Florida - The dad is not providing 12 year old boy with a bedroom

[JICQuestion]

State: Florida
Divorced parents, joint custody
At mom's the 12 yo boy has a bed and bedroom area, not fully0 enclosed, it is a solid divider, but has a bed, table, dresser, armoire, shelves for toys
The dad does not have a bedroom, the boy is provided with a bed which is next to the couple's bed (he is re-married) He does have his own dresser with drawers

Is this ok? Is he required to provide the boy with his own bedroom? At 12 he will start to require some privacy. He stays 7 days in each household.
What do you recommend? Thank you

 

[stealth2]

What is Dad's housing situation?

 

[JICQuestion]

What is Dad's housing situation?

He lives with his wife and two older kids from her previous marriage: girl age 16 boy age 17 I believe. They live in a 3 bedroom apartment. They rent

 

[Just Blue]

State: Florida
Divorced parents, joint custody
At mom's the 12 yo boy has a bed and bedroom area, not fully0 enclosed, it is a solid divider, but has a bed, table, dresser, armoire, shelves for toys
The dad does not have a bedroom, the boy is provided with a bed which is next to the couple's bed (he is re-married) He does have his own dresser with drawers

Is this ok? Is he required to provide the boy with his own bedroom? At 12 he will start to require some privacy. He stays 7 days in each household.
What do you recommend? Thank you

Who are you in this situation?

 

[JICQuestion]

What is Dad's housing situation?

On my original post I meant to say the dad does not have a bedroom for the boy at this apartment
One bedroom is for the girl (age 16 or 17)
one-bedroom for the boy (age 17 or 18)
one-bedroom with two beds; one for the couple and one my son who is 12

 

[JICQuestion]

Who are you in this situation?

I am the mom, I live in a one-bedroom apartment with my son. I added a divider in what it would be the living room and created a bedroom for him

 

[JICQuestion]

I have no idea if this is relevant, my son is autistic. what people call high functioning

 

[Just Blue]

Both Mom and Dads' situations are perfectly legal, if that is what you are asking here.

 

[JICQuestion]

Both Mom and Dads' situations are perfectly legal, if that is what you are asking here.

Yes, thank you, I wanted to know if Florida would require a child to have his/her own bedroom. I know it is a foster care requirement, but I guess it does not apply to children living with legal guardians or parents. So we are good then/

 

[LdiJ]

State: Florida
Divorced parents, joint custody
At mom's the 12 yo boy has a bed and bedroom area, not fully0 enclosed, it is a solid divider, but has a bed, table, dresser, armoire, shelves for toys
The dad does not have a bedroom, the boy is provided with a bed which is next to the couple's bed (he is re-married) He does have his own dresser with drawers

Is this ok? Is he required to provide the boy with his own bedroom? At 12 he will start to require some privacy. He stays 7 days in each household.
What do you recommend? Thank you

I think its seriously problematic to have a 12 year old sleeping in the same room as a married couple, 7 days out of 14. However, I am not sure that a "bedroom" area in mom's home is necessarily adequate either. If its off the living room and there is a door between mom's room and where son is sleeping then that might be ok, but its in the same room as mom and just divided off then I am not any more comfortable than dad's arrangement.

Both parents really need to provide a second bedroom so son has his own room...or have him share with a same sex sibling or step sibling.

In my household there are 2 children week 1, 4 children week 2, and 6 children every other weekend. The kids have two bedrooms. The three boys have a bunk bed set that is a full bed on the bottom and a twin on the top. The three girls have the same set up. Each bedroom has a huge dresser and each child has his/her own drawers. The closets are also large. The set up works and is sensible.

 

[LdiJ]

Yes, thank you, I wanted to know if Florida would require a child to have his/her own bedroom. I know it is a foster care requirement, but I guess it does not apply to children living with legal guardians or parents. So we are good then/

The state would not required that he have his own bedroom, but social services might be more comfortable with him sharing with his stepbrother rather than sharing with dad and stepmom.

 

[Taxing Matters]

Both parents really need to provide a second bedroom so son has his own room...or have him share with a same sex sibling or step sibling.

You are imposing your values on the situations of others. The law does not require each kid to have his own room. Nor can everyone provide for that. Neither the mother's nor the father's arrangements here are illegal.

In my household there are 2 children week 1, 4 children week 2, and 6 children every other weekend. The kids have two bedrooms. The three boys have a bunk bed set that is a full bed on the bottom and a twin on the top. The three girls have the same set up. Each bedroom has a huge dresser and each child has his/her own drawers. The closets are also large. The set up works and is sensible.

That's great that it works for you. But again, your situation is not the same as everyone else.

The state would not required that he have his own bedroom, but social services might be more comfortable with him sharing with his stepbrother rather than sharing with dad and stepmom.

Social Services officials need to learn that their comfort and their values are not what matters. Families are free to provide all kinds of living arrangements to suit their needs so long as it does not result in abuse or severe neglect. I dislike the trend in some places where state officials impose their own arbitrary standards of what is a acceptable on every one else. It is not the role of the state to play parent and decide what is appropriate for every family.

 

[JICQuestion]

I think its seriously problematic to have a 12 year old sleeping in the same room as a married couple, 7 days out of 14. However, I am not sure that a "bedroom" area in mom's home is necessarily adequate either. If its off the living room and there is a door between mom's room and where son is sleeping then that might be ok, but its in the same room as mom and just divided off then I am not any more comfortable than dad's arrangement.

Both parents really need to provide a second bedroom so son has his own room...or have him share with a same sex sibling or step sibling.

In my household there are 2 children week 1, 4 children week 2, and 6 children every other weekend. The kids have two bedrooms. The three boys have a bunk bed set that is a full bed on the bottom and a twin on the top. The three girls have the same set up. Each bedroom has a huge dresser and each child has his/her own drawers. The closets are also large. The set up works and is sensible.

What I basically did was to dedicate the living room to be his bedroom, and the divider creates visual privacy from the rest of the apartment. There is indeed a door, actually a little corridor and then a door from his bedroom to my room.
Since there is no legal recourse, there is no motivation to call social services on the dad, this would only create tension with all members of the family.
The child is well taken care of and he himself has not complained about the lack of bedroom yet.

 

[LdiJ]

What I basically did was to dedicate the living room to be his bedroom, and the divider creates visual privacy from the rest of the apartment. There is indeed a door, actually a little corridor and then a door from his bedroom to my room.
Since there is no legal recourse, there is no motivation to call social services on the dad, this would only create tension with all members of the family.
The child is well taken care of and he himself has not complained about the lack of bedroom yet.

Then its not really an issue yet. However, I suspect that it will become one at dad house in the not too distant future.

 

[LdiJ]

You are imposing your values on the situations of others. The law does not require each kid to have his own room. Nor can everyone provide for that. Neither the mother's nor the father's arrangements here are illegal.

No I am not imposing my values. It has nothing to do with values. It has to do with the normal privacy issues with adolescents and the normal relationship between married couples. Its not workable on a long term basis for an adolescent or teen to share a bedroom with a married couple. Its either going to cause issues with the adolescent or teen or its going to have a negative impact on the marriage of the couple.

That's great that it works for you. But again, your situation is not the same as everyone else.

It works because its sensible and it is actually signed off on by social services, when the mother of some of the children decided to sic social services on my daughter and her boyfriend for two many children and not enough bedrooms. The caseworker was actually quite impressed that my daughter and her boyfriend had set things up so sensibly.

Social Services officials need to learn that their comfort and their values are not what matters. Families are free to provide all kinds of living arrangements to suit their needs so long as it does not result in abuse or severe neglect. I dislike the trend in some places where state officials impose their own arbitrary standards of what is a acceptable on every one else. It is not the role of the state to play parent and decide what is appropriate for every family.

Your are preaching to the choir on that. However, reality IS that social services gets involved in the lives of many children of separated parents. If things have been set up the most sensibly for the situation the parents are dealing with it goes a long way towards making social services go away.

In this particular case Teenage daughter gets her own room, teenage son gets his own room and adolescent son shares with dad and stepmom. The more sensible arrangement would be for teenage son and 12 year old to share a room. I am quite sure than teenage son would not be happy about that but it's still the most sensible.