How can Dad stay involved in the kids lives?

Negotiating an arrangement that works for your family

What if there’s conflict or violence?

Unfortunately, many marriages and relationships don’t work out. However when separating or divorcing, it’s important to achieve an amicable agreement about how to co-parent your children. When reaching agreement, the focus should be on what is best for the children.

In Australia, both parents are encouraged to take an active role in their children’s lives. This means that even after a separation the decisions about your children’s long term future, such as schooling and health care plans, will continue to be made by both parents.

In most cases, the children will continue to live a lot of their time with the parent who has been their most ‘hands on’ carer. This often means that the children will mainly live with one parent but will be able to spend a substantial amount of quality time, including weekdays, weekends, school holidays and special family days such as birthdays and Christmas, with the other parent.

A common situation is where one parent has been the primary breadwinner and the other parent has managed the home environment and provided the majority of care for the children. Ideally, the children would spend equal time with each parent. However in many instances this may not be possible so a compromise arrangement can be made. In such circumstances, the kids may live predominantly with one parent and spend one or more nights each week and every second weekend with the other parent, and speak with the kids most other days by phone. School holiday times, special days and birthdays are shared by agreement between the parents.

It’s important for families to come up with a routine that is effective for them, so that they can work around their work schedules or the children’s activities, with flexibility to accommodate unexpected special events.

To minimise any potential conflict between parents, some families use the children’s sporting and schooling activities as a convenient time to change over between one house and the other.

If there is violence in the family, special arrangements need to be made to protect children from exposure to physical or psychological violence. It may be possible to structure consent orders to allow the children to spend time with the other parent in safe environment or even in a supervised environment. In very rare cases the children may not be able to spend time with the other parent at all.

There are often misunderstandings about how custody arrangements are made and enforced. To read more about what solutions might work for your family, read our free e-book How You Can Protect Yourself and Your Children During Family Breakdown today.

To avoid needless worry, you may want to speak with one of our experienced family lawyers.

Kelly Batey and Bruce Batey of Bateys Family Lawyers have years of experience in family law. We have assisted hundreds of families through the difficult process of separation and divorce.