Equal Opportunity in Shared Parenting

Slater + Gordon carried out research involving 2,000 separated parents who had children in the relationship. Principal lawyer, Lorraine Harvey, breaks down the research and explains the advantages of mediation.

Transcript: Slater + Gordon carried out research which involved a poll of 2,000 parents. A thousand mums and a thousand dads, that had separated and had children in the relationship.

So, initially when a couple separate the starting point is that the children will spend equal time with both parents, but practically that might not always work and we often find that clients are coming to us a couple months after separation and communication has broken down completely.

The research has shown that one in five parents following separation has had to instruct a lawyer and the reasons for that could be that communication has completely broken down or perhaps one of the parents has started a new relationship with somebody else which has caused problems between the parents.

Any couple that is separating and they have young children, it's really important to make sure that they keep communication open and that they put the children's needs first. It's accepted that children benefit from spending their time with both parents when the parents separate and that they are also involved in the process and agreeing at a schedule as to which weeks they're going to spend with which parent. The key thing is what's in the best interest of the child and making sure they're involved in decision making.

Any couples going through a separation, my advice would always be to try to communicate because you're going to be in these children's lives forever so it's not something that we can resolve within a couple of months but communication is key and often we recommend mediation because that's a good way of being able to reach a compromise that you're both happy with.

I would always recommend that once an agreement is in place that you sit down with the child and let them know what the plans are. They need to be at the heart of this decision making so they need to make sure that their wishing and feelings are also taken into account, obviously depending on their age and maturity.

[HarveyKlee]

Open communication is not something to try but vital as mediation is worthless without it (There is no room for this 'try' attitude).

To fix broken connections and make them stronger I 'need' everyone and Sol. Lorraine Harvey to read "Non-Violent Communication" to recommend to her clients & colleagues.

Also, I 'need' this stop being about time a non-resident parent gets to see their children at all!

The issue is our politically-correct generations of disenfranchised children legally forced to grow up without all or almost all the love from their non-resident family.

The problem won't change until our children's needs are put before the custodial parents' 'feelings'. Imagine if instead we put everyone's actual true 'needs' first beginning with our children. In over 3years of family law court hearings I've never seen that precedence.

Instead authorities become an accomplice to coercive control to condone and venerate the denial of our children's rights barred from receiving the love waiting for them from all their non-resident family so a resident parent can feel venerated for breaking their promises to all especially for selling their children's denied affection for financial rewards from faceless tax-payers, child-maintenance payments from the non-resident family and their acquaintances that empower parents that sell off their children's love for personal gain that they and culturally we used to 'feel' is somehow good parenting to later blame their young victims' manic depression and rebellion on anyone other than the actual sources successfully for ages.