Hello,
My step-daughter wants to live with her dad and I, problem is her mother has physical custody. She is 11 years old and her mothers fiancee' is cruel to her. She calls her dad crying, she is always stressed and it is just not a good environment for her. My husband, myself and my children are moving to Texas from Arizona my step-daughter lives in Arizona. She is begging her father to please take her out of the environment. This man makes her lay on her back and hold her arms and legs in the air for long periods of time. (Calls it the dead cockroach) to punish her, he yells at her and belittles her in front of his friends and in public. Now my husband is a big man and will do anything to protect his daughter, and I don't want him ending up hurting this guy for abusing his daughter. How in the world do we go about getting primary physical custody? She tells her dad she wants to tell the judge everything that is happening to her and tell him she wants to live with us. She can be herself around us and we love her with all of our hearts, and can not bare to see her in this tramatizing environment. We want what is in the best interest of her and we believe it would be with us. If anyone has advice please let me know. Thank you!!!

Mrs. Brown

First, any change is going to have to go through the courts, so dad needs to file a petiton for custody. Such petitions need to explicitly and succenctly spell out for the court what has CHANGED since the court ordered the current primary custody to mom. If there are allegations of abuse, then the court is going to want DOCUMENTATION of such abuse, such as photos of injuries, copies of police reports, or notes of calls placed to child protective services and the outcome of associated investigations.

Dad needs to be very realistic and understand that unless there is some over-riding reason for the court to CHANGE custody, when it has already ruled that the child should live with mom, such as PROOF of abuse or neglect (and no, emotional issues aren't going to count), the odds that a court will order a custody change with dad moving out of state are incredibly rare. I agree with you that allowing the fiance to dish out discipline is a terrible parenting decision on mom's part, and the court will likely tell mom so; but in and of itself, short of actual physical abuse, and not just punishment or discipline, I wouldn't expect that the fiances behavior as described here is going to alter custody (just being realistic). And make sure that dad understands that unless he is DIRECTLY intervening in physical abuse that is IN PROGRESS, any use of threats or violence against the fiance will completely SINK his chances for custody, regardless of what's happening at mom's. Courts simply refuse to "award" children to persons who use such methods to get the desired outcome. If he suspects that there has been such abuse in the past, then he needs to be reporting it to child protective services and let THEM document any potential issues - but it will only severaly hurt him if he tries to make it a do-it-yourself project.

__________________
While pointers can be helpful, ultimately the number one lesson in any legal action is: don't take legal advice from books, family, friends, co-workers, police officers, grocery clerks, web sites, or people on legal message boards. The only person who can give YOU legal advice is YOUR attorney.

http://www.aardvarc.org

I agree with aardvarc on this. 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.

See also: http://resources.lawinfo.com/en/Free...ona/index.html