Is there anything a Thai child cannot do without parental signatures?

[orientalist]

My Thai partner's daughter has left the 5-year-old Thai granddaughter with her and disappeared. She was never married and the biological father has not been seen since the birth. So far there haven't been any problems raising the child, but next year she will start Por 1 school. I am wondering if there is anything likely to come up in the future where someone (eg. government office or school) is going to insist on the biological mother or father's signature.

 

The situations I am thinking of are:

 

* Starting school

* Getting an ID card at age 7

* Getting a Thai passport as a teenager

* Serious operation in hospital

* Use of general anesthetic

 

On a related subject my partner seems to think she can just go along to the Amphur Office and get custody of her granddaughter as a "look boontham" adoptive child, since she is now the de facto guardian. But I can't imagine it is quite so easy. Anyone know?

[happylarry]

She can get the custody but will need to go through the family court to do so.

HL

[cooked]

You will of course need the permission of the mother. As it seems in this case that that won't be likely, that's going to be very difficult if not impossible. Maybe proving abandonment by the mother would be possible.

To get her adopted you need to fulfil various requirements, to take the child abroad at some future point you need a so called international adoption. Then there's guardianship which also prevents the mother from turning up some day and taking the child back. That happens a lot in Thailand.

In our case (right of custody) we sent a court letter to the mother, telling her that proceedings were under way and that unless she replied and appeared in court then she would lose right of custody. She didn't contest fortunately so I don't know what happens if she had. Just that simple procedure involved four visits to family court, six months, about ฿50 000.- and a lot of paperwork. 

Hope that helps, good luck, especially with your lawyer.

 

[orientalist]

Thanks. My partner has already partially raised two sisters' abandoned kids (one of whom later took them back with unfortunate results) and asked about this at the Amphoe office. The way she talks, registering a child as a "look boontham" sounds much less formal than going to court and gaining legal custody. It sounds more like a blood relative getting permission to sign stuff on behalf of a child's absent parents. Oh, well, I guess we'll find out when the time comes.

[FritsSikkink]

12 hours ago, orientalist said:

Thanks. My partner has already partially raised two sisters' abandoned kids (one of whom later took them back with unfortunate results) and asked about this at the Amphoe office. The way she talks, registering a child as a "look boontham" sounds much less formal than going to court and gaining legal custody. It sounds more like a blood relative getting permission to sign stuff on behalf of a child's absent parents. Oh, well, I guess we'll find out when the time comes.

Why isn't she going to kindergarten? 

Edited May 14, 2018 by FritsSikkink

[orientalist]

Why isn't she going to kindergarten? 

She is in the 3rd year of kindergarten now.

Sent from my cell phone using Thaivisa mobile app

[FritsSikkink]

9 hours ago, orientalist said:

She is in the 3rd year of kindergarten now.

Sent from my cell phone using Thaivisa mobile app
 

So no problem with that school then :)

[orientalist]

Right. But it got me wondering about possible problems starting at a private school next year, among other things.

[cooked]

A Brit I know, peacefully raising his wife's child, had the child's grandmother turn up and demand to be allowed to take the child with her ("as is customary in Thailand" according to her). The problem is that the police might decide to agree with her unless there is some kind of paper work (and/or money) to counter this. Fortunately he had the presence of mind to tell her to f*** off.

Our step-grandchild's mother just died and suddenly, on finding out that insurance money was involved, we had to contest a half baked bid to take the girl away from us. She said NO (11 years old) and we had papers stating that we had custody. All sorts of things can happen, best to get yourself covered. 

Something similar happened with out step-GREAT-grandchild, this time involving threats from an ex-convict. ...

Get the paperwork sorted, after what I have learned, you can never be sure of what might happen.

 

[orientalist]

Yes, I have suggested they get the current situation put on a legal basis, but we are not married and as yet we don't live together, so I can only advise. The useless mother is a party-girl who never wanted a baby and got the freedom she craved when she moved out of the house they were sharing 2 years ago. So there is not much danger of her wanting the child back any time in the foreseeable future. My main concern is that the father, or his parents, will one day turn up out of the blue. We are not planning to take the kid overseas, but I would like to be able to get her a Thai passport some day without involving the father.

[MaeJoMTB]

If she's on your house book there probably won't be a problem. First time was wife's younger sister (different surname). Junior school didn't care, high school wanted moms signature at start.

 

About to do this for the second time (wife's nieces daughter different surname), I get mom to come up put the kid on my wife's house book, and visit the local hospital to sign up, also a trip to the local school.

The schools never seem all that bothered, especially if the kid has the same surname as grandma.

But the hospital is bothered.

But this is Thailand, and all officials have their own set of rules.

I've never done official custody paperwork, happy to step in when nobody else want's them though.

Edited May 16, 2018 by MaeJoMTB

[orientalist]

Well, this was another stunning act of stupidity by the mother. The kid wasn't on ANY house book for 4 years. The mother then asked the father's parents to do it, but they declined, and in the end she paid some friend of the kid's maternal great-grandmother to do it. There is no ancestral home, so everyone is on different house books. Most have different surnames too. The kid has her father's name, her mother has her own father's name and the grandmother (my partner) has her former farang husband's name. I have been pushing for them to change the kid's surname, but to what?

 

Anyway, the good news is that my partner's other daughter (the responsible one!) will soon return to Thailand, buy her own house and get her own house book. I myself live in rented accommodation so I can't help with house book  problems.

 

We haven't had any problem with hospitals yet. We just discovered the mother lied about the kid's vaccinations, and she didn't have any after 4 months. We went back to the same private hospital where those were done, and they still had her records, so no problem doing all the catch-up shots.

[MaeJoMTB]

52 minutes ago, orientalist said:

Anyway, the good news is that my partner's other daughter (the responsible one!) will soon return to Thailand, buy her own house and get her own house book. I myself live in rented accommodation so I can't help with house book  problems.

Find a little old lady living alone near you, offer her 1,000bht to put the kid in her house book and 500bht every time you need the book.

That's what I did when I was living in rented accommodation, dead easy.

 

No point in paying for private hospital, the local hospitals are good with kids, all free until they're 15, I believe in any government hospital.

I seem to remember kids don't have to registered at any particular one, you can just walk in.

Too many foreigners doing private everything IMHO, the Thai government schools and hospitals do a fine job.

[orientalist]

I agree, but there were several reasons we went to a (cheapish) private hospital. The first was that this hospital had the original vaccination record and we didn't have a copy. The second was the kid is a bit of a princess and we didn't want her waiting in long queues, etc. Also, she screamed the place down the first time we took her to the dentist, so we wanted to create the best experience possible for her first vaccination in memory. The final reason was that having missed out on most of the immunisation program, a sensible catch-up schedule had to be created and I wanted to have a say in this as a paying customer.

 

As it turned out, the doc knew what she was doing and we started out with the 6-in-1 shot, so the kid had one needle instead of four. That was worth paying for, given how many shots she needs.

[MaeJoMTB]

1 hour ago, orientalist said:

I agree, but there were several reasons we went to a (cheapish) private hospital. The first was that this hospital had the original vaccination record and we didn't have a copy.

Who has the 'baby book', that the hospital gives out when the child is born detailing every medical event in the child's life?

Edited May 16, 2018 by MaeJoMTB

[orientalist]

That looks like what they gave us. I wondered why it had so many pages!