Legal Question in Family Law in Tennessee

Re: Age that child can refuse visitation

What can you do? You can tell the child to get ready and go off to visit Dad.

If the child "refuses" to go to school do you say, "Sure, stay home today and smoke dope with your friends"?

If you do not make your best effort to get the child to go for visitation, you can and SHOULD be found in contempt of court, and that finding could result in the court either ordering you to pay the other parent's attorney's fees or sending you to jail or changing primary parenting responsibility of the child -- in other words sending the child to live with the other parent.

If your child is out of control and is only 14 you have issues far greater than an attorney can help with, but ultimately if the child absolutely refuses to comply, file an Unruly Petition against the child in Juvenile Court.

Now, to answer the question of WHEN the child can decide whether to see or speak to or spend time with the other parent, it is at age 18, when the child becomes an adult.