What to Do When Your Ex Kidnaps Your Child
We have a lot of information on the online content of the course that will talk more about parental kidnapping, as well as international child abduction.
Basically, what you should know about both parental kidnapping and international child abduction, is that first it happens – and so you want to prepare yourself for that. There are certain preventative measures that you can take.
And then, second, regardless of whether it’s international or not, there are processes in place that allow you to get the child back. There may be an investigative period, there may be certain hoops you have to go through.
We discuss all of these things on the content on the online course. But just know that it can happen, it’s something you need to prepare for. There are certain things that you can do to prevent it, and also there are processes in place for you to employ to address it if it does happen during your custodial time and it’s something that you fear will happen to you.
Modifying a Child Custody Agreement
The last little bit of information we’re going to talk about with regard to child custody is this idea of modification. We always have the ability to modify child custody. Which is important, because children’s lives are always changing.
What works for the child when he is 3 does not work for the child when he is 10. Things are going to be different, extracurricular activities are going to start to happen, friendships are going to start to blossom. There’re going to be things happening in the child’s life that are going to change.
Along those same lines, things are going to happen in your life that are going to change too. You’re going to change employment, you may move, you may remarry, you may have other children. There’s lots of things that are going to happen that may warrant some sort of revisiting or modification of what your original custody agreement or your original custody order says.
There are 2 ways in which a court will consider modifying a custody order. The first is if there’s a history of repeated violations. Say you have a custody order in place and one parent has made a history of just repeatedly violating that order. That’s going to be grounds for you to ask for a modification of that order.
Another way that you can ask for a modification is if there’s a substantial change in circumstance. Those are the things we’ve been talking about already. If a parent moves, the child is getting older and the needs of the child are changing. If a parent has a new job that has certain travel opportunities that’s going to change the schedule that needs to take place for the child. New relationships, these are all things that can be grounds for a modification of the existing order.
What you need to know is that child custody is always modifiable. Don’t think that whatever you agreed to today, or whatever the Judge orders today is going to be the same thing that you have to abide by from here into perpetuity. You always have the ability to modify that child custody order, and in most cases people do. Frequently revisit as things change, as their lives change, and as the lives of their children change.
