My Child Contact Child Ripped in Half by Parents

CONTACT MADE SAFE


During and following separation and divorce kids need a great deal of love understanding and reassurance from both of their parents. Evidence shows that the majority of children want to continue to see people that matter to them. Pressure from the adults often stops them from feeling comfortable enough to express their true feelings. The best way of ensuring that you are doing everything possible to keep your children safe, well and happy is to make sure that they enjoy good quality contact and that means putting their needs before your own and making sure that they are encouraged to go to contact with their non-resident parent. Encouraged means just that! Simply agreeing to contact taking place is not enough. Children have to be continually reassured and actively helped to attend contact with their absent parent. Contact should be seen as a joyous occasion and not an anxiety filled adult led continuation of the parent’s dispute. All too often children are used as pawns… Contact can happen only if Dad pays his maintenance or Mum jumps through some emotional hoop etc etc. Unbelievable I know, but it happens all the time. One of the most effective ways of ensuring that you get contact right for your sons and daughters is to ask them what they want and to listen to them and then actively alter arrangements to suit their changing needs. This can only be done when both parents cooperate and that includes respecting each others views and opinions. (Something that was probably lacking in the marriage/relationship). Where possible avoid any sudden changes in the contact arrangements. Children need structure and stability. “A survey of 2,000 children aged six to eleven on contact with their fathers’ showed that they saw good contact as being:
· Dads showing interest in their schooling
· Preparing meals
· Watching TV with them
· Playing football
· Reading them stories
· Going shopping together and
· Helping them through bad times
One child called it ‘messing about with dad, another ‘being loved’ by her dad. They did not see contact in terms of getting expensive toys, bikes, computers and holidays, but about having a relationship with and being ‘looked after’ by their parent” Time for Children CAFCASS.
This is exactly what children need and what good contact is really about. Don’t get drawn into the media stereo typical portrayal that parents don’t get contact right. Statistics show that “Only a small minority of parents use the law to sort out contact arrangements. A survey by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) found that around 1 in 10 parents had court orders. Between half and 60% agreed contact between themselves and between a fifth and a third had no agreed arrangements (resident and non-resident parent reports differ)” Child Contact With Non-resident Parents University of Oxford Department of Social Policy and Social Work.

Contact doesn’t just happen it has to be planned. Probably the most difficult contact to properly plan is staying contact, be it for one night or longer. Staying contact puts extra pressure on children. They have to adapt to a different household usually with different rules. Parents need to have agreement about routines. It helps if parents can be flexible and have an overall understanding of the difficulties.

Contact goes wrong:
· When children are put at risk
· When members of the family are not committed to contact
· When contact is made a negative arrangement
· When a parent has unreasonable opposition to contact or wants to significantly change the contact arrangements, but not for the child’s good…END