Family Court Can Deny You Custody

Video Transcribed: Can you lose your rights to your children in family court? My name is Brian L. Jackson. I am an Oklahoma men’s rights lawyer with dads.law, where fathers are not disposable. I want to talk to you guys about whether or not you can lose or surrender your rights to your children in family court. A short answer to that is no.

The worst a court can do to you is a family court to restrict your visitational rights and deny you custody. So you could be told, for example, that you don’t get to see your kids except in a therapeutic setting or with a supervisor present; that can happen, but you still have certain rights as a parent, and also, importantly, you have duties as a parent even in that situation.

The family court in Oklahoma has no power to terminate parental rights outright. Now there are two key points to consider with this. It does mean there’s some hope that you will still have rights if facing a serious allegation. At least you know you will still have rights.

The family court cannot terminate your rights no matter what you’re accused of. The other side is that you have responsibilities; in other words, you’re not going to “give up your rights” so you don’t have to pay child support; it doesn’t work that way. You will be legally obligated to support your children.

Now, on the other side of it, if you’re custodial, it also means you have to work with the other parent even if you don’t like them; you have to work with them because they have certain rights even if they’re non-custodial, and you can’t terminate their rights, and you can’t terminate their rights unilaterally just because you don’t like them.

So one thing to understand walking through the door in family court, on some level, you’re going to have to be able to deal with your ex on a business level if you have kids together because guess what? Y’all will have to deal with each other while those kids are minors. There is no way to have their rights terminated in the family court.

So long and short of it is it’s going to be one of those deals where you got to learn to be adults. If you have questions about any of that, if you ever need a Tulsa child support attorney or a Father’s Child Custody Lawyer in Tulsa, you can find one at Dads.Law.