Enforcing Parenting Time While Paying Idaho Child Support

Attorney Answer

Before anything else, find out whether a custody order actually exists in your case. If child support was set but no custody or parenting-time order was ever entered, there is nothing for her to violate and nothing for a court to enforce — and your first filing is to establish custody, not to punish her.

That distinction decides which tool applies. Idaho Code § 7-601 defines contempt, and subsection (5) makes disobedience of any lawful judgment, order or process of the court a contempt. That is the mechanism against a parent who denies court-ordered parenting time — but it requires an order to disobey. Support cases are frequently opened on their own, through a child support agency, without any custody provisions attached. Many parents in your position discover that the paperwork they have sets a payment and says nothing about visitation.

When custody is decided, Idaho Code § 32-717 controls. The court awards custody in the best interests of the child and considers all relevant factors, including the wishes of the parents; the wishes of the child; the child's interaction and interrelationship with parents and siblings; the child's adjustment to home, school and community; the character and circumstances of all individuals involved; the need to promote continuity and stability in the child's life; and domestic violence. Your daily calls, with phone records to prove them, come in under the character and circumstances of the parties — evidence of a parent who kept trying — and they undercut any claim that you were absent by choice.

Be realistic about the ask. Courts generally do not move a child from a parent she has lived with to a parent who has had no contact in one step, even when the contact was blocked. A more likely first result is an order establishing parenting time, possibly graduated, with the court watching whether she complies. If she then violates it, contempt under § 7-601 is available, and repeated interference is itself relevant to a later custody change.

One thing not to do: your support obligation stands on its own. Withholding payments because she is withholding your daughter is not a lawful response, and it converts you from the parent who did everything right into the parent with an arrears balance.

What you can do

1. Pull the court file for the case where support was ordered, and read whether any custody or parenting-time provisions exist. The clerk in that county can give you copies. 2. If there is no custody order, file a petition to establish custody and parenting time in the county where your daughter lives. 3. Keep paying support in full and by a traceable method, and save the records. 4. Preserve your evidence properly: download call detail records from your carrier rather than relying on screenshots, and organize texts and messages by date with the unanswered ones flagged. 5. Build the best-interest record beyond the phone calls — your housing, work schedule, who would care for her, and any school or medical involvement you have had or tried to have. 6. If a custody order does exist and she is violating it, file a motion for contempt under § 7-601 and ask the court for makeup parenting time and, if the pattern continues, a modification of custody. 7. Do not attempt to retrieve your daughter yourself or through anyone else outside a court order.

Before you take any of these steps yourself, call or email a few law offices. A consultation is usually only a few tries away — most offices offer a short initial conversation at no cost, and one of them will normally get back to you within a day or two. The steps above are the shape of what has to happen; a lawyer will tell you whether they fit your facts and how your court expects them to be done.