Variations to contact order

[justchecking1]

DP is going to court for a child arrangement order. Ideally doesn't want to ever have to go back to court ideally so is trying to think of possible pitfalls to include from the start. So far he has a list that specifies alternate Christmas/Boxing Day, and alternate New Years; child's passport to be made available; and opportunity to have a 2 week block of contact eg for holidays. All of these would affect the usual EOW and evening contacts.

Can you think of anything he should ask for as part of the order? Is there anything you have as specific issues that we should include? Just trying to anticipate things that may become a problem in future and sort them out now

Thanks

[TheChain]

I would imagine if the dm had been reasonable so start with it wouldn't have come down to this. In fairness she's brought this rigidity on herself by denying her ex reasonable phone calls

What’s deemed as reasonable though? My ex tried to insist I let the DS talk to him every time he wanted to, sometimes up to 3-4 times a day. He was very emotionally and verbally abusive towards the end of our relationship so I didn’t want to talk to him everyday or have him calling my phone all the time.
The times sound very restrictive and not reasonable imho, and not necessarily indicative of the ex being unfair. In situations where the parents don’t get on I can’t imagine it’s healthy.
Kids over the age of 5+years would surely be able to ask to ring the other parent if they wanted to anyway? Sounds awful but my DS is never bothered about speaking to his dad on the phone and has never asked to. Ever.

To be honest once Ex stopped demanding things like regular phone calls and chilled out a bit we started to get along fine and I would actively encourage DS to make contact with his dad.
We’re very amicable now, but if he’d been allow to dictate times for speaking etc I’m not sure we’d have reached the place where we are now.

[NorthernSpirit]

In my OH’s case he has been forced to go down the court route and have indirect contact in his CO order. If the mother had been reasonable he wouldn’t of had to do it.

Examples - he wasn’t ‘allowed’ to speak to his 8 YO daughter on her birthday as it wasn’t his contact day.

Christmas Day one year - he wasn’t allowed to speak, let alone see the children for a few minutes as it wasn’t his contact day.

The next year when it was CO he could speak to the kids he was told he could call at 7:05am only, otherwise the phone would not be answered.

His CO stipulates he can call 6pm - 6:30pm. He emailed once during the day to ask if he found phone at 6:35pm because he would be in a meeting at 6-6:30. He was told no.

Only when the oldest turned 11 and he bought her a mobile phone have the children been allowed to call dad. Previously they weren’t allowed to use the landline or her mobile to call their dad.

Oldest is now 14 and recently told dad that mummy had told her not to text or call her dad.

So you see what he’s dealing with? You can’t reason with someone so unreasonable. So yes - it’s been ordered by a judge so the children can speak to their dad.

I look forward to the day when the penny drops for the kids. You can’t deal with batshit.

[JoxerGoesToStuttgart]

Northern what happens when the DC are out/unavailable?

[CanILeavenowplease]

And of course you can go out, mobile phones exist

Still depends on what you’re doing. If you are going to be driving at that time, pulling over on the hard shoulder wouldn’t be acceptable and I have been at more than one party where a child has been hoiked out to speak to a parent and it has stopped everything and caused something of an atmosphere (and if you’re in a group where there are no separations, it can be particularly difficult as people simply do not understand). It can be isolating to be in such a situation and difficult to navigate what is right and wrong. Ultimately, I would fear an ex saying ‘no darling, we can’t go out with cousin Ben today because your dad is demanding you are available on the phone at 6pm and we can’t manage both’ or ‘we have to answer the phone to your dad or the judge will take you away’ which is probably worse than not getting to speak to a child regularly.

There are no easy answers and I can see your point of view @northern. It requires a certain level of flexibility on both sides to do what is best for the children and we frequently do ‘t have both sides playing the same game.