need advice regarding 13 year old son

[vicki3]

i have a 13 year old son, i live in ga and his father lives about 150 miles from me .
his father has not really been in his life, everytime my son sees his father its only after i (his mother) has wrote a letter to his dad in hopes he would be a part of his life and then his dad would come see my son but after that he would not contact my son anymore.
it has always been me contacting his dad for 13 years.
my son has visited his dad where he lives 3 times in 13 years.
he is court ordered through child support enforcement to pay support and he pays here and there, off and on,, not regularly by a long shot.
he has never bought him 1 christmas present or birthday or even sent him a card and has never helped with a thing.
my sons dads name is not on my sons birth certificate and there are no papers regarding visitation or anything else.
i want to know what rights do i have and what rights does he have.?
my son just got back from a 2 week visit wtih his dad (again only because my son wrote him a letter and we had not heard from him for 2 years before my son write the letter) and i let my son go visit him but i did not know that my sons dad had just let this woman move in with him and they are sleeping together in the same bed (my sons dad and this woman) and this is something i dont agree with and i do have certain values that i want to instill in my son and also his dad smokes marijuana and i know that he carries it on him at all times and has it either in his pocket or his vehichle and i dont like this either.
my son has severe allergies and the last time my son went to visit his dad which was years ago he ended up coming back home and having fliud in his ears because people in my sons dads family was smoking ciggarrettes around my son and i asked his dad this time when my son went back to make sure noone smokes around him because of this and people still smoked around him.
i feel like i should have some say so.
also my son was left alone with another 17 year old boy who of course i do not even know ( this boy is my sons dads girlfriends son) and so they both were left alone all day from early morning until evening while my sons dad went to work for several days and i do not like this either, i never leave my son alone all day like this.
he is 13 years old but he is developmentally slow and he is in all special classes at his school and is just not mature enough to be alone a whole day like that.
my son wants to go back again before school starts back and visit again and i dont know what i should do about any of this.
do i have any rights ?
i know he could go to court and get rights and that is not what i want to happen and i am letting him see his son (again he has never acted like he really wants to be a part of my sons life) but i feel i am lettting him see him but what rights do i have here??

 

[Duranie]

First of all, is there anything legally established as far as paternity and visitation? If there is any visitation by the courts, you have to abide by it unless you can gt it changed. If not, then you do not have to let the son visit dad.

As far as the cigarette smoke, I doubt that caused the fluid in his ears. Ear infections have nothing really to do with allergies. I had ear infections all the time as a kid, they happen. But if he is allergic to the smoke and complains about it, ask Dad to smoke outside only or you will have to see if you can get the visitation modified.

When Dad has the child he can leave the boy with anyone he wants, within reason. You probably don't have much room to complain here.

But only a court can allow you to withhold visitation and only a court can force dad to make the changes you want. Not sure if it is worth your time and $$ to pursue this in court.

 

[vicki3]

First of all, is there anything legally established as far as paternity and visitation? If there is any visitation by the courts, you have to abide by it unless you can gt it changed. If not, then you do not have to let the son visit dad.

As far as the cigarette smoke, I doubt that caused the fluid in his ears. Ear infections have nothing really to do with allergies. I had ear infections all the time as a kid, they happen. But if he is allergic to the smoke and complains about it, ask Dad to smoke outside only or you will have to see if you can get the visitation modified.

When Dad has the child he can leave the boy with anyone he wants, within reason. You probably don't have much room to complain here.

But only a court can allow you to withhold visitation and only a court can force dad to make the changes you want. Not sure if it is worth your time and $$ to pursue this in court.

no there is nothing legally established as far as paternity or visitation, we were never married.
yes my son also has had one ear infection after another and has had tubes in his ears and he does have really bad allergies and years ago when my son had went to visit he had to stay with his dads mother all day while his dad worked and she smoked and when he came home i had to take him back to the ear doctor (he had not had any problems with ear infections in many years) and i talked to the doctor about that and he said that could very well have caused it and i have researched ear infections and smoking online and this can cause ear infections.
his dad does not smoke but he has several people living in his home who do smoke and i did ask his dad to please not let anyone smoke inside around him but he allowed it anyways.
i do want my son to know his dad (and always have wanted this even though he has not been involved most of his life) but i just want him to respect him.
as far as who he stays with, if it is a adult he stays with that is fine but he was left alone all day for several days with a 17 year old who i know nothing about and again like i said my son is slow for his age and he is not as mature as even a 13 year old boy would be.
thanks for responding!

 

[Duranie]

If there is no court ordered visitation and paternity was not established, you do not have to even allow vistation. If you think the boy benefits from it and loves his dad, then I would allow visitation. Legally dad though has NO rights. So you need to make it very clear to him that since the boy is allergic to smoke, people are not to smoke around the boy or in the house. You can withhold vistation anytime. This seems like a reasonable request. If the boy is allergic to smoke, then people should not smoke around the boy.

so basically, since there is nothing LEGAL, you call the shots. If dad doesn't like it, he needs to file for paternity and vistation. You should do the same do you get regular child support.

 

[vicki3]

If there is no court ordered visitation and paternity was not established, you do not have to even allow vistation. If you think the boy benefits from it and loves his dad, then I would allow visitation. Legally dad though has NO rights. So you need to make it very clear to him that since the boy is allergic to smoke, people are not to smoke around the boy or in the house. You can withhold vistation anytime. This seems like a reasonable request. If the boy is allergic to smoke, then people should not smoke around the boy.

so basically, since there is nothing LEGAL, you call the shots. If dad doesn't like it, he needs to file for paternity and vistation. You should do the same do you get regular child support.

the father is ordered to pay support through child support enforcement however he pays the support off and on and here and there if you know what i mean.
for example he went 6 months without paying from last october till april of this year and usually he does this every year and CSE ends up taking his taxes to send to me but over 13 years it has just been off and on and it has not been anything i can depend on.
he is always in arrears and never caught up.
like for another example last month and this month they have sent him a letter each month telling him to contact them regarding what he owes and his employer and he ignores all letters, he does this all the time.
hope that answers the question.
thanks for your respose.