I am 15 and want to move with my father

[Unregistered]

I am not as close to my father as I am my mother. But I have been getting into a lot of trouble lately and I want out. I want to move in with my father and switch schools. But the only problem is that my mom says no. What do I do? what are my other options to get out of this house!?

[ccsmod16]

Re: I am 15 and want to move with my father

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out to us at the National Runaway Safeline (NRS). We are sorry to hear that things haven’t been going well for you lately. It sounds like you are trying hard to think of solutions to the problems you’re facing.

You mentioned that you are interested in moving out of your mom’s house and in with your father. Whether you can do that legally or not depends somewhat on who your legal guardian is. If your mother is your sole (only) guardian, then she has the right to decide where you get to live. If your parents share guardianship over you, then they may both have a right to determine where you live. If you want to explore this more, we can give you numbers for legal aid services in your area that could get into greater detail.

If your mom does have sole guardianship over you though and will not allow you to move in with your dad, then it would be good to think about other options – perhaps a different relative she would approve you living with more, or a friend of the family. These could be alternatives to discuss with her.

It can also be helpful to ask someone you trust (like a school counselor or relative) to sit in on a conversation between you and your mom about the problems going on at home, that way you know you’ll feel supported, even if the conversation is really difficult. If you can’t think of anyone to have sit in on that conversation with your mom, but you still think it would be helpful to have another person involved to help mediate things, we can help with that. NRS phone liners are all trained to help youth and parents work through difficult conversations over a 3-way conference call. We are happy to do that with you if you think your mom might respond better that way.

If you want to talk further about any of these options or other questions you may have, we can get into more detail via our chat-messaging service at www.1800runaway.org or by phone at our hotline number: 1-800-RUNAWAY.

Best of luck to you,
NRS