Shared parenting

What are peoples views on the news today on shared parenting etc?

I have been thinking about fighting for this for a while now, but am unsure exactly the difference it gives me as a father against parental responsibilty?

I know with a sole residence order the main carer can take the children away for fours week at a time, but I have a contact order in place which overrides that and the mother has to get my agreement to take the children away if it is on my contact days.

why do u want shared residence order as opposed to contact order?

The main reason is that my ex keeps using her being the main carer and her having the sole residence order against me with the children and I think it is having a negative effect on them, especially my 6 year old daughter. There are still lots of hostile desputes between me and my ex, always started by my ex, I try to keep things calm etc for the children. I have read research that joint residence settles children more and all I am concerned about is my child and getting them though this and hopefully once my ex has calmed down we can all get on bringing our children up. Thanks Simon

dragging your ex through court for shared residence is going to get her back up - your dispute level will go through the roof, rather than get better.

unfortunately, some of us struggle to move on as quickly as others. Others are very argumentative. As someone who acknowledges she has both of these traits, I can assure you that my ex helps enormously as he is one massive wind up merchant! I would politely suggest looking to your own behaviour in an attempt to improve things - keep a diary for a few weeks and detail what exactly is happening and see if you can spot any patterns. There may be some conversations that can be had via e-mail for example, rather than attempting to be civil on the doorstep. I know my ex and I can''t manage it so everything is done via e-mail now - it also means we both have a record of what has/hasn''t been said. It took an awful lot for me, however, to recognise the pattern and look to change it.

I don''t personally believe in shared residence for young children - I tried it and it was dreadful for a whole host of reasons. I know one of the reasons was on-going conflict and frequent handovers - it is probably easier with older children who can make their own way to mum or dad''s house under their own steam, but younger ones get stuck in the middle. It can also be used by one (or indeed, both) parties to keep an eye on the other one (at one point my ex had a habit of emptying his car''s rubbish into my bin and then commenting on the contents!) and that isn''t particularly useful either. Why do you consider that your daughter is struggling with things as they are? Is contact regular? Does your ex seek to stop contact or chop and change a lot?

Thank you for your reply and I really appriciate your honest response. My only concern is my childrens welfare. My ex just seems to use the sole residence as ways to control things, like telling my children their home is with her, not like I try to say that the children have a home with both mummy and daddy, she says they only visit me, where I say to them they live with both of us, they have homes with both of us and that they have bedrooms in both houses etc, this was on the advise of mediation etc and something I feel is important to give stability to the children.

We have no vocal communication, everything is done through e-mail, something I am not keen on as I think for the sake of our children we should be at least civil to each other in front of our children.

Contact cannot be changed as it is an contact order, but I only got this after she tried to control everything with regards to contact. My contact itself is pretty good and I have them just over 150 nights through the year with the normal contact and half of all of the holidays. I have had to get everything in this contact order, holidays, xmas, father day, birthdays you name it it is covered in here as she cannot agree to anything unless it suits her. Example of this is I am now having to go to court to get an ordre for the children to come to their cousins wedding where my daughter has been asked t obe bridesmaid, that is what I have to deal with.

I dont know maybe I am best to leave it as it is as like I said the only important thing I am interested in is my childrens well being and will things really change if and its a big if a joint residence order was granted

I can see why you think ''shared residence'' would improve things, but I''m not convinced it will. Do you genuinely believe that she will stop saying you have one home and now have two just because there is a piece of paper that alludes to that?

Have you tried turning things onto the children for their take on things? So...if they are questioning why mummy says we have one home and daddy says we have two homes, why not ask them what they think and what they want? And then simply give a nod of approval to whatever they come up with? That way, it''s not you who''s in conflict with mum or them - you''re just literally going with whatever their desired view of things is. If they then go home and say ''we said that we want two homes so now we have two homes'' she can kick off all she likes but the bottom line is a wink and a smile and a ''see you next time'' and that''s the end of it. They will learn which of you is highly strung and which is chilled out and they will know what they can and can''t say to each of you and they will deal with it as best they can and if it''s unbearable, they will eventually vote with their feet.

In the meantime, just keep on being reasonable, don''t aspire to anything that looks like civility on the doorstep - hand over, move on...quickly! and just be ''dad''.

I have done that with the children I asked them if they felt my house was their home as well and they said it was and that it was their bedrooms etc and they do say their home with daddy and their home with mummy, So from that point of view it is working.