The Ruling on a Father Preventing His Children from Seeing Their Divorced Mother, and the Signs of Reaching Maturity

Question:
May Allah reward you and bless you. We move on to another letter sent by a questioner to the program. He says: Is it permissible for a father to prevent his children from seeing their divorced mother? Does he sin by doing so? And at what age does the age of maturity (taklif) begin exactly, for both boys and girls?

Answer:
A father is not allowed to prevent his children from seeing their divorced mother, for that would mean raising them to sever ties and forget their mother. Rather, he must enable them to see their mother, because this is part of raising them to maintain family ties and be dutiful to their parents.
So these fathers should fear Allah (Mighty and Majestic) and enable their children to see their divorced mothers, because it is well known that a mother is compassionate and loves her child. Therefore, he should not stand between her and her children, for he would sin by doing so. As for maturity (taklif), it occurs through signs, the first of which is nocturnal emission (ihtilam), which is the sign of puberty for both men and women. The second is the growth of coarse hair around the private parts. The third is reaching the age of fifteen years, which is the last of these signs. The girl has a fourth sign in addition to these three, which is menstruation. If she begins to menstruate, that is proof of her reaching puberty. Yes.