Limitations on Timesharing are Rare and Usually Temporary

Are you in involved in a divorce or paternity action and feel that the other parent of your children should not be able to see your children because of the other parent’s bad behavior? Maybe the other parent smokes marijuana or drinks too much. Maybe they are addicted to pornography or gambling. Such behaviors, while relevant to the court’s determination of timesharing, don’t always result in the denial of timesharing by the other parent.

In order for the family law court to limit timesharing based on a parent’s conduct, the court must determine that the conduct is detrimental to the child. The parent asking the court to limit the other parent’s timesharing must present competent and substantial evidence to the court on this issue. This evidence will most likely have to consist of something more than the testimony of the parent seeking to have the other parent’s timesharing limited.

Even if the court determines that the conduct is detrimental to the children, it is unlikely that the court will deny timesharing altogether. Rather the court may order that the other parent’s timesharing be supervised until the other parent shows the court that they have changed their behavior so that it is no longer detrimental to the children.