Kids held in contempt for refusing to visit dads.

Hey kids! Guess what? If you don't want to visit one of your parents after they get divorced, you can go to jail. And you can sit there until you change your mind--or, more likely, until an appellate court says you can go home.

That's essentially the message two judges in Will County, Illinois, ruling in separate cases last summer, gave to children who had refused to visit their fathers as part of their parents' custody and visitation agreements. The children were found in contempt of court.

In one case, Heidi Nussbaum, 12, spent a night in jail before a state appellate court stayed the trial court's contempt order. Heidi's sister, Rachel, 8, was ordered grounded at home without television. (Marshall v. Nussbam, No.-94MR-6538 (Ill. App. Ct. argued Nov. 9, 1995).)

In another case, two teenage siblings, Galatea and Peter Kapsimalis, who were ordered but refused to spend time with their father in North Carolina, are awaiting the outcome of the appellate court decision in the Nussbam case. The judge presiding over the case will look to the appellate result for guidance. (Kapsimalis v. Kapsimalis, No.94-D-2923 (Ill., Will County Cir. Ct. filed Mar. 4, 1994).)

While the appellate justices mull over the facts and the law in the Nussbaum case, family law attorneys, civil libertarians, and fathers' rights advocates have had plenty to say about the events so far.

At the heart of the issue is determining a judge's role and extent of authority in acrimonious divorce proceedings that involve defiant or troubled children.

Critics of the Illinois trial court decisions charge that the judges' actions were harsh and intrusive--that the court went too far by trying to play a parental role in these families.

One father's attorney says the court sanctions against the children may be harsh but are necessary to resolve difficult family troubles. Richard Orloff, a Joliet, Illinois, attorney representing Heidi and Rachel Nussbaum's father, Sheldon, said in an appellate brief that Nussbaum's former wife manipulated the girls.

Orloff called the judge's sanctions against the children "a final effort to exorcise them from their mother's total domination of them; to show them, with stark reality, that their father loves them . . ., and that they can't repeat their mother's manipulations without drastic consequences occurring." (Brian Cummings, Appeals Court Blocks Judge's Sanctions, Chi. Daily L. Bull., Aug. 3, 1995, at 3.)

ATLA Family Law Section Chair Joseph Bluth said that although he has not followed either case closely, his experience with divorce and visitation rights cases tells him that the judges' anger in these cases appears to be misplaced.

"You can't start with the kids and expect to change their behavior. It's a simple matter of what the children see is what they learn, is what they practice, is what they become," he said. "I can't for the life of me believe that a trial court has the ability to incarcerate a child for what is learned, inappropriate behavior. The wiser course would be working from the top--with the parents--toward getting the children to comply."

Jonathan Baum, a Chicago attorney working with the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois in the Nussbaum girls' case, said the judges clearly are frustrated, yet seem to be joining a dangerous and increasing trend in this country toward locking up children.

"It's important that family autonomy be respected," Baum said. "It's just not an appropriate role for the court system to tell families how to relate to each other. This action raises the additional issue of children's rights and when, if ever, it's appropriate to incarcerate kids."

The Nussbaum girls have alleged their father abused them mentally during initial visits to his home following their parents' divorce. Sheldon Nussbaum denied the charge. The Kapsimalis children say that their father had abandoned them and now wants to return to their lives uninvited.