This is a case of Y.R. a child who is the subject of a recent custody case between her two parents. Apparently, her parents could not find the perfect time for her to visit her father because there are times when he is out of the state for some business trips and other trips of some sort. According to one of the lawyer’s handling the custody case, the child has started to show signs of emotional stress and frustration whenever her father fails to comply with the scheduled visitations whenever he is out of the state.
It is important for any legal custody case or in this case, a custody case that only focuses on some minute details when it comes to the schedule of visitation and the commitment of the parties involved in implementing it, to put the interests and welfare of the child at the center of the discussions . In this case, however, it can be seen that what caused the problem was the apparent lack of interest of the parties involved, Mr. Rodriguez to be specific, to follow the previously agreed upon schedule.
It should be noted, however, that despite his busy and frequently changing schedule, he still wants to be able to exercise his right and his daughter’s right to see each other and spend time together. The best solution in this case would be to just scrap the detailed schedule that has been previously put in place because clearly it is not being followed and given the circumstances, Mr. Robinson would not be able to follow such a very fixed and rather static schedule.
The same may even be true for the child and her mother. One important factor to consider is the fact that the child is still schooling and it may be safe to assume that her schooling would cause frequent changes on her schedule too. The mother’s availability for visits and other parts of her commitment to the previously agreed upon schedule should be taken into consideration. Pooling all of these factors and variables together, the best and apparently only remaining option would be to implement a dynamic or a non-fixed schedule for both the parents and the child so that the child would not be frustrated whenever she learns that one of her parents failed to come and visit her on their respective scheduled visits for some reason.
This, in general, best serves the interest of the child and also the parents. The legal custody council must, however, must be strict when it comes to the minimum and maximum number of required visits for each parent because they would not want either of the parents or guardians to abuse the laxity or the dynamicity of the new custody or visiting schedules.
Apart from this, all the other previously established aspects of the custody and visiting agreement should remain in place such as the disapproval of Ms. Burt of the idea to let the child fly alone during her scheduled visits to her father, among others; Mr. Rodriguez will also be still slowed to stay with her child for 4 weeks during the summer at his residence in Washington State, and travel with his child for a maximum of 14 days for the entire year.
The only thing that has been changed in our new custody or visitation agreement is the fixation of the schedule—which we already removed due to the constraints on the involved parties’ schedule. We believe that by implementing this new dynamic schedule and retaining all the other previously agreed upon aspects of the agreement apart from it, we are serving the best interests and the welfare of the child.
Summary: Why it is important for the father to commit to the custody agreements
- His child Y.R. is already showing signs of emotional stress the first few times they were not able to meet for the visit
- He still has responsibility both financial and paternal (as a parent) to the child even after getting divorced.
- He himself wants to see and spend time with his daughter
- Then again, the main focus of the custody agreements should not be the either one of the parents but rather the child. In this case, however, everyone, and not just the child benefits because of the new easily agreeable and dynamic schedule.
Works Cited
Ball, K. and M. Kucinski. "Guidelines for Direct Child Involvement in Contested Custody Litigation." American Journal of Family Law (2014): 143-147.
Hetrick, K. "Sharing the Caring: Trends in Child Custody." Business Source Complete (2014): 10.
