What are the legal rights of a parent that have custody of a child? What can and can't they do?

[Colin]

Have a family member that is having trouble with his custody of his child. He can see his son every other weekend and when alloud to by the mother but he recently lost his job twice in the past month and was unable to pay child support. The mother is keeping his son away and wont even let him talk to his son. They monitor his facebook so even that doesn't work. What can he do?

[LINDA R]

He must follow the child custody orders, signed by the judge. However, weither he's working or not is NOT in the orders. All he can do is complain to a lawyer but he must still pay what he owes.

[Judith]

He can take her to court. Payment of child support and visitation are two separate issues.

[CaCO3Girl]

He needs to file for a reduction in child support, this is very common now for when people loose their jobs. It will basically put the child support on hold until he gets a job and that way they won't suspend his license or anything.

He then needs to file contempt papers on her, in them he can list that he has filed for the child support reduction but she is refusing visitation based on no child support being paid. He can also demand make up time...i would ask for double, like the entire Christmas vacation or all of next summer. This is also common because MANY woman feel that unless the support is paid you have no right to see your kid but that isn't how the law works, and it typically pisses off Judges when parents do that.

Just because you can't pay because of an extenuating circumstance doesn't mean that isn't still your kid and they need to hug you.....man, she is in for it if he files the Judge will eat her alive!!!