In virtually every situation, it is the court’s view that children spending time with both of their parents is beneficial. It is important to remember that children are very perceptive, and will make up their own mind about which household they feel is more supportive, and more beneficial. Children may after short periods of time, perceive that there is a tactical advantage in playing one household off against the other, or in attempting or threatening to move household to gain influence. You need to see this for what it is.
If a monitoring regime or shorter periods of spending time with one parent will rectify this safety issue, then consider it. A parent who truly is a danger, will very quickly be shown to be just that.
Having just said this, your children should never be exposed to danger, and you need to walk the line between providing that time for the children to spend with the other parent and a safe environment, and making sure your children are safe.
Exposure to a lifestyle which is different to yours, (or which is reported by your children to be different), is not necessarily cause for preventing children seeing and spending time with your Ex.
It is tempting, borne of mistrust and hurt to see arrangements relating to who the child lives with and how much time the child spends with each parent as an opportunity to “get even” with your Ex.
These on-going arguments, often over inconsequential variations, or irrelevant detail, have a deep and on-going effect on your children, whether they hear the arguments or not.
Children are particularly sensitive to this and the tension that it creates. Further, you cannot control the way in which your Ex may release his or her version of this argument to your children.
Children will always make up their mind which parent has their interests at heart. This is perhaps the most important battle to win; not the battle over who does the travel, or who gets to see the children first on Christmas day.
The long-term argument to be won is the battle to be the parent who did the right thing, in the eyes of the child.
Though it is difficult to maintain focus on this, a long-term drive towards any step (threat, demand, concession or compromise), which is in the interest of your child WILL PAY OFF.
It is a formal recognised fact of the Legislation, reinforced by the Courts, that, except in the most objectionable of situations, children benefit from time spent with each parent.
In order to prohibit (or even severely limit) your children spending time with the other parent, you will need to be in possession of evidence that it is not in the children’s best interest to have spend that time with them.
A starting point is that the time the children are spending with the parent they do not live with is beneficial. If you wish to limit or prohibit the time your Ex spends with the children, you will have to carry the burden of proof.
Factors which are relevant are:-
(i) age of the child;
(ii) special needs (illness, particular medical care or susceptibility);
(iii) risk to the child’s welfare;
(iv) cost of transport;
(v) availability of the parent whom the children do not live with to spend time with the children.
Until the advent of shared parenting, unless the child was quite young, the Court made “the usual orders”, that is, spending time with the parent they do not live with each alternate weekend, half of the School holidays, and special arrangements for approximately half of Christmas.
This was clear and unambiguous but rather inflexible.
With the advent of shared parenting, this is less clear and more flexible.
Shared parenting arrangements (week about), and even arrangements where the parents move but the children stay, are now not unheard of.
The Court is quite prepared to take a much more flexible view, provided the parents can make the arrangements work.
Societal norms and family units have also culturally adapted to situations of multiple households and children moving about. This is seen now as somehow less disruptive than it was 10 years ago.
In short, provided the two households are safe, and the child’s needs can be met in each of the households, there is no set “norm” for arrangements for children.
Notwithstanding this, the vast majority of families still fall into the parent with whom the child lives, and the parent with whom the child spends time with, who will get, roughly, alternate weekend access and half the School holidays. This arrangement still works quite well.
In the absence of any danger be:-
(i) communicative
(ii) generous
(iii) flexible
1. Communication
It is absolutely essential that you communicate the programs, plans and any changes to your Ex, with as much time as possible. Significant tens of thousands of dollars are spent in many cases, seeking orders from the Court, which could be quite easily worked out with a little bit of communication.
All of the time effort and anxiety (not to mention the effect on the children), which created by having to seek orders relating to who the child lives with and how much time is spent with the other parent depletes the resources of both parties and creates long on-going courses of tortured contact between the parents. These pieces of contact can go on for decades, and be seriously debilitating.
2. Generosity
Spending time with arrangements for very young Children
Sadly, relationships can and do break down at times when children are very young, even infants.
In these circumstances, the time spent with the children can often be shortened and made more frequent simply to avoid the logistic and other difficulties of having an infant moving and living in different surroundings.
It is quite common that spending time with infants to be reduced to a period of hours on a more frequent basis, until the child gets a little older.
Even this time spent is beneficial for all the parties concerned according to the Courts and the Parliament, and time spent even with infants will be ordered unless there is some particular reason not to do so.
3. Flexibility
Huge amounts of money, time, effort and anxiety every year are spent through the Courts arguing about ridiculous insignificant and ultimately futile variations to hand over and spending time with arrangements.
Inevitably, in the vast majority of cases, each party bears their own costs, depleting the resources of both households. The side effects are, long-term damage to the prospects of getting a working relationship relating to the children, and damage to the self-esteem and well-being of the children themselves.
It is important not to feel taken-advantage-of in these circumstances, but a concession made for the benefit of your child, which is pointed out as such, will go a long way towards winning that battle to be the parent with the greatest investment in the child’s well-being.
It may not always be reciprocated, but your children will understand and this is the main game.
Having said all of these things, if your message of flexibility is being misunderstood, or you are being taken advantage of, then you may need some permanence and structure, and may be justified in requiring some formality in the arrangements and the alteration.
A child focus will always assist you to make this decision.
If there are children involved, the Court will almost always order for time to be spent with the parent whom the children do not live with. This used to be called residence, and prior to that, access.
The Court will assume (and you should also) that the child will benefit from spending time with that parent.
The Court may also be order that the children spend time with grandparents and other near relatives in rare circumstances.
Spending time with arrangements will only be limited or refused if the circumstances require, for example, the child is particularly young, has special needs, the parent in question cannot cope or is not able to provide a safe environment, or there is some credible evidence of abuse by that parent.
Even in these circumstances, often the Courts will usually order that the time spent with the children is to be supervised. This is intended to be a controlled environment where the child can benefit from spending time with the parent but where there is some supervision of their activities so that there is no possibility of inappropriate behaviour.
The time children are to spend time with one parent is often inappropriately used as a weapon by parties.
1. COMMON STRATEGIES USED BY PARENTS
(i) constant requests for change;
(ii) failing to attend handovers on time or at all;
(iii) poisoning the children using time spent with the other parent as a bargaining chip;
(iv) unreasonable demands re travel arrangements;
(v) moving away to make spending time with arrangements difficult.
2. THE PROBLEM WITH THESE TACTICS
The difficulty with tactics such as these is:-
(i) they will often land you in Court with an interim application to change the time that a parent spends with their child, or even who the child lives with, this is costly for both parties;
(ii) they lead to a situation where the dispute never ends because the parties will often have entrenched attitudes, and once the argument begins it cannot be “switched off”;
(iii) children are quite perceptive creatures and will often take advantage of the scenario to “play one off against the other”. You very quickly find a situation where the children are feeding back to you information to suit their own agendas, rather than accurate information, and this not only sends the argument further out of control, it takes the issues in a direction that neither of the parents intended.
You should take a great deal of care when relying upon information reported back by children after they spend time with their parent.
Children can very quickly work out who is the cause of the anxiety between the parties and who is inflicting the most emotional damage upon them. Children do not forget this and as they grow older your relationship with your children could be irretrievably damaged by your loss of balance and focus. Your continued manipulation with arrangements relating to the time children spend with the other party (or that by your Ex) can mean that you (or your Ex), will have no relationship with those children once they become old enough to make up their own mind. It is essential that you stay focussed on the benefits for the child, even in difficult circumstances where your children may not want to spend time with the parent , or where it may not suit you.
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