Parental rights regarding a child of 17, i have some questions

[A-Step-Towards]

My friends band has a member who is 17, there all around my age and just starting college or in college so he is the youngest member.

When he was 12 his parents moved to germany , he went with them of course and has citizenship. The guys been moved around his whole life and his parents lost there jobs and moved back here last summer. He has been here like 14 maybe 15 months now.

Great drummer and very smart, he is working on highschool and its difficult as he gets 3.5-4.0 GPAs here yet his accumlative GPA is like a D average as he really struggled learning german and germany history thus he got low grades and now he is rather behind on american history and his english grammar is like 13 year olds.

He wants to and is going to graduate one term early and start college , the high school will pay for him if he starts going while he is in high school , so his 2nd term of high school this year he will be in college not high school and go back to walk in june.

He turns 18 next august and will have a high school diploma, and already a term of college down.


Now the problem , his dad lost his job here and wants to move back to Germany he may in December.

He wants to take his family , meaning this kid has to leave the middle of his first term of high school meaning he will fail , go to germany where he will struggle and maybe not have a diploma there for a year or 2 as he is so far behind, miss out on starting college etc. Not to mention his band is really good, he is a great player and we all have kinda took him under our wings like a little brother.

The saddest part is he really doesn't want to go back , he says his life is here , he finally has something and is so close and his parents could ruin it all and its all because he wont be eighteen for 11 more months.


Can his parents really force him to go back? can a parent really take a child this close to adulthood and make them move across the world?

Thanks for any insight , were all trying to help him and his parents have 2 children over 18 who live there , they are all americans but have this weird view of needing to live there and they basically want to force him into it. Any help is appreciated.

[fdeck]

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikiped...tion_of_minors

I post the above link without really knowing your friend's situation. There would be some advantages for him to go back to Germany, such as potentially lower cost to attend college, and the whole social safety net thing. Plus, a "kid" being alone in the US without family support can easily fall through the cracks.

[A-Step-Towards]

That is true , his whole family lives in our smaller town of 50,000 people so my guess is he would live with them , thanks for the link.

I am basically trying to give him some reassurance .

[Thor]

If he is a minor his options are limited. He can and should consult with a lawyer if he truly has no wish to return abroad. He should then present the family court with an education plan and have an acceptable living situation negotiated. Best would be if he could get his parents to agree to his wishes to stay. Once he reaches the age of majority, none of this is legally necessary, but severing your parental relationship can work both ways. A lot of thought needs to go into this.

[Stumbo]

Is there someone who will take him in?

How about health care if he gets sick?

If he can't support himself, he'll probably have to go back to Germany.

[cheezewiz]

Absent a legal order preventing it, YES, his family can force him to go with them.

[jmattbassplaya]

Kids* move around with their parents all the time. It sucks, but there's not much he can do.

[jp58]

He will probably be better off moving back. I know it sucks, but in all honestly, college is virtually impossible here without parental aid. I know a few people that are making it without parental support, but the majority of people I know that are doing well are doing so because they have full support from their family.