Podcast – Making child arrangements work during school holidays

Hi everyone and welcome to this episode of Family Law Unpacked. I’m Mark and I’m here with my fellow partner and family law expert, Mei-ling McNab. Hi, Mark. Great to be here. So I think we’ve got an interesting discussion ahead of us about potential issues that families have regarding school holidays and not being able to reach agreement.

Obviously, you and you and I’ve had many years experience dealing with these sort of matters. And obviously what we want to be discussing today is how we can help our clients avoid these sort of issues. Okay, let’s let’s dive in. What are some of the typical challenges we see parents facing during the school holidays? Well, as you and I both know, these can be quite a few.

One of the big issues is, is conflicting schedules, especially when both parents work and have limited annual leave. Then there’s travel issues when one parent might want to take the child abroad and the other doesn’t agree or isn’t on board. And often there’s just a lack of clarity in these arrangements. If it’s not written down, it’s easy for misunderstandings to creep in.

Absolutely. These issues we we see commonly what might be some of the best ways that parents can work together to agree some of these details in in in advance as they go. What I always like to recommend to my clients is open communication and early communication. Things can get quite difficult and fraught, where arrangements and discussions take place up at the last minute.

If it can be agreed, for instance, that, you know, arrangements for the summer holiday should be agreed. Say, you know, three months in advance. That, that could that could resolve the issues or if that’s difficult, the parties or the clients, the couple can look at how best to resolve it, such as mediation or for instance, by way of the one lawyer, two clients options.

Mark, you’re a. Do you, do you do you come across on these issues? Absolutely I do, and I think mediation can be a really good way for parents to engage with each other, but with a bit of, third party support if they find it too difficult to discuss, the issues, or agree the issues between themselves.

So in mediation, parents can go and talk to a mediator whose job is to sit with them and help them have a really constructive conversation about what arrangements they want to make for their children. And those arrangements can be as detailed as as the parents need them to be. And and absolutely, they can include the arrangements that they make for summer holidays, which can be really important for children, given that that may be the time in the year when children spend, more time with their parents than at any other time.

So it’s important that those times go well. I think what’s important to remember is that there’s there’s a lots of different ways that families can be supported. In an ideal world, couples can have early discussion and can agree in a child focused manner. You know, whether that is just having an early discussion or written communication so matters can be, you know, agreed in writing and, and, you know, a rota set or anything like that.

You know, that’s always very helpful. But we also understand as family lawyers, don’t we, Mark, that, you know, sadly, these things can be difficult. It’s often more easily said than done that that separated sort of families and couples can have these discussions. And, you know, one of our, our role is, is understanding it from a, from a client perspective that it’s that it’s not always possible.

And, and we’re here to support the family. So as you said, you know, mediation is is is a great way, you know, potentially having these sort of roundtable meetings with support of lawyers, you know, or the one one lawyer to two clients method. My recommendation is that we just have, you know, early discussion with a client so we can best support them in their individual situation.

Mainly you’re trying to do the, two client, one lawyer, exercise. Can you just say a little bit about what that is? Yeah, absolutely. The difference between the one couple, one lawyer routes against mediation. One is that we can support and give advice as to what a court could determine or indicate would be an appropriate outcome. So.

So rather than a mediator, perhaps at a facilitating the parties having a discussion, we can go one step further and saying, well if this were, you know, to, to be to go to court, these are the considerations a judge would, would have in mind that that’s one of the main issues and differences. And if and if parents can’t reach an agreement between themselves or reach an agreement with the help of mediation or the one couple, one lawyer, process what what then is available to parents to resolve differences between them?

The court or the court option is always still available before parties go down that route. However, the courts do require on a hold that that the couple do consider whether or not alternative methods of agreement is advisable. So parties would, for instance, have to have to at least consider the option of mediation or such other ways. But if if that is not possible and they’ve considered it, but it’s just not suitable, then either either either.

Either parent can make an application to the court, and the court can then consider what would be the most appropriate arrangement, whether it’s just spending time with, each child during the holidays or generally, travel arrangements, things like that. That is what the courts can do. But what I’d like to stress again is, is, is the courts aren’t very, very fast.

And looking at these issues, Mark, do you want to maybe talk about the issues with court and, and early consideration perhaps I, I can I think the court can determine with which parent, a child will spend their time and deal with that in detail over, I mean, the summer holidays. And certainly we spend time with parents in the court negotiating those kinds of arrangements.

However, the court does not function as we would wish it to do so. And it means that if an application were made to the court, then it’s unlikely that we would get to a point where the court would be seriously considering detailed arrangements for at least six months, so that if an application is made to the court a month before the the the school holidays, then we are not going to get to the point where the court could, could usefully intervene and, and make an order for arrangements for that holiday.

So there were there were real limitations within the court in terms of what it can do and the speed at which it can do it, which is why we encourage, parents to find ways to either agree arrangements between themselves or get help through other processes rather than go to court, which is a clumsy and expensive, process.

Mark, can I can I also maybe add in there, really sensible points that you’ve made? One thing I think clients or family needs to be aware of is that just because you make an application to the court doesn’t mean that the family has to go the whole way to have the issue determined, and for judgment to be given.

Sometimes making an application, having a court hearing, timetabled, etc. really helps to focus minds, because the court system also involves having a third of an independent sort of third party. Come in and look at matters afresh. We call them off Cafcass officers to to talk to each parent, to talk about the children, depending obviously on their ages.

So often we do find that if there is a need, because there’s no other way of of having to issue proceedings. The court system is also geared up to still allowing the family to continue discussions behind the scenes. And actually, I do find that a lot of clients are at that stage then better able to to reach agreement.

You do you agree with that? I do, and I the legal process as has developed and changed over the years, where it has put the emphasis and the responsibility on parents to make arrangements for their children and for them to for them to agree those arrangements as far as they possibly can. And even if an application is made to the court because the agreement can’t be reached, then the court process encourages the continuation of discussions and negotiations supporting parents to, to, to reach agreement between themselves as to the arrangements that they’re going to make for their children.

One point that frequently comes up where where parents often go on a holiday abroad. If you’re taking your children abroad on holiday, is there anything you need to really think about? Well, one of the things that I families don’t appreciate is that for those separating families where there is no court order in place or child arrangements order in place, there does need to be an agreement.

By both parents or the person with parental responsibility, that the other parent is allowed to take the child abroad. You cannot simply, even if the child lives with you, simply take the child abroad if the other parent does not agree. Now, if you’ve got a child arrangements order which says that one parent has called it to live with order, then you can, take the child abroad up to 28 days.

But if you don’t have this child arrangements. Order, the couple or the parent does need to be really, really careful, that they are simply not allowed to take the child abroad. Unless it is formally agreed, with the other parent. So again, it’s just having these really early discussions, but also making sure that those discussions are based on a child focused way.

It’s it’s very easy to try to sort of point school, but ultimately, when you’re looking at it from a court size, it’s what’s ultimately best for the child. And, yeah. So so that’s that’s what I’ve got to say about that. Well, there’s also other ways, you know, where where clients or a couple have difficulty in communicating. There are apps out there that that can help you.

What what do you think about those? I think increasingly we are referring, many of our parent clients to, to, to the, apps like App Close and Family Wizard app, that help that, that facilitate parental communication so the app can be set up. Both parents have it and then all communication about the children can go through the app.

There can be shared calendars so that each parent can, can easily notify the other parents of an upcoming event. And we, we have found, over time, that parents are increasingly using the apps and finding them really, really helpful to facilitate that open communication. So everyone knows what’s going on. Now. Absolutely. And and another real benefit of of some of these apps, all that actually there is a mechanism that it can really potentially reword or suggest alternative ways of phrasing what, you know, one, one couple might want to say.

And, you know, sometimes people just have, you know, different uses of terminology or language or, you know, the other person might be a bit sort of sensitive about how they’re spoken to, but the app can sort of identify that and it might sort of suggest changes on it, and it can really sort of help alleviate, get, again, difficulties in communication.

So I always, you know, very much recommend to my clients just to check out those available apps, because it really can can help and really can. That’s been a really useful chat. Make any final thoughts just to say that as a bit of a reminder that a bit of planning and open communication can go a long way. Holidays really should be a time for the children and the family to to relax and enjoy, and the children really we are not, should not really get caught up in the middle of of of adult disagreements.

But also if things do get tricky, what I really would suggest to, you know, to the couple is, is do get in touch with with a family lawyer who has expertise in this area. It doesn’t set the ball rolling some time. It’s just an opportunity to to discuss and and and think about, you know, what what to do.

We would discuss, you know, with you about mediation and how best to support you. So so just come and have these early discussions. If it’s if it’s something that that’s being difficult and and remember you know check it. Do check out all our website. There’s there’s a lot of helpful information helpful factsheets on there that could really, you know, help help our clients.

But also the Brachers LinkedIn page. We have a lot of information on there as well, but but thanks, Mark. It’s been really great to chat to you. Well said. Thanks for joining us. And thanks to everyone listening. If you found this helpful, feel free to share it and we’ll see you next time on Family Law Unpacked.