Anyone used a child arrangement order to specify contact for holidays? EA ex.

[Teabay]

Hi,
Please help, share your experiences.
Divorced EA exh almost four years ago. He is still FURIOUS that I left. DC aged 8 & 13 live with me, have every other weekend with him.
Last January he agreed first two weeks of school hol with DC. I booked 10 days hol. One week before he said he was only having one week, he'd never agreed to two.
Upshot was (after posting on here) I took DC with me and they didn't go camping with him.
He is still raging about this, said I stopped him going etc etc, I was petty etc etc.

This January I sent him a year calendar with eow marked on it. I asked if he wanted first or second week of Easter, and first or last week of summer.
He ranted that he is not going to decide, has no plans, will just let me know if he books something.

Aaagh!
Can I stop this happening for next 10 years? Through court?

You cannot force him to have the children if he doesn't want them. However you need to make them available within reason so he can have contact with them.

You also don't have 10 more years you have a maximum of 6 due to your youngest age.

Depending on the maturity of your children once they are teens particularly when they hit 15 and are doing their GCSEs, you can't force them to see their father. So you and him can plan but if your 13 year old refuses to see him regularly then you shouldn't force them.

Email him again and point out that the children want to know when they will see him during their school holidays as the both will be upset not knowing, and the eldest will make their own plans as they are starting to have their own social life.

If he gives you a shit answer don't respond. If a couple of weeks before a holiday he demands to see the children say by email that unfortunately they aren't available.

If his rants are upsetting you make sure you block him and only communicate with him by email unless it is an emergency.

He said yesterday that he'll just tell me when he's booked something. I said that means I can't make any plans at our end, he replied that it's my job to have the children all the time when he doesn't want them.
This is first phone contact we've had since Nov.
Back then he said that if he didn't have first week in Xmas hols he couldn't have them at all as he was at work. Total lie - he was at home all second week too. He lives in family home in same village, kids noticed he was in! But didn't want to go.
Total pisstake tonight - he's just text, he's got an early work start so can he bring them back on Sunday instead of dropping at school Mon morning. But I have work, I book and pay for breakfast club on my regular shifts. I think I should say No, but youngest has a school trip on Mon morn and he's bound to drop DC for sleepover at random friend instead - last time they stayed up til 1am there....

I feel your pain. No words of advice but My Exh is exactly the same, constantly changes arrangements due to work/social life. My plans are irrelevant sigh. It's such hard work dealing with such unreasonable behaviour. I have been to mediation but he refuses to go as "he doesn't have the spare cash", yeah right. On top of this he is emotionally abusive to me/the children. I am still trying to work out how to put a stop to it and have been looking into the possibility of a court order. Just wanted to keep it out of the courts but he is backing me into a corner sigh.

You cannot control him but you can control how you react to him.

So you have been reasonable in trying to discuss dates in advance on the phone, and you are being more than reasonable by emailing him and reminding him of why you are both doing this. If he then can't be bothered to organise himself at least 4-5 weeks before the relevant school holiday and the children have other things to do by the time he has, then you simply email him the children aren't available.