It does not matter if you are completely confident in your case or nervous and hoping for a miracle to get some visitation time with your child. Anytime you go to court there is always an air of uncertainty. But what happens when the other parent asks for a continuation?

When you have been waiting for months to get to court and then find out that the other parent or their attorney wants to continue it for a later date it can drive you crazy. A new date can easily put you out another 6, 8, or 10 weeks. Add on a second continuation and you’re looking at a potential of a 3-6 month delay.

When you are asking the court for a visitation change, a delay of this magnitude can hurt you and reward the other parent by establishing a long history and pattern of the existing visitation schedule. You might call this the law of unintended consequences. But how do you avoid these long delays and keep the law of unintended consequences at bay?

One tactic you can use is to ask for a temporary visitation order the day of the hearing. The biggest part of this tactic is simply knowing that you can ask for it. You may not be successful, but at least you won’t be let wondering what would have happened.

Another tactic you can use is to file an Exparte order. The Exparte means that the judge can rule without hearing form the other party. But you would need a legitimate reason to ask for the order. Some of those reasons may be, no visitation and waiting for a hearing would be a hardship. In that case you could ask for an emergency screening, or evaluation. Another reason would be the safety of your child. If you fear they are living in an unsafe environment you could again ask for an emergency screening and have the court determine if they were safe.

The point is that if you do not have visitation or if you fear for the safety of your child, you do have alternatives to waiting for the hearing. The system has built in safe guards for most exceptions. You just need to know what they are and how to ask for them.