Herndon, Virginia · Child Visitation & Parenting Time

You drive over for your weekend, and the door does not open. Or the texts start: not this time, she has a cold, he does not want to come. Once is a bad day. A pattern is a different thing. Here is the answer: when the other parent denies you court-ordered visitation in Virginia, you do not take matters into your own hands, you document the denials and ask the court to enforce its own order through a motion to enforce or a show cause for contempt. In Herndon, we turn a pattern of missed time into action the court can take.

By Alisa Chunephisal, Esq. · Founding Partner, NOVA Legal Professionals

This article is one part of our larger guide to child visitation in Virginia. For the full picture, start with our cornerstone, Child Visitation and Parenting Time in Virginia. Here, I will focus on what to do when your time is being blocked, and what the court can actually do about it.

What enforcement and contempt mean

A visitation order is not a suggestion; it is a court order. When the other parent refuses to follow it, you can file a motion to enforce the order, or a show cause motion that asks the court to hold the other parent in contempt for violating it. The court then has real tools to put your time back on track. You can read more on our enforcement and contempt page.

One missed visit is not a case. A pattern is.

Judges are human. They know life happens, that a child gets genuinely sick, that a car breaks down. A single missed exchange will not move a court. What moves a court is a pattern, the steady drip of canceled weekends, last-minute excuses, and exchanges that never happen. That is why the most important thing you can do, starting now, is not to argue at the door but to write it all down. Patterns are built from records, and records are what a judge can act on.

Document everything, calmly

Keep a simple, factual log: every date you were owed time, what happened, and the reason you were given. Save the texts and emails. Note when you showed up and were turned away. You are not building a case to punish anyone; you are building a clear, unemotional picture of what is actually happening. The parent who walks into court with a calm, detailed record almost always has the stronger position, because the facts are doing the talking.

What the court can order

When the court finds that the other parent has violated the order, it has a range of remedies. It can order make-up time for the visits you lost, award you attorney fees, modify the order to make exchanges more specific and harder to dodge, and in serious or repeated cases impose fines or even jail for contempt. These tools are real, and Virginia courts do use them when the record supports it. The goal is always the same: to restore your parenting time and stop the pattern.

How we handle an enforcement case

We help you assemble your documentation into something a court can act on, file the right motion, whether that is enforcement or a show cause for contempt, and ask for the specific remedy that fits your situation, from make-up time to a tightened order. When the schedule itself is being exploited, we may pair the motion with a modification to close the loopholes. A Herndon case would be heard in the Fairfax County Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court.

How we help in Herndon

We help you respond to blocked visitation the right way: documenting calmly, keeping your own record clean, and moving through the court rather than around it through a motion to enforce the order or hold the other parent in contempt. We pursue make-up time, fees, and a tighter order so the pattern stops. We do this for parents across Herndon, Chantilly, and the Reston area.

Frequently Asked Questions