19th June is Father's Day or is it?

By Frances Kelly

For many, Father’s Day will mean dad being spoilt: breakfast in bed, handmade cards from school and a special day together to remember in the future.

However for some dads, Father’s Day can be just another Sunday spent without the children.

When a relationship breaks down and the children’s time is divided between their parents, days like Father’s Day take on a more poignant meaning. If parents have difficulty in communicating, the net result is that the children suffer. Children can be used as pawns in a tactical game played between their parents. For example if there are financial negotiations taking place as a result of a divorce, then this can damage communication over children matters. Issues that often arise can involve:

• the frequency of contact
• where contact should take place
• whether overnight staying contact should take place now and/or how it should be managed;
• disputes over how/when the children should be introduced to a new partner;
• holiday contact;
• attendance of both parents at school events;
• which parent is responsible for payment of school fees and how these are paid;
• managing indirect contact – i.e. telephone calls; letters/e-mails; webcams; Skype etc.;

Children need to grow up knowing both their parents, and days like Father’s Day and Mother’s Day should form happy family memories. But bitterness over other issues can make children feel disloyal if they express a wish to one parent to see the other. Or worse, children are silent and miserable because they feel responsible for acrimony between the two people they love the most.

We act for dads or mums and we have access to other professionals involved in resolving family issues such as psychotherapists, counsellors, mediators and family consultants. More information is on our website www.divorce-london.co.uk/children

All the lawyers in our family team are members of Resolution which is an organisation of family lawyers committed to resolving family issues in a non-hostile way. Resolution provide information and run courses for parents who are going through relationship breakdown or having parenting difficulties.: www.resolution.org.uk/parentingafterparting.

We make every effort to help parents reach an agreement rather than go to Court; but sometimes involving the Court is necessary to put in place and manage a sensible level of contact on a regular basis. In these circumstances, we can assist in providing specialist family barristers to represent you at Court and can help open up discussions between parents at Court, which often enables contact arrangements to be agreed that would otherwise not have happened. The Court based welfare service CAFCASS often has a representative in attendance at Court to assist discussions; and the Court also encourage mediation to help couples resolve issues by agreement between parents.