My teenager refuses to go to their other parent's house
Your obligation is to make the children available and to actively encourage the time, not to physically force a teenager into a car. Courts generally understand the difference, but the bar is higher than it sounds: offering and leaving it there is usually not enough, and the expectation does not drop away as a child gets older. One parent was held in contempt for offering a thirteen-year-old a ride to the airport and dropping it when she said no. Parents who kept urging, explained the order, and did everything they reasonably could have been found not in violation. What courts look at is whether you genuinely supported the relationship or quietly enjoyed the refusal.
That distinction is the whole question, and it is why documentation and tone matter more here than in almost any other custody dispute.
The trap
A parent whose child refuses to go can look identical, from the outside, to a parent who arranged for the child to refuse. Judges are alert to this, and the resemblance is why an honest parent in this situation still needs to be careful.
So the standard is effort. Did you tell the child they are going? Did you avoid making it a choice? Did you tell the other parent promptly rather than letting them arrive to an empty doorway? Did you look for a solution rather than treating it as settled?
Being able to answer yes to those, in writing, is what separates the two cases.
What to actually do
Tell the other parent immediately, before the exchange rather than after. Silence looks like collusion even when it is not.
Write down what happened each time. What the child said, what you said, what you tried. Contemporaneous notes carry weight; reconstructions do not.
Do not make it optional. "You are going, and I am sorry it is hard" lands differently from "do you want to go?" Even when you are quite sure they will refuse, the framing is part of the record.
Find out why, calmly and without leading. There is a wide range between a missed party and something you need to act on immediately, and the answer determines everything else.
Why the refusal matters more than the refusal
The reason usually falls into one of a few categories, and they call for different responses.
Ordinary teenage life. Friends, sports, a job, a bedroom that is theirs. This is developmentally normal and often not about the other parent at all. It usually needs a schedule that flexes rather than a court fight.
Friction in the other home. A new partner, a step-sibling, rules they resent. Real, usually workable, often improves with time and a direct conversation between the adults.
Something genuinely wrong. If a child is describing behavior that frightens them, that is not a scheduling problem and should not be handled as one. Talk to your attorney promptly, and if there is any question of harm, there are people whose job is exactly this.
If it keeps happening
A schedule that no longer fits a teenager is a reason to modify the order, not a reason to ignore it. Courts would generally rather adjust an arrangement that has stopped working than watch it be violated weekly.
And be realistic about what an order can do. As children get older their preferences carry more weight. In most states there is no age at which the decision simply transfers to them, but this is genuinely state-specific, and worth checking rather than assuming. Georgia gives a child of 14 or older the right to select which parent to live with, presumptively honored unless the court finds that parent unsuitable, and around ten states set a statutory age, usually 12 or 14, at which a child's stated preference carries formal weight. Even in Georgia the choice can only be made once every two years, so a fresh one inside that window is not a route to a change. Whatever the paperwork says, a fifteen-year-old with strong views has practical influence. Building flexibility in while everyone is calm is easier than litigating it later.
How courts weigh a child's preference, and what a parent is expected to do to comply, vary by state. If refusals are becoming a pattern, raise it with a licensed family-law attorney before the other parent raises it first.