Supervised visitation is an order given by the Court for a timetable and a person or persons to attend the visit with the non custodial parent and the child at a place designated for the visit to take place. This is as a result of parents who cannot resolve issues in their relationship due to a number of factors and so usually the custodial parent will go to Court for the supervised visitation order to be awarded.
Depending on the circumstances, the visit can be a weekly, fortnightly or monthly visit. The whole idea of supervised visitation is in the child’s interest and protection.
It is designed for the parent and child to build on their relationship and often the other parent is not part of the session. This could be as a result of various issues including:
Domestic violence
Sexual abuse
Adoption
Drug abuse
There are other factors, but in most circumstances, the non custodial parent who has been given the supervised visitation is the parent who may have caused problems in the first place for the supervised visitation to be ordered by the Court.
Supervised visitation is something that is quite difficult for the parent to come to terms with, being scrutinized by the third party of every move they make, but this is for a reason and does allow the parent to play with the child.
As a supervised visitation is as a result of a Court order, the rights of the non custodial parent have to be adhered to, and breaking the order can result in the other parent taking the case back to Court to make a revised visitation timetable.
In supervised visitations, the child can refuse to attend, this can be as a result of the problems that lead to the supervised visitation in the first place. A certain amount of coaxing on the custodial parent to encourage the child to attend the supervised visitations in the first place and because they may be strange to the child it is in the interest of the non custodial parent to make the sessions as interesting as possible.
The sessions are not for any other reason than that the non custodial parent should to be able to play or share some quality time with their child/children. It can be that friends or family can be the supervisors but this has to be very carefully thought about as often there could be a conflict of interest and so a professional supervisor will be present who will not feel the need to take sides and will have only the interest of the child at heart.