, then supervised parenting time is a joyous reunion. If you were hoping to have the children with you all weekend, so you could take them out or just sit and home and relax, then supervised parenting time is a consolation prize that offers little consolation. Whatever the reason for the supervised parenting time, the arrangement is meant to be temporary; the court must revisit the parenting plan every six months, modifying it if necessary. If you feel that the award of supervised parenting time was unfair and you deserve unsupervised parenting time, contact a Palm Beach County child custody lawyer.
Court Orders Mother to Complete 78 Weeks of Behavioral Counseling Before Seeking Unsupervised Parenting Time
When Arlene and Garth divorced in 2011, their children were ten, five, and four years old. Arlene was a certified public accountant but had been out of the workforce, except for occasional freelance work, since the children were born. The divorce was acrimonious enough to warrant a four-day trial after mediation failed to yield an agreement, and Arlene frequently expressed her anger toward Garth in the presence of the children. Despite that the children were very attached to Arlene, the court, on the advice of the children’s guardian ad litem, ordered her only four hours of supervised parenting time and 15 minutes of phone conversation per week.
Worse than this was the herculean feats Arlene would have to complete before she could even petition to modify the parenting time to grant her unsupervised parenting time. She would need to complete 52 weeks of individual therapy followed by 26 weeks of family therapy with the children; she would also have to complete parenting and anger management classes. In other words, the soonest she could have unsupervised parenting time would be a year and a half after the divorce judgment. Needless to say, Arlene appealed the decision, and the appeals court reversed it.
Why Was the Mother So Angry?
The appeals court’s decision did not go into all the details about the points of contention in the parties’ divorce case, but one disagreement was over whether the stocks and real estate that Garth owned in Jamaica were marital property or not. The appeals court indicated that at least some of the property must be marital, since Garth had bought it during the marriage, but it ordered the parties to resolve the dispute about the Jamaican assets before a court in Jamaica.
Let Us Help You Today
A Boca Raton divorce lawyer can help you increase your parenting time if your parenting plan is so restrictive that it interferes with your relationship with your children. Contact Schwartz | White for help with your case.
Resource:
scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=7636971198159260488&q=divorce+jamaica&hl=en&as_sdt=4,10&as_ylo=2011&as_yhi=2021
