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reignjones
Asked: 2022-05-23T22:04:53+00:00 In:

if my child’s father is paying child support can I get its rights terminated?

State Pennsylvania: without goin into ALOT of details about why …. if your child’s father is sometimes paying child support does that stop me from being able to take him to court to get his rights terminated?

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    14 Answers

    1. Child support isn’t relevant to having their rights terminated. You have to prove them to be an unfit parent. A judge will tell you upfront, that nonpayment of support isn’t a reason to withhold the child and has nothing to do with his visitation rights. If all he’s doing is being sketchy about child support, the most you can do is have him arrested for nonpayment. And they require them to be so far behind and not make payments for so long before they will issue a bench warrant for it. He’s making the bare minimum to keep himself from going to jail over it

    2. oh no he’s doing more then just not paying child support that’s honestly the least of my worries but a friend of mine said if he’s paying which he does when he feels like it that I can’t take him back for a modification to terminate his rights so I was curious if that was true before I spend all this time an money bringing him back to court

    4. I was told I needed to prove him unfit. Being a child molester, being in a relationship with one, child abuse, child neglect, active drug addiction, or something along those lines. Not paying support has absolutely nothing to do with visitation or custody issues. Whether he pays or doesn’t wouldn’t matter. My ex went years without paying. Didn’t matter. He goes years without seeing my daughter but still has visitation rights. Never sees her, his choice, but he has visitation rights. I don’t know what all he’s done so I can’t really say if you could get his rights terminated or not. But they won’t terminate them for nonpayment and they won’t NOT terminate them because he occasionally pays if you have proof of a legit reason to have them terminated. My examples were just examples. I’m sure they’re not the only reasons to have rights terminated. But you can have them terminated if you have a good enough reason regardless if he pays a little, pays it all the time, or never pays it.

    5. The courts are not going to terminate his rights unless there is someone else to take them.

    7. Best Answer

      You would have to prove abandonment or him being unfit. It is VERY hard to terminate someone’s parental rights. You’d honestly have a better chance of having him sign over his rights. But that too depends on your state. They’re gonna look at it as another child the state/government has to provide for. Like the above comment stated

      The courts are not going to terminate his rights unless there is someone else to take them.
      Like an active step parent, but I think there is requirement on that, too, like how long you have been married, etc.

    8. is right. My ex tried to sign over his rights. The judge wouldn’t let him unless I had someone willing to adopt her. If he signed his rights over and I had gotten on all kinds of government assistance, they’d have nobody to hold financially responsible. They may let him sign his rights over if she has someone willing to sign adoption papers assuming he’s willing to do that

    10. NAL but my oldest daughter’s father tried to sign his rights over to get out of paying support and I was told by a lawyer that he could sign his rights over but it would not exempt him from paying support unless I got married and that person would be willing to adopt her.

    11. I don’t understand why you need to have someone adopt them I mean my fiance soon to be husband wants to but I don’t understand why it’s needed I been doing it by myself for 3 years now without them having a dad so why does him being removed matter

    13. because if something happens to where you’re unemployed or make significantly less monet and need state assistance they don’t have anybody to go after to get some of their money back

    14. oh .. I never knew you had to pay any state help back so that’s new information for me thank you and I can only imagine how hard it is to get someone else approved to adopt my fiance who I r been with two an half years wants to but their bio dad is not having it

    16. He will have had to not seen the child for a certain period of time as well as not paid child support for it to be considered abandonment. The courts may be flexible but it all depends on what the argument is.

    17. I feel like most of you think that I’m worried about the child support …was not my focus idc if he pays it or not my question was only if he is on child support does that decrease my chances of having his rights terminated…..maybe I need to give a few more details my reason for seeking full custody with him having no rights is because we were married recently divorced my doing not his we separated because he was physically and mentally abusive and he still has an abuse problem recently arrested for abusing his current girlfriend as well as cys involvement for abuse towards her kids he also emotionally abuses our kids still my oldest hasn’t spoke to him in almost a year because she is no comfortable with him an fears any reaction she will get out of him my youngest goes back n forth with wanting to talking to him when his dad actually does call we have a current order he had supervised visits that he dropped after a month back in August of 2021 had only seen my youngest 1 time since then for 2 minutes an hasn’t seen my oldest at all he has court ordered phone calls daily that he doesn’t make he will go weeks even months sometimes with no calls then he does call an my youngest does t want to talk to him because u just went m.i.a on ur kids for weeks so his dad will call him names an make him feel bad for not wanting to talk to him their dad is in no way beneficial to their life’s he doesn’t even ask about my oldest anymore when he does call and he’s in an out of jail lately for abuse an drug charges I basically already have full custody I just want his calls on visits dropped completely an him to have no rights which is basically what I have right now he only has shared legal which makes it hard for me to get counseling an other things for the kids at times because most places around here require consent from both parents to treat if he has legal rights …he is on CS however he doesn’t pay it half the time he actually currently has a bench warrant for not following his contempt order for CS but I’m not worried about the money he’s not paying any ways I’m doin it solo an honestly prefer it that way over him Poppin in an out an emotionally damaging my kids

    19. I’m sorry if you thought I felt that way, I was just speaking from what I’ve seen first hand. I completely understand where you’re coming from, as I’m a mom myself, however, they aren’t just gonna terminate his rights (usually) even if he were abusive to the kids. They will recommend counseling, therapy, supervised visitation, etc before that’s even a thought. I honestly think you’d be better off asking him to sign his rights over. But, again, the state probably won’t allow either because there HAS to be someone financially responsible for the kids. And I do not mean that in a demeaning way towards you whatsoever. Good luck! I would prob keep an actual log of how long it’s been Since he’s called/ exercised his visitation rights etc. and speak to your lawyer.

    20. oh no ur good an appreciate all feed back good or bad I’m am most definitely keeping a log already as well as monitoring what calls he does make …I honestly do not understand why someone has to adopt a child or why that is a main concern if one parent is already doing both parents jobs to me that makes no sense but I don’t make the laws he was supposed to do parenting classes an he had supervised visits at a facility that did counseling reunification but again he stopped the visits after a month an hasn’t bothered to reinstate then or try to take me back to get other visitation hrs basically pulled himself from their life’s already his legal rights are the only thing still bonding him to the kids an he doesn’t even do that if I call about counseling for the kids he just says they don’t need counseling luckily I found a place that will do it without his ok but Im looking at future situations as well what if one of the kids needs surgery or something big that requires his ok too and he either can’t be reached or doesn’t agree as well as him popping in an out an being rude or hurting their feelings when he is in contact I feel like maybe not now but down the road that is going to take a toll on them emotionally and it’s not fair to them it shouldnt be ok for any parent to only parent when it’s convenient for them where they can just come an go as they please it does more damage then good