Joint legal custody

From Michigan

My husband has a 5 year old son from a previous relationship, they were never married. He does have joint legal custody. My question is....can the boy's mother legally agree to have him put on a "long term stimulate", such as Ritalin, without the proper evaluation of a Doctor and consent from the father? My husband has already told her that he doesn't want his son on a drug like that without a proper evaluation. His son has not been properly evaluated, according to the AAP's guidelines for diagnosis and treatment for ADHD. The child has very few characteristics of ADHD. My husband has told the doctor that he wants his son removed from the medication, but his concerns were ignored by the doctor and by the child's mother. We would like to know what to do.

I noticed no one responded to you and I know I may not be of much help since I am in Indiana. But my husband has a joint custody order. Check out your court order where cutody was established and see if it states that both are to decide the medical concerns of the child. If not you can do what we did and set up an appointment with the childs doctor with or without the mother to let him know your concerns and let him decide if the child should be on it. Our county guidelines state that the non-custodial parent has the right to communicate with the childs doctors with or without the custodial parents approval. Check your guidelines for that. Hope this helps a little. We are seeing what we can do about my stepson being put on 2 heavy antideppressants as well as ADHD medicine.

Thank you. I do appreciate your input.
We have set up an appointment with my step-son's doctor. Since I posted my question things have gotten really out of control. The Doctor that prescribed the medication wasn't his Primary Care Physician. And he has been recently taken off the medication due to it causing visual hallucinations. We also found out that the scholl had no knowlwdge of it until recently, basically after the fact. Needless to say this will be a physical custody case soon.

I wish you luck in trying to get custody. I have seen the courts favor the mother with little regard to her character and bad influence. It is just so hard to prove to the courts that the children can sometimes be better off without the mother. My husbands ex is a manic depressant and though I dont put down everyone with this illness I only put her down. She doesnt take her meds to control it or she takes an over abundance of meds. She basically sounds crazy everytime we talk to her. She has their son on 2 antideppressants which are harmful to mix and at adult dosages. The 2 meds are prescribed by 2 different psychiatrists so likely one doesnt know about the other. And his ADHD med is bad to mix with the other 2. We cant go for custody though I am sure we could win because he poses a threat to his little sister that doesnt even know she has a brother. So we are basically stuck between a rock and a hard place. But I hope you travels with this illness and ex-wife are far better than ours has been.