When you are going through a divorce, your main priority should be the welfare of your children. Getting a divorce can not only affect you and your ex-spouse, but your children as well. Which means that making the process as simple as possible can be very beneficial for your whole family. It’s so important to try and make the process minimally stressful for your children, as you don’t want to disrupt their routine too much, or upset them by disagreeing. But unfortunately, sometimes you and your ex-spouse will have disagreements about who sees your children. When and if this is the case, then there is help out there for you to try and resolve things.
Reaching an agreement
In an ideal world, every couple should be able to reach a mutual agreement about who sees the children and when, but sometimes emotions and opinions can get in the way. As mentioned above, it is important to try and come to an agreement yourselves to make the divorce as easy as possible for the children, but this doesn’t always happen. If you and your ex-partner are struggling to come to an agreement, there are a few options that can help you with this.
Mediation
One of the things you can do if you and your ex-partner are struggling to come to an agreement is to get help from a family mediator. They will have meetings with both of you together to try and help you agree about child arrangements. The mediator will not tell either of you what to do, but instead, help you reach an agreement amicably from an unbiased perspective. Whilst doing so, the mediator will also try to help improve communication between you, which can help for any further decisions that need to be made.
Negotiation
Another option to help you reach an agreement is negotiation, which means getting help from a third party. An example of this would be divorce solicitors in Weybridge, who you can appoint to represent your interests and put forward your case to the other parent. This is beneficial as you can get help and legal advice from a solicitor without actually having to go to court. They usually provide help in the form of written advice, but can also contact the other parent on your behalf to try and come to an agreement.
Going to court
Finally, if you and your partner still can’t come to an agreement after trying the above options, then you might want to think about appointing a solicitor to help you apply for a child arrangement order. Your solicitor will help you prepare an application for this, where you will explain that you haven't been able to come to an agreement and are unable to in any other way. Once the application has been put through and your partner has been notified, you will need to attend up to 3 court hearings. This is known as the first stage, and a lot of cases are resolved during this stage as the court will encourage you to come to an agreement as early as possible. If you still can’t agree, then there are 2 more stages of the court process that you can go through to try and come to a final agreement, but try the best you can not to reach these stages for the benefit of your children.
Where will the children live?
Having a stable home is a key part of raising children, they need a secure home base to feel comfortable and loved. When you and your partner get a divorce, you will most likely not want to live in the same house. If this is the case, it is usually recommended to try and keep the children in the original house with the parent that is staying there. This will help to make the divorce seem a little bit more normal to the children, rather than moving them out to a completely new place whilst they get used to the separation.
