Association for Shared Parenting 

Arguing for adequate Parenting Time for your children 

Introduction 

The purpose of this note is to make suggestions for parents and others to bear in mind when they are arguing that their children should have a full relationship with both their parents, and with the wider family both sides.

This may be in discussions with third parties, in mediation and conciliation meetings, interviews by CAFCASS. If  court proceedings are  necessary they may help you brief your representative  or argue your own case. 

It will need adapting to your children, your family, and the situation and the history.

Understanding the points of view 

There are always at least four parties to disputes in a divided family.

First, there are the children, with their needs and wishes (and different children, even in the same family and in the same situation, may want and need different things)

 Then there are the  two parents., each with their point of view.

Finally,  there are those trying to intervene, either helping the parents come to an agreement, or imposing a decision. In the last resort. These may be CAFCASS officers and Judges. These are the ones with the final say.

In all but the simplest cases, there will be many more. Members of the wider family, especially grandparents. New partners of either or both the parents. Step children and half brothers and sisters.

There may be many more ‘outsiders’ involved such as mediation and conciliation services, on occasion Social Services, people and organisations to whom individuals may turn for support of advocacy and so on.

  Any and sometimes all of these may have assumptions and beliefs which differ from yours. Their actions and decisions will be based on their beliefs, not yours. You must endeavour to bring them, on the basis of their beliefs, as near as possible to what you think is best.  We suggest that in preparing your case you list all the people involved, but especially those with most power. Then give a lot of thought to ‘where they might be coming from’. When you have done that, work on your arguments so that they will have the biggest impact on them.  

The game is not to argue simply for your point of view – but in such a way as others come round to it. That should start with them, not you.

Most important among these is your ex. It is far better overall, and especially for the children, for the parents to co-operate. If you can understand and take your ex’s needs and views into account, that will achieve the best. They may reciprocate, but even if they don’t you will be able to work on them better.

Next most important, for they have the final say and agreements arrived at may be in the shadow of their likely decisions, are ‘the authorities’, By which we mean CAFCASS and the Courts. More of this below.

What do we mean by ‘shared parenting’?

 What follows  is, of course, the view of the Association for Shared Parenting. It is our view of what should normally happen. It is not going to be the view of everyone or even anyone in your family or making decisions over your children. The best outcome is for the children to have the full and free involvement of both of their parents in their lives, whether they live together or not, unless there are contrary reasons. This is not just our arbitrary taste. It is based on firm evidence on what is normally best for children. There can be no rigid formula, families are too different. The parenting arrangements should reflect the needs, wishes and practicalities in each family. What should be sought, however, is the best blend of both parents rather than polarising them into ‘caring’ and ‘absent’ parents. Both parents should be involved in both child care and in earning. Both parents should be given equal status in law, in their treatment by public and private agencies and be equally respected by ‘society’. The children should see each parent’s role as comparable and be able to be close or very close to both. The parenting arrangements should enable both parents to be fully involved in all aspects of the children’s lives – for example schooling – and the children should be aware of the lives of both their parents ‘in the round’. 

There is a fuller paper on this website of what we mean by Shared Parenting.

 There is growing support for this approach, and indications that it reflects ‘public opinion’. However, the beliefs of the majority of decision makers in the field of family still lag behind this attitude. You should never assume that Judges, CAFCASS reporters or others believe that shared parenting is what is best for children; you should therefore try to adapt your arguments to their beliefs, and try and draw them as far in the ‘shared parenting’ direction as far as possible.   

What should you ask for by way of Parenting Time? 

‘Parenting Time’ is the better name for what the Law and those around it call ‘contact’.  Explore with the children what they want. Parents are often locked into proportions of time, the children don’t see it like this. They are more likely to be concerned about what they do with whom, and in particular with what inflexible parenting arrangements may stop them doing.  Then decide what will be the best arrangements. Only you can know what is practical and what you want.  You will need to think about the objectives first of all, but the next stage is the more important, and the one this paper is most about. How to persuade other parties to allow the children to have what is best. You will need to work out arguments that will move them from what they might spontaneously think to what is best.  You will need to decide how flexible you want the arrangements to be.  Flexibility and reciprocation should be the goals. However, if relations are acrimonious any imprecision is likely to be exploited by the party with the most power. We assume this is likely to be your ex.  And if there may be a need for enforcement, the contact order needs to be unambiguous in every detail.  If you don’t trust your ex, you may decide to ask for clear and apparently rigid  arrangements. This is to fall back on them if necessary, but more usually to be able to discuss departures from it from a position of strength. There is no reason why you cannot vary an order if there is agreement.  If you depart from the arrangements to give the children  less time with you on a particular occasion, they  will often appreciate it. But do not hesitate to ask for more time at a different stage to make up, or for extra time for something special with you.   One of the problems with the lack of respect given by the authorities to shared parenting is the insecurity it engenders in the parents.  Non-resident parents are likely to see any departure from ‘the regime’ to the ‘advantage’ of the resident parent as being a possible step towards the erosion of their part in the lives of the children. This is indeed sometimes the case.  The residential parent may sees any ‘extra’ contact as a potential threat to their dominant position or their right to call the shots. If both felt that their position in the lives of the children was certain, the normal give and take that happens in intact families would be much easier. But that is to stray from what is currently the case into what ASP thinks should be better.  Do not – unless you are sure of a positive response – strive/hope for ‘equality’ or indeed for any prescribed proportion of the children’s time. This is to invite an immediate response that the children ‘cannot be divided up like the CD collection’ and you will potentially be labelled as someone who treats children like items that can and should be divided ‘fairly’ between the parents. This point may be made by people who quasi-automatically order or recommend residence to the mother and a visit to the father every second week-end. It is not wise to draw attention to these double standards. There is in fact no research to support the view that this formula is what is best for children. Such research into shared parenting that does exist is that the majority of children whose care is equally divided are positive about it – although it does not suit all [1].  However, such arrangements have become conventional, broadly on the following grounds. That the children should be in ‘one place’ during the week, for childcare, school or other practical reasons, but that both parents should share the time the children are ‘free’.  You should consider three counter moves, neither of which explicitly challenges the entrenched prejudice of ‘every second weekend and half the holidays’.  The first is to stretch that formula as far as it will go. The ‘visit every second weekend’ was once often interpreted as a few hours on Saturday afternoon. It usually now incorporates at least picking up the children sometime on Saturday and returning them in time for them to settle on Sunday. Increasingly it is picking them up on Friday direct from school/nursery/other and returning them on Monday morning. ‘Half the holidays’ was, similarly, sometimes seen as a day or two over Christmas and Easter and a week in the summer. It is now more liberally interpreted, sometimes as half the school holidays. It can be driven still further, to include half bank holidays, half (or perhaps all) days when the school is shut for training and the like.  

These are for slightly older children; attitudes to sharing the parenting of babies and toddlers are even more variable and unpredictable. The science is that they are happy whoever they are with and wherever they are, provided they get good quality care  and are in familiar situations and hands. The idea that they need to have just one principal parent has been refuted. But what they need to bond with a person (actually mainly, their face) is not the total amount of time spent with them, but its frequency. Many short times are better than longer ones further apart. They bond with their biological mother only because she is the one usually most there, not because of anything else. It could have been anyone. There is evidence that babies respond better to being calmed in a high pitched i.e.normally female voice but the difference is not great.

But, in practice, the beliefs of the parties are based not on scientific research, but on a deeply held  subjective conviction. And that is usually traditional – that it has to be the mother.

   The second move  is to add to this formula ‘special days’. Such as being with you on your birthday or any other special days with you or for your family, such as birthdays of their grandparents on your side. For religious and ethnic minorities whose festivals have not been incorporated into, for example, the organisation of school holidays it should include a share of them.  With a bit on ingenuity the amount of time can be multiplied without any direct challenge to what the authorities think is ‘normal’ or ‘what works’. The third move is to point out your need to be involved in things that the formula would exclude you from. The most important of this is schooling. An increasing number of children are getting some mid-week time with their non-residential parent and commonly the reason for this is for him (or her) to have some contact with school and the children’s mid-week life.    

The values and perspectives of those who matter 

1) Your exWe cannot advise you on the beliefs of your ex! But remember that even people who seem ‘egalitarian’ might turn to other attitudes in situations of conflict and if they are to their advantage. Many a mother who once seemed to believe in equality will say ‘the children belong to me’, and many a man will claim the right to have his way in the end.  By all means make appeals to her or his beliefs, but it may be more reliable to make proposals that address the practical and economic advantages that they might give to your ex. 

2) Your childrenConflict between their parents is distressing and damaging to children. It must be avoided if at all possible. If it is not possible, make sure it is on as narrow a front, is as low key as you can make it, and that the children are not exposed to it.  It is unethical, and also likely to backfire, for you to try and co-opt them into your point of view. This applies especially to parents who see little or nothing of their children, often men.  Some parents do successfully alienate their children from the other parent but as a general rule one or both of the following situations has to apply. First, there is no direct contact between the children and those they are to be alienated from. The children do not, therefore, have direct experience of that person as a counter to the poisoning they are given against him or her. Secondly, the intensity of pressure from a parent with whom they have to live is such that the children opt not to see their other parent.  Generally speaking, however, the authorities are sympathetic to any grounds the resident parent might give for rubbishing the other parent, but they will pass harsh judgement if it is the other way round. The children will want you both to get along and they will usually think lesser of, immediately or in the long term, a parent who is negative about the other.  While you must not run down your ex to your shared children, it is of course essential that you show them that you love them and give them a good time. And they should be encouraged to say this to the authorities. By and large, what they will want will be, in effect, shared parenting, and if confident enough they will be able to declare this. They may be your best allies in attaining this.  If you think they may not speak out in favour of having both of you fully involved out of fear or misplaced loyalty to the resident parent, you need to draw attention to this.  

3) The authorities The attitude of ‘the authorities’ - which we have used as shorthand for Judges, CAFCASS Reporters, Guardians, Social workers and the like – are highly variable and unpredictable. Some of the most eminent and experienced observers have described their recommendations and decisions as ‘a lottery’. This is for two reasons. The first is that the Law and related advice says that the welfare of the children is of paramount importance but it gives no guidance as to how that is to be interpreted. Almost anything can pass, provided it is justified on child welfare grounds. The second is that this is an area where attitudes were always variable but where they are now changing rapidly. The penetration of modern thinking and modern research is patchy.  What is clear, however, is the position/belief structure of the past.  The attitudes that are commonly found now can best be understood as some weakening and qualifications made to the traditional view.  This was historically associated with Lord Justice Ormrod whose judgements ruled family law until about 15 years ago and which are still influential.  

You should be prepared to encounter these views, and be pleased and relieved if they are not found, or weak.

The traditional view 

‘Custody, care and control’ of the children (these terms are pre-Children Act) is to be given to the mother unless there was something appalling, irremediable and permanently wrong with her parenting. All other arrangements are to be made to support her in her difficult and demanding role as a lone parent. It might indeed be good for the children to have some ‘access’ to their father but it must not disrupt their ‘normal life’, which is with their mother. Ultimately the arrangements were in the hands of the mother. Judges and others might try and influence and even pressurise her into allowing ‘access’ but this must be of a sensitive and delicate sort. Nothing should be done that might upset or inconvenience the mother. Anything that did this would inevitably damage the children by making her less able to care for them alone. Attempts to impose any alternative arrangements were ‘doomed to failure’.  

This sometimes had a quite poisonous effect. The more problematic was the life and the parenting of the mother – and the more need, therefore, there was for some help and relief from it from the Non-Residential Parent - the more likely it was that the children were denied that relationship – if the mother said it distressed here. 

It is therefore imperative – and its the ethical view too – that the contribution of the Non-Residential Parent is presented as supportive of the parenting of the parent with Residence, and not as a challenge to it.

Amendments to the traditional view 

Only a few people in family law today would endorse Ormrod’s view in their stark original force. The views of the current Deputy President of the Family Division Lord Justice Thorpe, are, however, only modestly different.  Much of what goes on today can, however,  only be understood as qualitifications of views held in the past. The overriding remaining attitude is that one parent is far more important than the other. In the normal case that will still be the mother. The ‘need’ of the children to be brought up in a happy stress free home with one parent is the first thing to be promoted. The role of the second parent is primarily to support and complement the task of the ‘principal carer’.  Usually, today, the role of the ‘second parent’ is seen as significantly more important than it was in Ormrod’s time. But by and large the needs, wishes and feelings of the parent with residence are still given precedence in the event of any conflict or incompatibility.  This attitude is likely to impact upon your experiences in some measure, and so you should keep this in mind when formulating your arguments, in order to have maximum effect.  You may well wish to challenge these views. The best way of doing that is to get involved in the ASP. But when you are arguing for the rights of your children, put them first. That means doing and saying whatever is necessary to get as much shared parenting for them as you can. If that involves holding your tongue about ways in which you disagree with the fundamental values and beliefs of the judge or another party, so be it. If, of course,  you are able to make your social, political and ethical points without alienating the parties in question, that is all for the good. For example a judge (or Reporter/other) who believes that that the ‘normal man’ puts his career before his children (as the judge may well have done) may find that view undermined eventually if he (or she) encounters enough men who say the opposite. But remember that you need him or her on your side. You are more likely to be successful if you show why, on the basis of the views the Judge holds, your children should be given a full and free relationship with you, than if you try and prove to the judge that he or she has mistaken or prejudiced views. The latter is ASP’s  job in our lobbying and educational work.   

The ‘welfare checklist’ 

Decisions of the courts have to conform to the law, and CAFCASS and other reports must also address this. The law also has moral authority in other contexts. The overarching law is the Children Act 1989 and the most important single aspect of that for you is the tests that must be applied in making decisions and recommendations. Many CAFCASS   reports and court judgements are organised around the ‘Welfare Checklist’ in that act and all have it as a background.  You need to address the same checklist in your arguments explicitly or implicitly.  The checklist is as follows: (The terminology of the law is always masculine, the items apply equally to females).  A court shall have regard in particular to: a) the ascertainable wishes and feelings of the child concerned (considered in the light of his age and understanding);b) his physical, emotional and educational needs;c) the likely effect on him of any change in his circumstances;d) his age, sex, background and any characteristics of his which the court considers relevant;e) any harm which he has suffered or is at risk of suffering;f) how capable each of his parents, and any other person in relation to whom the court considers the question to be relevant, is of meeting his needs;g) the range of powers available to the court under this Act in the proceedings in question.  

The points to be made in your argument 

You should address the needs and wishes of the children first.  If you need to mention anything about yourself it should be of much lower priority and your focus should be upon how it makes a difference to the children. Often it is good to start by saying a few words about the children, their lives and personalities and particular needs, tastes and interests.  • Address the items in the ‘welfare checklist’ above, showing how your proposals for parenting time will meet them; • The children’s need to know that you still love them and, in particular, that you still wish to share their lives. That this wish is not to be a minor, distant participant, but to be regularly and fully involved. Without this, they may feel rejected and their self-esteem and self confidence will be damaged;  • Particular activities that you have and want to continue to share with them. Particular plans you have for them in the future. The need for sufficient time to do this in. Emphasise stability, that you want to go on doing what they are used to; • The role of their extended family on your side. The children’s actual or potential relationship with their family on your side. The past and possible future development of this. This is part of their need for an identity. There must be sufficient time for this; • The role of the children’s friendships and continuity with familiar things. Research indicates that even for quite young children their friends are very important to them and that their loss, for example if the resident parent up sticks and goes to live far away, deprives them of resources that are important to their coping with all the other distress that accompanies family break up. The authorities rarely take this on board, still less the need of children for any pets they have which can also be very important;  • Yourself as a role model for them. Ways in which they may benefit from sharing your life and values. The children should be able to see you and your life ‘in the round’. For example, that you go out to work rather than only being there when you can devote your life to providing fun for them;  • Particular interests, qualities and skills that you have that the children will benefit from having contact with; • Ways in which your style and attitudes complement those of the mother. Remember to acknowledge what she offers too, but it is rare that the children will not get from you something that they do not get from her; • The ways in which your role will make the life and parenting of their other parent easier. These may include – increased capacity to earn as a result of your care improving the economic position of your ex and yourself; less need for child-minding, baby sitting, daycare either in an institutional setting or with people who may be costly and unfamiliar; • The relief your ex will have from childcare, enabling her or him to have ‘another life’ and other interests, friendships and relationships; • That the children are in safe and loving hands with you; • The arrangements need to be such that you know about their hobbies, friends and interests. This is important for any parent, to be able to discuss their progress and problems. You should be able to offer practical help, if that is needed, quickly enough for it to be useful in the eyes of the children. It is particularly important that your involvement keeps you up to speed with their schoolwork if the children are of school age, so that you can support this; • You can be emotionally close, and be ‘there’ or very soon ‘there’ if ‘anything happens’ that needs discussion or action. This may include issues at school, with friends, with brothers or sisters or other family members, in the neighbourhood or, commonly enough, with their other parent, step–parents or their children. Nearly all of these will be at one level trivial (petty accidents in the playground for example), but immediate and appropriate attention to them is of considerable emotional and practical importance to the children. These often flare up and die down very quickly, and you will not be seen as helpful by your children if not readily available; • You should stress the way that your involvement is helpful to the children’s other parent; that you will be on hand, and know what to do in the event of any problem. The majority of problems will not be serious, but ‘everyday occurrences’, such as the children being sent home at lunchtime due to a problem at school, but giving any examples of this will be helpful.  

Summary and conclusion 

Do not be afraid of asking for a proper amount of time with your children. Unless there is something awry about you or your situation you will be doing what is right for the children and what they want. Judges and other ‘authorities’ also need to know that traditional stereotypes, that men go out and earn and women care for children only now apply to minorities. But do not ask for sufficient  parenting time ‘on principle’ or ‘out of politics’, but because of the benefits that it will bring them as individuals.

However, be prepared for other views to be presented and for them to prevail often. You may well get less parenting time than you and your children wish for. The more parenting time you get (up to equality) the happier you and your children will be, and your ex will usually come to see the advantages to them too. But if you get less, it will still benefit the children and you should always make the best use of it that you can.

If you are happy with the outcome, stay with the ASP to help others.

If you are not happy, remember that one of the reasons has been that the lobby for shared parenting has had less support than it should have.

Help remedy that situation.

 Draft 1 for ASP John Baker 05.10.10