PTSD

You dare me, you try to scare me

Can an allocation of parental rights and responsibilities be modified?

The court shall not modify a prior decree allocating parental rights and responsibilities for the care of children unless it finds, based on facts that have arisen since the prior decree or that were unknown to the court at the time of the prior decree, that a change has occurred in the circumstances of the child, his/her residential parent, or either of the parents subject to a shared parenting decree, and that the modification is necessary to serve the best interest of the child. In applying these standards, the court shall retain the residential parent designated by the prior decree or the prior shared parenting decree, unless a modification is in the best interest of the child and one of the following applies:

▪ The residential parent agrees to a change in the residential parent or both parents under a shared parenting decree agree to a change in the designation of residential parent.

▪ The child, with the consent of the residential parent or of both parents under a shared parenting decree, has been integrated into the family of the person seeking to become the residential parent.

▪ The harm likely to be caused by a change of environment is outweighed by the advantages of the change of environment to the child.

The Genius Nephew's life falls under none of these changes in circumstance. His father is an ass, but that's hardly a reason that GN should be forced to live with him and his girlfriend. Nor is it something that is new since the last agreement. Given this, I'm unclear what filing for custody of GN gets the guy other than pissing off my smart, stubborn, newly-employed-as-a-school-psychologist sister.

And my mother, who is even scarier. And me, for that matter, although in this case I'd say that I'm the one *least* likely to rip off a crucial piece of his equipment and feed it to the kid's pet fish.

If I weren't so very, very, very angry, I'd almost feel sorry for the guy. I'm not sure he's really thought this through, and I'm absolutely positive he doesn't really understand what he's in for.

posted by Elizabeth @ 6:36 PM