Contact Arrangements If One Parent Lives Abroad?

[Holdyourhobbyhorses]

Does anyone have experience of making contact arrangements if one parent lives abroad?

What does it look like?

Anyone know if there are any typical arrangements that would be made for this type of situation (like eow and half holidays is fairly typical for parents who are both in the UK)

My dc see their dad every 3 months or so. It used to be every 6 weeks but his choice to make it less regular. Plus they have a weekly Skype call. I don't think the current arrangement is that fair on the dc, but they are used to the frequency of contact so are happy enough. It's usually 3/4 days at a time in the holidays. I think my EXH would collapse at the idea of half of the summer holidays!

I used to spend most of my holidays with my Dad.

Sorry, posted too soon.

I was involved in making the decision. Everyone was happy. I was 13.

We have a particular situation where exH doesn't take DS on holidays or has any unsupervised contact.

But, they have contact via Skype twice a week, when he doesn't screw it up. And they see each other when he happens to come here.
If he wasn't a PA and EA twat, I'd have been happy with half the holidays, possibly more.

Skype is very common usually about once a week.

As for the rest it depends a lot on the age of the DC and the distances involved and the existing relationship. Extended periods during the school holidays are common (in the UK or in the ex's country). But if DC are young/not comfortable with extended periods away the ex may initially come to the UK and have shorter periods of contact (e.g. Staying in a hotel or with family).

XH and I lived in Europe for 6.5 years. We kept UK house and drove/flew/sailed home (whichever was cheapest) pretty much every other weekend. Xmas and Easter hols they'd fly out unaccompanied minor and in summer they'd stay with us for a couple of weeks plus family holidays somewhere.

We lived a 3.5 hour drive from Calais and a 2 hour drive from Dover. We both worked full time for the first 3 years (then it was just me working) and our Friday night trek to the UK became routine. I admired XH for his willingness to do that to maintain contact.

I had no kids and if we'd had babies of our own it would have been close to impossible We did it this way to make sure the kids had their own home to be in with us and not some B&B with endless McDonalds.

Bragmatic- did that mean that you didn't have holiday time with your mum?

Beforeandafter-I really admire that level of commitment!

DC is very little (6), contact is irregular with big chunks missed when xp works or has holidays. 6 months of contact missed in the last 12 just because he was on holiday. We talked about building up time in the holidays so that dc could spend half the summer hols in one go with xp but he hasn't stuck to that and has missed more holiday time.

My concern would be emotional instability for dc - he already has big chunks of time away from xp, big chunks of time away from me also (eg whole school holiday) would not be in his best interests at his age I feel.

Any thoughts?

I wouldn't be apart the entire school holidays either.
I was from DS for 3 weeks this year (he was 8), and that was about the most we could stand.

I'd insist in half the holidays. Not all of it.
If dad misses contact time, it's his problem.
I do think regular contact is better than huge chunks.

Thanks Lweji