Legal Question in Family Law in Illinois

Child custody/joint custody

I have joint custody of my 15yr son and 17yr daugther. Their father has residential custody and the children would like to live with me or live between homes 50/50 we live less than 2 minutes from each other. Their father does not want me to have more visitation than what I have and has fought me tooth and nail. It was my decission to allow them to live with their dad. At that time I didn't have a great attorney and did not know I had 2 years to get the kids back with out a fight. Their father has told them that he will call the police and the police will take them to foster care if they do not return to his home from visitation with me. Is this accurate? Also can the children request a court date themselves to change visitation? I was already told by the judge not to return to court with out an attorney but I can't afford one.


Asked on 10/17/07, 3:01 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Peter Olson The Olson Law Firm, LLC

Re: Child custody/joint custody

A couple thoughts at different levels...as a legal matter you need to get visitation modified. Bring a Petition to Modify Visitation and see what the court does with it.

The foster care stuff is balony, ignore it. If you ignore the court's order the potential worst case scenario would be father calling the police and potential arrest for visitation abuse. Also, the domestic relations court might hold you in contempt. Having been on both sides of these situations I think the best solution when kids are older is for them to make life miserable for the residential parent and in a sense force the issue themselves...if that's what they want.

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Answered on 10/18/07, 9:30 am


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