Legal Question in Family Law in Utah

I have a parenting plan that was put in place by a GAL and has not been followed by the father for 2 years. My daughter is getting more and more confused, upset and unwilling to interact with her father because he is not consistent with his visits (every 4to6 months) and weekly Skype calls where he does not interact with her. I have tried emailing him, discussing it over Skype and am either hung up on, told he doesn't care because she only needs to know he exists or insults me as a mother. I have explained numerous times this is affecting our daughter and we need to coparent for her benefit. I get nothing from him. I am supposed to supervise visits until he comes 8 consecutive times which still has not happened in 2years and because of that, she will not interact with him whatsoever after the first few hours. I want to deny the visitation and Skype calls because this is not in her best interest when her father won't listen to my concerns or see what is going on with his lack of involvement. The GAL designed this PP because he had not been involved and wanted something in place where they could build a relationship. Do I have a right to deny visitation and contact until I can get this back to court? I just want a judge to enforce the PP or not allow him to see her so she has some sort of stability.


Asked on 12/28/13, 1:16 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
Alvin Lundgren Alvin R. Lundgren, L.C.

Do not assume the responsibility to enforce the visitation. If he ignores his visitation time do not make excuses for him. If your daughter refuses to interact with him, let that be his problem, after all he is the only one who can solve the problem.

Since he has not followed the visitation schedule tell him that he needs to provide an advance written schedule of when he wants to see the child. If he fails to show, just keep a record, but do not interact with him regarding his failure. The law requires you to make the child available for visits, nothing more. The record may be helpful if you ever seek to have him declared as abandoning his child.

You may want to consider a step parent adoption if there is a responsible party willing to adopt the child.

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Answered on 1/04/14, 8:05 am


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