Protecting Your Parental Rights in Oklahoma’s Family Court

Can You Lose Your Kids in an Oklahoma Family Court?

Can you lose your rights to your children in family court? My name is Brian L. Jackson. I’m an Oklahoma father’s rights lawyer here with Dads.Law. Today 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 in family court would be to restrict your visitational rights and deny you custody. So you could be told like, for example, you don’t get to see your kids except in a therapeutic setting or except with a supervisor present. That can happen. But you still have certain rights as a parent and more and also importantly, you have duties as a parent even in that situation.

No Outright Termination of Parent’s Rights

The family court in Oklahoma has no power to outright terminate a parent’s rights. Now there’s two key points to consider with this. It does mean there’s some hope if you are facing a really serious allegation that 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 of that is that you have responsibilities. That you’re not, in other words, you’re not going to give up, quote unquote, 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.

Working with the Other Parent

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 are going to have to deal with each other while those kids are minors. There is no way to have their rights terminated in the family court.

Call for a Low-cost Strategy Session

All right, sounds good. I gotta go. So long and short of it is, it’s going to be one of those deals where you have to, gotta learn to be adults. And if you have questions about that, I would encourage you to go to Dads.Law where fathers are not disposable.