Custody and Communication: Addressing Phone Restrictions Between Homes
I’ve got a phone for my son, but my ex won’t allow it at her house. I am Tulsa attorney James Wirth, that’s the question that we have. So it sounds like we’ve got some parties that have split. Sounds like we’ve got an order in place that grants them each physical custody time, the child’s going back and forth between mom and dad. Dad buys a phone for the child so that he can communicate when the child is with mom, and so that mom can communicate with the child when the child is with dad. So that works great when the child is with dad, but now he’s finding out when the child is with mom, mom doesn’t allow him to have the phone, doesn’t allow the phone to go over there.
So he doesn’t get the benefit of the purpose that he got the phone, which is so that they can maintain good contact when the child is away. So what can be done about this? Okay, so first off, the general rule. The general rule is that when we’re talking about custody, we’re talking about legal decision making. There’s about five big legal decisions that if the sole custodian, if one party is the sole custodian, they make those big decisions. The parties have joint custody, then they have to agree on those decisions.
Considering Joint Custody Plans
But if it doesn’t fall within one of those five main things, then it’s not determined by who the legal custodian is, it’s determined by who has physical custody at that time. So we’re not talking about where the child’s gonna be, what church the child’s gonna be a member of. We’re not talking about elective medical procedures. We’re not talking about where the child goes to school. We’re not talking about those big things. We’re talking about can the child have a phone? So the general rule is that’s gonna be determined by the parent that has physical custody at that time or visitation at that time.
So if the kid’s with mom, mom doesn’t want the kid to have the phone, mom’s not gonna have the kid with the phone. That’s the default. However, if it’s joint custody, there should be a joint child custody plan. And that joint child custody plan can have all kinds of particular rules that were either agreed upon by the parties or ordered by the judge.
Exploring Solutions for Phone Access
So you wanna look in that document to see if it says anything about phones. If so, then you go by what that says. If not, maybe it might make sense to file for a modification to address that specific issue and get a ruling on that issue. But then we come down to the circumstance where it is expensive and time consuming to go to court. And if we’re talking small parenting issues like this, that frequently come up, it’s not practical to hire a Tulsa child custody attorney, file with the court, wait forever to get in there, have your hearing before a judge, and then get a decision from the judge on it.
For little stuff like this, my recommendation is always get a parenting coordinator. So that may make sense to do in this case. So you can file an application to appoint a parenting coordinator. Then the judge can appoint that parenting coordinator after hearing from the other side. And that parenting coordinator can help decide these little issues.
Get Legal Guidance for Your Specific Case
So if you’re dealing with this, though, there are circumstances that could be particularly your case that changes the rules a little bit. So you wanna talk to a Tulsa family law attorney privately, confidentially about that. To get that scheduled with an attorney at Wirth Law Office in Tulsa, you can go online to makelaweasy.com or call 918-879-1681 for a low-cost initial strategy session.
