DH and I are going through the same thing right now with our CASA. I do believe that it will make BB look badly for not participating in the GAL's reccomendations.

As soon as we received our CASA's report we signed up to complete each and every reccomendation on the list (IE: Parenting classes).

We are also scheduled to go back to court later this month and my nerves are getting to me as well. Everything is so up in the air, you just never know what is going to happen. The judge will usually side primarily with the CASA or GAL, but even that is not a guarentee, they could come up with their own solution(s).

But to answer your quesition, YES, I do think it will look good for you and DH to follow through will any and all of the GAL's reccomendations, and at a minimum it should make BB unwilling to cooperate with even the GAL, which could be good for you.

And please keep me posted!

if you try to work outside of court and the other party refuses for dumb reasons, then judges get irritated, and the attorneys will bring up situations where one party refuses to work outside of court. However, the weight that bm's carry is so insufficient compared to fathers it's unreal.

The GAL represents the child, and will report what the child says in regards to visitations. Judges are aware that parents plant words into kids' mouths and they don't like that. Furthermore, they do know that parents often times try to play the children against the other parent and then say to the court..."child doesn't want to visit dad...". More than likely, the judge will weigh the GAL's report over what the mother says. That doesn't mean you will get "fair" and equal time. Judge's really feel that removing a child from the mother's home is very bad for the children, but if the state family law system values' the childs' opinion, then the GAL's report will be in your favor, and you will not be penalized b/c dh and bm couldn't work out visitation agreements outside the court room.

With that said....a lot of states do not value the opinion of a child until they are 18. I'm in WA state and at no time can a child say who they want to live with. They feel that children do not know what is in their best interest and often times children want to live with the parent with the least amount of rules, therefore it isn't in their best interest.

You do have some things in your favor...sd said she wants equal time with both parents...so it's obvious that is "her" opinion, and you attempted to work outside of court, but bm refuses to give up equal time with child, and judge's do know that a lot of mothers do this just for money. Those are favorable positions to be in, however, nothing is really fair in this legal system. You probably will not be penalized at all for attempting to work outside the court room, and pray that a judge will actually listen.

Bests,
Candice

Judges don't like their time wasted. If you do everything you can to stay out of their courtroom, bonus for you. If you show up unprepared and unwilling to take recommendations, they don't like that either. Most judges are overloaded with cases and want people to try to stay out of court as much as possible. They will certainly do what they feel is best for the child, but everything depends on the judge you get.

The only thing that my fiance and I can come up with to tell ourselves/cope with our situation is that we will keep being the bigger people and that we will always try to view our actions as a judge would. Would a judge think what we were doing was in the best interest of the child? He has gone through the Friend of the Court mediators w/ BM and he has paid very close attention to what the FOC recommended and what things he fussed at them about doing in the past. We have also become very familiar with the 12 criteria for custody that the courts use to determine who should have custody of the children. When we are stumped about how to act/react we think of those 12 guidelines and what feels like the right/best thing to do.