- —A custody and visitation order is a court order, and a parent who violates it can be held in contempt of court.
- —The usual mechanism is a rule to show cause filed in family court, and the relief commonly includes make-up parenting time and attorney's fees.
The backpacks are out again and the school-year schedule has started, but the summer did not go the way your order said it would. Maybe your co-parent kept the children past the handoff date, cancelled weeks without explanation, or never sent them at all. Now that the season is over, you may be wondering whether it is too late to do anything about it.
It is not. A South Carolina family court order is not a suggestion, and you can still enforce a visitation order in South Carolina after the summer has ended. What matters is what you do in the next few weeks.
Start by reading your order again, closely
Before anything else, pull out the actual order and read the summer provisions word for word. Parents often argue for months about what they believed the schedule was, when the written order answers the question.
Look specifically for:
The exact start and end dates or weeks of summer parenting time, and who picks the weeks
Any notice deadline for selecting summer time, and whether it was met
Whether the regular schedule continues during summer or is suspended
Make-up time provisions, which many orders already contain
Travel, out-of-state, and telephone or video contact provisions
If the order is ambiguous, that is worth knowing now — and it matters more than most parents expect. An ambiguous provision is genuinely harder to enforce through contempt, because contempt requires a wilful violation, and a parent who read an unclear order differently from you has not necessarily committed one. That is not a technicality; it is the difference between winning and losing. The case below on ambiguous orders shows how completely it can decide a hearing.
Document what happened while it is still fresh
Memory fades and phones get replaced. The single most useful thing you can do this month is assemble a clear, dated record. There is a legal reason for the emphasis, not just a practical one: South Carolina requires that the record “clearly and specifically show the contemptuous conduct,” so vagueness about what happened when is fatal to an enforcement action.
Build a timeline. For each missed or shortened period, write down the date the exchange was supposed to happen, what the order required, what actually happened, and how you learned of it.
Save the messages. Export texts, emails, and co-parenting app logs rather than relying on screenshots that may be challenged. Keep them in order and do not edit them. If communication is a recurring problem, our review of OurFamilyWizard for South Carolina parents covers whether a monitored app is worth it.
Note the cost. Non-refundable camp fees, plane tickets, time taken off work, and travel to an exchange that never happened are all concrete losses a judge can understand.
Identify witnesses. A grandparent who drove to the exchange, a teacher, or a counselor may be able to confirm what occurred.
Keep your own conduct clean. Assume every message you send will be read aloud in court, because it may be. In the leading South Carolina case on this subject, described below, the parent's own emails were the evidence that decided it.
Ask in writing before you file
Before anything gets filed, send one calm, specific written request. It gives the other parent a chance to fix the problem, and if they do not, it becomes the exhibit that shows you tried.
Keep it short and factual, and quote the order:
“Our order gives me the first two weeks of July. I was not able to see the children July 1 through July 14. Please confirm dates in September for make-up time.”
Leave out the accusations and the history. A judge reading that message should see a reasonable parent asking for what the order already gives them.
How to enforce a visitation order in South Carolina family court
Enforcement runs through the court's contempt power. You file a rule to show cause asking the family court to order the other parent to appear and explain why they should not be held in contempt for violating the order. Rule 14 of the South Carolina Rules of Family Court governs the procedure, and one deadline in it catches people out: the rule to show cause and its supporting affidavit or verified petition must be served no later than ten days before the hearing date.
Our post on enforcing settlement agreements through contempt walks through how that process works in practice.
What you actually have to prove is worth stating precisely, because it is where most of these cases turn. Contempt is, in the Court of Appeals' words, “a consequence of the wilful disobedience of a court order.” Three things follow from that.
You carry an initial burden and it is a modest one. The moving party must show the existence of the order and the facts establishing the other parent's noncompliance. Once you have done that, the burden moves: “Once the movant makes a prima facie showing by pleading an order and demonstrating noncompliance, the burden shifts to the respondent to establish his defense and inability to comply.” In other words, you prove the order and the missed time; they have to explain themselves.
The standard of proof is clear and convincing evidence, which is higher than the ordinary civil standard.
The violation has to be wilful — done, as the courts put it, with a bad purpose to disobey or disregard the order. A good faith attempt to comply, even an unsuccessful one, is not contempt.
Courts also frequently award attorney's fees against the parent who forced the other into court, and those awards are not nominal. In the case discussed below, the mother was ordered to pay the father $41,375.84 in fees and costs.
What South Carolina courts have actually done
Three Court of Appeals decisions do most of the work in this area, and they do not all point the same way. Read together they tell you fairly precisely where the line sits.
You do not get to decide the order is wrong and act on it.
In Hawkins v. Mullins, 359 S.C. 497, 597 S.E.2d 897 (Ct. App. 2004), a father was entitled to a month of summer visitation under an order the mother had agreed to. She took the position that the order granting summer visitation was incorrectly written and therefore, in her words, “no good,” and offered instead to shorten his time to about two weeks, at times convenient to her. The Court of Appeals was unimpressed:
“We are not convinced Hawkins believed the January 9, 2001 order was ‘no good’. We are equally not satisfied that Hawkins made a good faith effort to reconcile the two orders so Mullins could receive the month-long ordered visitation. … Hawkins' protestations to the contrary are disingenuous.”
The court reversed the family court's refusal to hold her in contempt. The lesson is the one most often ignored: if you think the order is wrong, the remedy is to go back to court and have it changed, not to substitute your own schedule in the meantime.
You cannot hide behind what the children want.
Noojin v. Noojin, 417 S.C. 300, 789 S.E.2d 769 (Ct. App. 2016), is the leading South Carolina decision on the hardest version of this problem — the custodial parent who says the children simply refuse to go. Over roughly two years the father received a small fraction of his ordered time. The mother's position was that she would not force the children, and she coined the term “forced visitation” for what the order required. The Court of Appeals affirmed a contempt finding, holding that a custodial parent has to do more than passively encourage:
“Not only did Mother fail to require Children to visit with Father, she imparted to Children the idea that they did not have to visit with Father if they did not want to.”
Two qualifications matter, and the court was explicit about both. It limited its holding to the facts and did “not suggest that in every situation in which a custodial parent fails to force a child to visit a noncustodial parent, such custodial parent should be held in contempt.” And it noted that “[a] contempt finding is determined on a case-by-case basis.” The distinguishing feature in Noojin was the absence of any evidence that visiting caused the children psychological or physical harm — where a child is genuinely being harmed, the analysis is different.
But an ambiguous order can be a complete defence.
The counterweight is Ward v. Washington, 406 S.C. 249, 750 S.E.2d 105 (Ct. App. 2013). A father's order let him select weekends “in lieu of” his every-other-weekend, Easter, Memorial Day and Labor Day visitation. He selected Labor Day weekend; the mother refused, reading the “in lieu of” language as giving up Labor Day. The family court held her in contempt.
The Court of Appeals agreed the father was right about what the order meant — and still reversed the contempt finding. The mother's reading was a reasonable one, she had relied on her lawyer's advice, and the family court had itself said it understood her interpretation. That was enough:
“[T]he family court's statement that it ‘understands [Mother]'s interpretation of the Order’ is evidence that Mother could have reasonably misinterpreted the order and her actions were not willful.”
Being wrong about your order is not the same as being in contempt of it. Which is the strongest possible argument for having the ambiguity fixed now, in a clarifying order, rather than discovering next July that the provision you were relying on cannot be enforced.
Can you get make-up parenting time?
Yes, and it is one of the most common remedies. Family court judges have broad discretion to fashion relief that restores what a parent lost, which can include additional weekends, extended holiday or school-break time, or a block of time next summer. Note, though, that even after a violation is established the court is not obliged to impose a sanction — whether to do so remains within its discretion, as Hawkins itself illustrates: the same opinion that found the mother in contempt declined to disturb the family court's refusal to sanction her for a separate violation.
Ask for something specific and workable. A request for defined make-up weekends over the fall, or first choice of weeks next summer, is far easier for a judge to grant than a general complaint that you were treated unfairly.
When enforcement is not the right tool
Sometimes the summer breakdown is a symptom of an arrangement that no longer works. If circumstances have genuinely changed, the better path may be modification rather than contempt. South Carolina courts modify custody and visitation when there has been a substantial change in circumstances affecting the child's welfare, as we explain in our post on whether custody and visitation awards can be modified in South Carolina.
Repeated interference is itself relevant to custody. S.C. Code § 63-15-240 directs the family court to weigh a list of best-interest factors that includes each parent's encouragement of a continuing relationship between the child and the other parent, manipulation or coercive behavior by a parent, and one parent's disparagement of the other. A parent who spent the summer obstructing contact is doing poorly on factors the court is required to consider.
One caution: you cannot change the schedule on your own while you wait. Until the family court approves a new order, the existing one still controls, and a parent who stops following it during a pending modification can be held in contempt for that. That is the Hawkins point again, and it is worth repeating because it is the single most common way a parent with a good case turns it into a bad one.
Where a child's safety or wellbeing is genuinely at issue, the analysis is different again. Our discussion of when South Carolina courts can suspend visitation rights covers those harder cases.
What not to do
Do not stop paying child support. Support and visitation are separate obligations in South Carolina. Withholding support because you were denied time will put you in contempt too, and it destroys your credibility with the judge.
Do not withhold the children in return. Self-help retaliation turns a case where you are the wronged parent into a case where both parents violated the order.
Do not put the children in the middle. Asking a child to report on the other parent, or explaining the litigation to them, tends to surface in a guardian ad litem's report and rarely helps.
Do not wait indefinitely. Delay invites the argument that the violation did not really matter to you.
Get ahead of the holidays
There is a practical reason to deal with this now rather than in December. The holiday schedule is the next flashpoint, family court calendars tighten toward the end of the year, and a parent who ignored the summer provisions is likely to test the Thanksgiving and Christmas ones. Addressing the summer violation in September, or clarifying an ambiguous provision, is far easier than filing an emergency motion three days before a holiday exchange.
Talk to a Charleston custody lawyer
Every one of these situations turns on the wording of your order and the facts of what happened. Some are worth a rule to show cause, some are better solved with a clarifying order or a modification, and some are best handled with a firm letter before anyone files anything.
Klok Law Firm handles South Carolina family law in Charleston, Mount Pleasant, Berkeley, and Dorchester counties. Call Klok Law at (843) 701-1695 to discuss your options.
Frequently asked questions
Is it too late to do anything about summer visitation my co-parent denied?
No. There is no rule that a violation must be raised before the season ends. Acting promptly is better because evidence is fresher and delay can be used to argue the violation was not significant, but a violation that occurred over the summer can still be brought before the family court in the fall.
What is a rule to show cause in South Carolina family court?
It is the filing used to bring a contempt allegation before the court. It asks the judge to order the other party to appear and show why they should not be held in contempt for violating an existing order. You must show the order existed and that the other parent did not comply; the burden then shifts to them to explain or to show they were unable to comply.
Can I get make-up time for visitation I lost?
Often, yes. Make-up parenting time is one of the most common remedies South Carolina family courts order when a parent has been denied court-ordered time. Asking for specific, defined make-up periods is more effective than a general request. Whether the court imposes any further sanction is a separate question left to its discretion.
Can I stop paying child support if my co-parent won't follow the visitation order?
No. Child support and visitation are independent obligations in South Carolina. Stopping support exposes you to your own contempt finding and undermines your position on the visitation violation.
Does my child get to decide where to spend the summer?
Not on their own. A child's preference is one of the best-interest factors a South Carolina family court may weigh under S.C. Code § 63-15-240, and it carries more weight as a child gets older and more mature. But a child's preference does not override a valid custody order. In Noojin v. Noojin the Court of Appeals held a custodial parent in contempt where she did not require the children to go and taught them they did not have to — though the court limited that holding to its facts and stressed that contempt is decided case by case, and that no evidence showed the visits were harming the children.
What if I genuinely read the order differently?
That can be a complete answer. Contempt requires a wilful violation, and in Ward v. Washington the Court of Appeals reversed a contempt finding against a mother who had misread an ambiguous provision, even though her reading turned out to be wrong. A good faith attempt to comply is not contempt. It is still far better to get the ambiguity resolved than to rely on it.
Does denying visitation affect custody?
It can. S.C. Code § 63-15-240 requires the family court to consider each parent's encouragement of the child's relationship with the other parent, along with manipulation, coercive behavior, and disparagement. A documented pattern of interference is relevant to a custody determination.
This article is for general information only and is not legal advice. Every custody matter turns on its own facts and on the specific wording of your order. For advice about your specific situation, contact Klok Law at (843) 701-1695.
Suzanne Lafleur Klok, Esq. is a family law attorney in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. Klok Law Firm, LLC · (843) 701-1695 · sklok@kloklaw.com