I don't know where else to ask. In the court papers it was clear my ex had to drive my kids to school. One would think ok dad takes his kids to school right? In this case my ex is taking my kids to school late almost everyday my older daughter now 17 is about to graduate this year and thanks to her father taking her late the Dean sent a letter home about this. I addressed it to my ex he never responded. Yesterday it was pouring I was at work my older daughter sent me a text that her father called her and told her to take my youngest (9) to school which is approx. 7 blocks away, she advised her father it was raining he told her to take her anyway. My 17 yr old sent me the text after she had already taken my 9yr old to school and of course my eldest missed school yesterday. This is not the first time he has made her miss school she's an honor student that is actually passed her credits to graduate and now he's hindering her last year of school. the second order in the court papers is that he's not to drink in front of our kids yet he still does to the point that on one weekend he had them over he was so drunk he passed out in front of my girls and (a friend) of his brought them home. I don't know what to do at this point. My 9 yr old a few days ago said she doesn't want to go to her dads because when it's his weekend with them he goes to parties and drinks of course he takes her and drinks to the point that he has passed out in front of my 9 yr old in other occasions. I just don't know how to approach this anymore I have tried talking to him but he doesn't listen. He's a poor example of a father her promised my 9 yr old he would go to parent conference and never showed up. He's done very little to calm my 9 yr old's pain.

Sorry if this is long I just need to bring all to the table.

You have some very specific court orders. If dad is in violation of those orders, the only way the court will know is if you TELL the judge what's going on. Apparantly dad is violating at least two important parts: first, he's in contempt in regard to property getting the children to school, and, apparantly in violation of the no-drinking clause.

Now, once the court finds out what's going on, several things can happen:

(a) the judge can shake a finger and tell him to not do it again, or

(b) the judge can yell at him to not do it again, or

(c) the judge can threaten to be meaner if he does it again, including the threat to put him in jail for a few days to think about it, or

(d) if dad has some history of being found in contempt of the court's order, the judge might impose a little jail time now to get their point across - however, jailing a custodial parent is usually a VERY extreme sanction, and one that typically not seen except in very serious repreated offenses, or

(e) the court can consider some other course of action that might be requested, for example, by you - such as asking that the children live with you.

In other words, the court can't FORCE people to behave a certain way. They can only either penalize them for doing so (which in family court is usually limited to a verbal thrashing), or can take away their ability to behave in the bad manner, such as by putting the children elsewhere.

So your course of action is to file a motion for contempt, let the court know what's going on, and either ask the court to sanction dad or modify custody.

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I agree with aardvarc. Have you browsed through the information in LawInfo's Free Legal Resource Center to learn more about your issue yet? See: http://www.lawinfo.com/consumer.html and http://resources.lawinfo.com/en/index.html. You can certainly try to speak to a lawyer to determine what legal options may be available. In the meantime, you may be able to learn more on your own. Search the "Free Legal Resources" tab, or browse the Consumer Resources. Good luck.