“To enforce a visitation order you first have to have a visitation order, so you need to make sure that you get that in court because any type of agreement that one reaches outside of court for visitation or custody – that may be enforceable as long as everybody agrees to follow it, but once someone changes course there is no real recourse if you don’t have a court order.

How do you then enforce it if you have the court order? First of all, you have to make sure that you request and receive clear and unambiguous custody orders so that they are enforceable. What does that mean? That means that if there is a date certain of anything to happen, that should be included in the order. If there is a day of the week, days of the week, times of the week when there is to be an exchange of a child or children, that all needs to be indicated in the order. Anything else related to visitation, any other provisions including transportation, where the exchange will occur of the child, things like that -must be clearly indicated.

And assuming then that you have a valid and enforceable court order that’s clear and unambiguous, what do you do to enforce it? The first thing you do is obviously ask the other parent to comply you ask nicely. You ask frequently. You don’t wait too long. If they don’t and if you are prevented from seeing your child or children because the other parent is isn’t complying with the court order, then you take your remedial action.

What does that mean? It means you hire somebody, maybe like me, to file a contempt against them and ask the court to enforce it. That way possibly putting somebody in jail if they don’t follow valid court orders.”