Child arrangement court order

Yes I agree that the GP's need to bare some responsibility as do the parents in some cases. I don't think that GP's would open up court proceedings only to prove they did all that they could, just in case one day in the future their GC find them. They would do that to try and maintain their relationship with their GC.

If at a later date when their GC are old enough to find them and do so, it may or may not be of significance to them that their GP's went to court.

Mediation or at least an attempt at mediation is insisted on by the courts. I say an attempt because it isn't always possible if one party refuses.

Divorce can be fraught and stressful and upsetting to children but it doesn't have to be if the adults concerned put their own grievances second to their children's welfare. The same can be said here.

Some GP's are cut out of their GC's lives due to their parents' grievances so not always because it is in the best interests of the children to be denied their GP's.

notanan2 Sat 07-Sep-19 12:49:05 I agree so think the onus is on the parents to do all they can to keep the relationships going.

Smileless2012 Sat 07-Sep-19 12:57:37 - good point

Hithere Sat 07-Sep-19 13:34:04 I totally disagree. Are you suggesting that if a child loses a parent or grandparent they will forget about them? I'm sure you are wrong unless they are very young. Children are far more sensitive and caring than you seem to think. "I see a lot of projection' from parents who have cut out GPs.

LostChild Sat 07-Sep-19 14:48:54 I think you may be wrong because of the upsurge of people tracing their family and all the TV programmes about tracing people. No personal experience but I do have a couple of friends who research family all the time and also people who have had DNA tests to trace their backgrounds.

I suppose that the parent must be responsible for their own stress if they refuse to mediate. I would assume that any such refusal is based upon the knowledge that they are in the wrong and hoping the GPs will give up. If a parent has good reasons for stopping their child from seeing the GPs then they will be so sure of their case that they won't be so stressed.

It seems to me that some of the most outspoken on this subject know so much about how the courts decide that the child must see the GPs so presumably have been through the system and failed to stop the GPs. This may not be the case but it seems that way to me

Oh yes there is nothing stressful about a year spent in and out of court unless you're a "baddy"

I cannot imagine how bad a situation must have been for a court to make an order for a child to spend Christmas away from home. The parent must have done something pretty terrible for a court to make that decision.

If a GC does trace the GPs in adulthood, and instead of getting to know the GC in the present tense the GP uses the opportunity to "prove" how much they faught the childs parent by going to court, or to present the AGC with a box of kids cards and gifts that they would have given then had the parents let them, or to go through memory boxes of their fantacy grandparenting that they never got to do....

....
Then they are not really interested in the AGC who reached out are they?They are just using the AGC to validate their past grievances about the situation!

And that'll go one of two ways:
The ACG will agree
The AGC will disagree
Either way, the focus of the interaction will be on the AC, not on the AGC & GP getting to know each other!

Its not sewing the seed for a fresh relationship with the AGC moving forward..

I cannot imagine how bad a situation must have been for a court to make an order for a child to spend Christmas away from home. The parent must have done something pretty terrible for a court to make that decision.

Contact orders do not assess the parents fitness to parent. That is an entirely different process.

However the order may say something like:
"The first week of each school holidays"
Or
"The last weekend if every month"
And if that HAPPENS to fall on Christmas, or the parents milestone birthday, or a step siblings birthday etc.... the child still HAS to go!

"Hithere Sat 07-Sep-19 13:34:04 I totally disagree. Are you suggesting that if a child loses a parent or grandparent they will forget about them? I'm sure you are wrong unless they are very young. Children are far more sensitive and caring than you seem to think. "I see a lot of projection' from parents who have cut out GPs."
No, the gc might not forget them, I never said that.

What I meant is that gc do not give as much importance to gp as gp would like.

Hithere I think in "normal" families it waxes and wains:

Small kids ADORE the adults in their life
Then not so much, and its all about friends/siblings/cousins and adults are less interesting
Then the adults in the extended family become important again some time in the teens when often its easier to open up to other close adults than to parents.

That person can be a much loved GP, but it doesnt have to be. If they have close extended adults who live them around then there is nothing to miss. It can be family friends/"honorary aunts/uncles", good neighbours, other relatives, older cousins or siblings. You just need a "tribe" / village but it can take many forms.

Its not like missing a parent. Nobody can fill a parent sized hole IYKWIM

"...who LOVE them..."

It's a shame that all too often the worse of intentions are presumed to be on the EGP's agenda, and that some of the posters on here are unable or unwilling to make their point without making distasteful comments.

"memory boxes of their fantasy grand parenting that they never got to do ...." horrible. How many GP's "present" their now AC with the memory boxes they've made? How many simply tell the AGC of the boxes existence and then wait until said AGC asks to see it? If they don't, and it's been willed to them, they will still have the option whether to look inside or not. How many GP's never mention the existence of a memory box, knowing their AGC will inherit it one day.

"Then they are not really interested in the AGC who reached out are they? They are just using the AGC to validate their past grievances about the situation". Such amazing insight into hearts and minds of EGP's; such extensive knowledge of people and their individual circumstances; people no one knows.

Oh but I keep forgetting, there's no such thing as a parent who takes their children away from a GP out of spite, out of wickedness and cruelty. All estranging AC are innocent and victims of their abusive parents.

All EGP's are evil. Their GC need to be protected them from them at all costs.

Oh and let's not forget that if a contact order is given to GP's and their visiting time falls on Christmas day or a milestone birthday of another family member, those GP's are so selfish, so unconcerned about the welfare of their GC that they wouldn't dream of re arranging the date and time of the visit in the best interests of their GC.

Oh and let's not forget that if a contact order is given to GP's and their visiting time falls on Christmas day or a milestone birthday of another family member, those GP's are so selfish, so unconcerned about the welfare of their GC that they wouldn't dream of re arranging the date and time of the visit in the best interests of their GC.
THEY CAN'T
Thats not how court orders work!
The parents have to do what the COURT ordered, the only way to alter a court order without the parents risking prison is to go back to court!

Rubbish, of course they can unless one side is so deeply embedded in their own bitterness, anger and resentment that they are incapable of behaving like adults and making alternative arrangements.

The courts aren't bothered if changes are made to visit times and dates if all parties are in agreement, unless a stipulation of a supervised order is broken. Their interest is in court orders that are broken, when a visit should take place but a parent doesn't turn up and then if it's the other P or GP's being deliberately denied, they have to go back to court.

I suppose that the parent must be responsible for their own stress if they refuse to mediate.

It is not accurate to say that parents can avoid court by agreeing to mediate.

Here are some reasons I have known mediation to fail in parent/parent cases I know of:

- bad mediator who actually created more conflict than there origionally was. Parents later became amicable and agreed that mediator was awful
- the non resident parent refusing to have joint mediation! Yes! Mediation without sitting in the same room is a thing! So the res parent said "no way, we need to be able to SPEAK to each other and co-parent, I will do joint mediation but not separate mediation" Non resident parent then told the court that THEY had offered mediation (in separate rooms/sessions), and the res parent refused mediation and sold themselves as the reasonable one!
- the non res parents legal advise telling them to "overshoot" what they want in mediation so that they look like the ones who are comprimising/reasonable in court later (i.e. if you want joint ask for primary res, if you want alt weekends ask for everyweekend)
- manipulation: in mediation asking for something that they know will upset the other & make them say no so the other person looks unreasonable to the courts. E.g. if the non res parent knows that the res parent visit a family grave with their family every may half term, THAT is the half term they ask for!

if a parent has good reasons for stopping their child from seeing the GPs then they will be so sure of their case that they won't be so stressed

You can’t be serious, can you? Have you never had anxiety, or stressed about anything?

Re: losing a parent, of course a child doesn’t forget, but they do need to move on and continue living. Having extended family constantly bringing up dead parent to remind the child isn’t always helpful. There is a happy medium, But most people I have seen go overboard and make sure they spend every visit discussing the dead parent which only serves to upset the child. It makes extended family feel better “they are doing their part” without regard for how it affects the child.

They cannot smileless. Not unless the order is worded in such a way like "four visits a year" or "at least once a month". Those orders have some flexibility within reason

But some court orders specify "alternate weekends" or "first sunday of the month" etc and those are not up for negotiation.

They can. A friend of ours going through a divorce has joint custody. She has the children during the week and he has them at weekends, as specified by the court. They have swapped days to take into account birthdays, Christmas and visiting GP's.

Nobody is "at risk" when 50/50 joint parents swap an equal amt of contact.

Not comparable.

To make an accurate comparison with GP contact you have to look at contact orders where there is a resident parent and a non resident parent.

As there arent that many examples of GP contact orders about the most acurate way to see what it looks like in practice is to look at res Vs non res parent cases.

You said that specified court orders for contact cannot be altered without the courts permission and you were wrong.

In res Vs non res parent cases the NRP can just not show up to contact if they dont feel like it with no risk of penalty. They might lose the contact order if the RP takes it back to court but thats it, no real penalties. The res parent can face jail if they dont keep trudging the kid to contact even if the NRP may not be there until the court says otherwise.

The RP is very vulnerable. The NRP can say "lets skip this week" but the res parent can STILL face penalties if the kid isnt brought to handover.

You said that specified court orders for contact cannot be altered without the courts permission and you were wrong.

Oh god fine, they physically can, but not without risk of serious penalties! Which amounts to the same thing in practice!

Are you actually going to argue now that courts dont really mean what they order? and its just a rap on the knuckles and an instruction to "play nice"?

How about night? Is it day?

A court order is not a guide or a suggestion.

It is a court order.

You'd do better to ask that to a parent who for example has a court order to see his/her children but whose ex partner refuses to make the child(ren) available, or GP's who face the same problem because their GC's parents don't co operate.

In reality, if the P or GP does go back to court to have the order reinforced, a rap on the knuckles is generally what the un co operative parent receives.

The bane of many a family lawyer's life whose client is not getting what the court ordered.