What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Minnesota
My 10 year old daughter (in this case daughter of my girlfriend) has been misbehaving a lot lately and being extremely disrespectful.
Latest thing is that she feels her father can and will treat her better than her mother and I do.
I met this single mother who was taking care of her daughter 5 years ago and since that time, we have both been pretty much the sole provider for our daughter. At the time and up till now her mother has had sole custody of the child and the father has visitation rights for 1 Saturday a month. Not wanting to deprive the child of her father, we have been pretty lax about visitation and let him come and pick up his daughter whenever he wants which varies between being absent for a couple of months then wanting her for two weekends or so in another month. This man as multiple kids with different women and only attempts to see his kids when it suits him. We have been very generous over the years and have not collected a single penny from him in child support nor have we ever asked him to provide for his daughter. He did have to pay child support at one point before her mother and I met but as the story goes, he asked her to let him off as he could not afford it and she agreed to.
The problem is the little girl misbehaves and when she is disciplined, she says I am not her father and have no right to discipline her. She has been rude and disrespectful and some of the things she says leads us to believe that he says things to her when she visits with him that contributes to her behavior. She has behaved the same way at school in the past that resulted in her getting expelled from one school at such a young age. We've also taken the necessary steps by taking her to see a psychiatrist but she is old enough to be manipulative and only says what she thinks the psychiatrist wants to hear.
On the other hand her father pretends to be oblivious to what is going on claims that she never behaves that way at his home and that we are manufacturing things about his daughter even though I have taped her actions on numerous occasions. Strangely enough we let her spend last summer with him and within 3 weeks she was crying and begging to come back home. We had also enrolled her in summer schools and the same father called up complaining that he cannot handle her as she kept getting in trouble and was eventually also expelled from the summer program. Eventually we had to pick her up in the middle of summer as she did not want to be there and he was only too happy to hand her over.
In order to teach her a lesson her mother and I are debating the pros and cons of sending her to live with her father for 1 year as he claims he can take care of her better than we can.
We are almost certain that he will make a mess of it and she will finally see her father for who he really is but:
1. We are concerned of the legal aspects involved. At this time we do have full custody however we are concerned whether having her live with him will give him enough legal ground to try to fight us in court for custody of the kid.
2. He also lives in a seedy neighborhood where there has been a lot of violence and we really would not want our child to be exposed to such. Case in point. During the same summer vacation she spent with him earlier this year, she claims she saw a gun with another kid at the park. She also went to summer school and made the gesture of pointing a gun to a student's head and that was what ultimately led to her expulsion in addition to other acts.
3. We are also worried about the damage that will be done to her as a kid when living there for a year and what it will entail for us correct that.
My question to this forum is regarding the legal aspects according to Minnesota Law. Will he gain any legal advantage if we let her stay with him for an extended period of time?
Would we still have legal right to have her when we feel the time is right?
It is hard for her mother and I to let her go knowing what we know however we need to take action before she gets older and this becomes much harder.
My 10 year old daughter (in this case daughter of my girlfriend) has been misbehaving a lot lately and being extremely disrespectful.
Latest thing is that she feels her father can and will treat her better than her mother and I do.
I met this single mother who was taking care of her daughter 5 years ago and since that time, we have both been pretty much the sole provider for our daughter. At the time and up till now her mother has had sole custody of the child and the father has visitation rights for 1 Saturday a month. Not wanting to deprive the child of her father, we have been pretty lax about visitation and let him come and pick up his daughter whenever he wants which varies between being absent for a couple of months then wanting her for two weekends or so in another month. This man as multiple kids with different women and only attempts to see his kids when it suits him. We have been very generous over the years and have not collected a single penny from him in child support nor have we ever asked him to provide for his daughter. He did have to pay child support at one point before her mother and I met but as the story goes, he asked her to let him off as he could not afford it and she agreed to.
The problem is the little girl misbehaves and when she is disciplined, she says I am not her father and have no right to discipline her. She has been rude and disrespectful and some of the things she says leads us to believe that he says things to her when she visits with him that contributes to her behavior. She has behaved the same way at school in the past that resulted in her getting expelled from one school at such a young age. We've also taken the necessary steps by taking her to see a psychiatrist but she is old enough to be manipulative and only says what she thinks the psychiatrist wants to hear.
On the other hand her father pretends to be oblivious to what is going on claims that she never behaves that way at his home and that we are manufacturing things about his daughter even though I have taped her actions on numerous occasions. Strangely enough we let her spend last summer with him and within 3 weeks she was crying and begging to come back home. We had also enrolled her in summer schools and the same father called up complaining that he cannot handle her as she kept getting in trouble and was eventually also expelled from the summer program. Eventually we had to pick her up in the middle of summer as she did not want to be there and he was only too happy to hand her over.
In order to teach her a lesson her mother and I are debating the pros and cons of sending her to live with her father for 1 year as he claims he can take care of her better than we can.
We are almost certain that he will make a mess of it and she will finally see her father for who he really is but:
1. We are concerned of the legal aspects involved. At this time we do have full custody however we are concerned whether having her live with him will give him enough legal ground to try to fight us in court for custody of the kid.
2. He also lives in a seedy neighborhood where there has been a lot of violence and we really would not want our child to be exposed to such. Case in point. During the same summer vacation she spent with him earlier this year, she claims she saw a gun with another kid at the park. She also went to summer school and made the gesture of pointing a gun to a student's head and that was what ultimately led to her expulsion in addition to other acts.
3. We are also worried about the damage that will be done to her as a kid when living there for a year and what it will entail for us correct that.
My question to this forum is regarding the legal aspects according to Minnesota Law. Will he gain any legal advantage if we let her stay with him for an extended period of time?
Would we still have legal right to have her when we feel the time is right?
It is hard for her mother and I to let her go knowing what we know however we need to take action before she gets older and this becomes much harder.