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Advice needed daughter wondered off

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inhisname

Junior Member
Texas

I am a father of six kids ranging in age between 1yr. to 16yrs old.

Almost a month ago my 8 year got the idea she was going to walk to see her mother at her job about five miles from our home. I was upstairs at the time trying to get my 1 year old (who was being really fussy) to sleep. She got about 2 miles before found by the police. Thankfully she was ok except for a minor cut. In my 16 years as a parent I have never had anything like this happen before.

Not knowing what to do and being told by the officer that it would be filed to the DA, we got a lawyer. A week had gone by with nothing being filed by the police who I was told filed cases weekly.

My lawyer then called the police and the next day cps showed up at our house. After calling my lawyer they said they expected that and we set up a meeting with cps at the lawyers office. My wife and I were interviewed and then they interviewed the kids separetly and took pictures. The cps worker said she would call us that week to set up a time to do a home visit and she also wanted some numbers to people we know.

It has been almost two weeks since the meeting and the women from cps has not called us or any of the people who we gave phone numbers for. We have not heard anything from anyone.

My lawyer said they are trying to appease the police dept. so that they will not file the case. My lawyer seems to be wanting me to take parenting classes and wants my daughter who did this to undergo a psychological exam and get counseling.

I know that there are children who are truly neglected, but I have heard horror stories about cps. My lawyer seems to think that it would be ok to enter into a service plan with them if needed to keep the case from being filed, although they said they want to avoid it if they can. I have heard bad things about these service plans (one slip up, missed class, ect.) and cps can use this to take your kids away.

We really do not know what to expect. Wouldn't the police have filed the case if they thought they had one? Do they have a certain amount of time to file? Why is it taking cps so long to call us?
We have installed alarms on our doors to help insure nothing like this happens again.
Any suggestions or advice would be greatly appreciated as we have never gone though anything like this before.
If this belongs in a different forum please let me know and I'll post there.What is the name of your state?
 


Just Blue

Senior Member
Listen to your attorney. S/he is more knowledgeable of both your situation and the "workings" of your local CPS than we are...So listen to him/her.

The alarms are a good idea...And I think that the exam and parenting classes are a good idea. Certainly can't hurt, right? You also might want to consider hiring a teen from the neighborhood to "child-mind" so that if you are busy with the little one the other children are supervised. My daughter used to do this for our neighbor and she (neighbor) said it made her home much less stressful.

My lawyer seems to be wanting me to take parenting classes and wants my daughter who did this to undergo a psychological exam and get counseling.
 

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