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Waukegan

2835 Belvidere Road
Suite 202
Waukegan, IL 60085

(847) 520-8100

Appointments available Friday:
9:00 AM - 1:00 PM
Saturday 8:00 AM - 11:30 AM
Please call for scheduling

Visitation Schedule

David Siegel: It's easy enough to do with a schedule that calls for odd/even years and things like that. A lot of times – let's talk about men in this circumstance where they get the extended visitation, where they might not even exercise a visitation, or at least they have the right to have that extended visitation. Have you seen Waukegan divorce cases like that where a woman, a custodial mother will say, "He's not exercising the visitation, so therefore I'm going to refuse it now."

Jesse Barrientes: I've seen certainly the first half of it, and what's really funny is just yesterday someone came in to my office and asked me if he had to exercise his extended visitation. My response was, "They can't make you exercise visitation. It may prejudice your rights later on, but they can't make you. However, these are your children, and if you can't spend the time – if you're ___ for work, or out of state or something like that, okay, that's understandable, and you do what you can. But those are your children, and there needs to be a connection even after the relationship in the marriage has been severed with both of the parties. That's really the only way to ensure a healthy—"

David Siegel: And the children come to expect your visitation as the non-custodial parent.

Jesse Barrientes: Sure.

David Siegel: They're hearing from the custodial parent that your father has weekend visitation this weekend, so if it's not accepted, or it's breached, it's going to cause some scars there.

Jesse Barrientes: Right. It's going to hurt, and especially it's ____ and I want to see my dad or my mom as the case may be, because it could be either way, and it's a disappointment. It's kind of a let down if that doesn't happen. What's really important is for the other parent, and we stress this. This isn't just for joint parenting folks, or situations, but for all types of things. Neither parent should really talk bad or bad mouth the other parent in the presence of the children. They should just talk complimentary and positively about that other parent. What it does is when you talk bad about somebody, the child is going to pick up on that, and that's called "parental alienation." You really don’t want to do that, and you essentially turn the children against the other parent.

David Siegel: Right. If that's happening, you can go in to court and seek an order from the judge that that kind of conduct be prohibited. If you violate it you can be back and ruled to show cause and held in contempt. It is very important that it's taken very seriously. Let's get back to custody.

Mediation

When mediation is best

Mediating child issues

Cost of mediation

Success of mediation

Benefits of mediation

Proceeding past mediation

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