Visitation Laws

by Jeff
(Papillion, NE, USA)

I am the father of a 16 year old boy. His mother and I were divorced when he was 7. Initially she had primary custody of him and i was paying child support and taking advantage of every opportunity to visit him.

Her living conditions deteriorated (she went out and partied all the time and had teenagers babysitting him often) She eventually came to me and asked me to take primary custody of him because she felt she was unable to take care of him.

I had the order changed awarding me primary custody and visitation for the mother. She was ordered to pay child support which she had not done for years (I finally got garnishments from her checks for support) Thoughout grade school and Junior High, she never attended any function, program, recital, or sporting event that my son was involved in.

She did take him on weekends once in a while, but the time spent with him was not quality time. Mostly him in front of a video game while she went to work or handled some personal business. About 2 years ago, she moved about 5 and a half hours away to another state. My son is now 16 years old. She called me to request to take him over the summer.

I believe part of this stems from a child support modification order that was recently done by the Nebraska child support services office.

The problem with her request for the entire summer seems unreasonable, mainly because my son is busier than the average 16 year old. He is involved in summer activities (band camp and marching band practice, Show choir camp, summer PE classes to make up credits for all the electives he took over the school year, and he is looking for a job) He does not want to spend the entire summer there, but he would like to visit for a week.


The only real availability he has is the first week after the school year or the last week of June. I am going to communicate all of this with her, but I know she will be selfish and insist that she has a right to him for the whole summer. I know this is not the case, but what I want to know is what exactly are her visitation rights.

She now lives an 11 hrs (round trip from us, so she gave up her regular weekend visitation rights when she did that. My feeling is that aside from being a lousy parent, she more or less abandoned him when she moved so far away. She did not have any reason to move such as a job, other than that she liked the area and wanted to live there.

I have no issue with her visiting for a week provided she provides transportation to and from. My question is whether she is entitled to more, or is she even entitled to what I am willing to give her?

Thanks for your assistance.