Children''s rights

Hello there,
Can anyone tell me what age a child has to be to be able to make their own choice of who they want to live with?

My husband and I have been separated for around 7 years and the children live with me. I have recently filed for divorce etc and my husband now wants shared custody of our children but they don''t want to live with him.

He pays no maintenance and I believe that the only reason he wants shared custody is because he will have to pay me a maintenance fee....

Debbie.

Hi Debbie,
Welcome to wiki.

As far as I am aware there is no hard and fast rule of when a child can make the descision, it depends on the relative maturity of the child/children in question. But I think from around 10 the views of the child would be listened to (not necesarily followed) and from the age of around 13-14 they can do what they like as there is no telling a teenager

LB

so for the last 7 years the children have lived with you and he now wants to change that?

I would suggest the only way that would happen is if he dragged it through court and he children are of an age (as Lostboy says) where they are allowed to make up their own minds. If they are of that age and they want to live with you, there''s no problem. If they are younger and he drags it through court, the fact the children have been permanently resident with you for the last 7 years and are showing reluctance at living with dad, regardless of their age, make a change of residence or even shared residence highly unlikely.

Has he not been paying maintenance for the last 7 years? If not, I suggest you open a case at the CSA immediately - you don''t have to be divorced to do that, just separated.

Try not to worry - sounds like alot of hot air.

Are there arrangements for contact in place? If so shared residence can be in different proportions from 50:50 and practically isn''t that much different from the more traditional contact/residence arrangement.

Thank you... you are right of course I am worrying over nothing it won''t happen. I feel much better now. My boys are almost 11 and 14 and very mature for their years.

LB had to smile at your statement about ''no telling teenagers''

Thanks for the welcome, it''s nice to have someone to talk to....

Debs.

Hi
It may be that your s2bx faced with the reality that you will soon nolonger be married fears that he will lose contact with his children, it depends how much contact he has had until now. Perhaps you could reasure him that the existing contact arangements will continue. Either way he should be paying maintenance and should have done previously.

LB

What he fails to understand is that by hurting me he is hurting them.... We want to keep the family home and as it has the largest equity he''s not happy about it.

I never ''bad mouth'' him to the boys but I never hide anything from them either. If we have to sell our home I want them to know why.

They now feel like they don''t want to be round dad because I have to fight for whats rightfully ours through court and it''s breaking us while he is sitting pretty.

Obviously there is a bigger picture but that about sums it up.

Deb