Holidays abroad: RP says NO!

HI,

I have been separated and for 3.5 years and recently divorced - we have agreed a co-parenting agreement through mediation. HOWEVER the children''s Mum is refusing to allow me, their Dad, to take them abroad next year.

She has back-tracked form the co-parenting this year by saying a 7 day holiday away with me was too long and has claimed that she was too ill-informed about the details of our camping trip and thus doesn''t trust me enough to take them to Portugal next year. The kids will be 4 and 7 this time next year.

DO I just accept this, everyone I speak to, including her peers think she is being ridiculous and denying the kids the experience of holidaying abroad.

Does anyone have experience seeking a court order for something this specific?

What is the regular contact schedule and have you tried mediation to resolve the issue? There is no guarantee of the outcome if you go to court and you would normally at least need to organise a Mediation Information & Assessment meeting before applying. Your youngest child may be deemed too young to be away abroad from the parent with the majority of care for a week. There certainly are cases when the court has decided even 6 year olds are too young to go abroad for a week.

Thanks Fiona,

They are with me every Wednesday from 1300 hrs/school finish to Thursday 0900/school start, and we have just started a regime of alternating full weekends, but prior to that I saw them every weekend but for varying periods, i.e. just Friday night or Friday night and all Saturday....
I make a strong contribution to their up-bringing and facilitate their out of school activities and am involved with any aspects necessary at school etc

It''s just frustrating because there really isn''t a rationale behind her decision it''s just a judgement and it reflects her abuse of being the RP and lack of respect to my contribution to their lives.

As the partner of a nrp, I have to agree that taking a 4 year old abroad for a week was not a good idea. My husband is a really hands on dad, who at that time had 50/50 care, but the 4 year just couldn''t cope. The child was fine when he holidayed in this country for a fortnight, with dad the previous year but couldn''t cope with being abroad

I would battle to have children for a week but not necessarily to take them abroad just yet.

I don''t know about the lack of rationale. I used to work in mental health and as I understand there is a lot of concern about a large increase over the last 20-25 years in the number of children and young people across the board with mental health and attachment problems. That may in part be down to improved diagnosis but apparently there are certain risk factors which have been identified to increase the probability of problems occurring including the genetic predisposition of the child, poverty, family breakdown and separation from their main caregiver(s).

One of the key things to help young children is preparation and gradually moving from short frequent spells of contact to longer less frequent periods. Rather than thinking about next year I would focus on the alternate weekend arrangement and reviewing it in a couple of months time. It''s worth listening to any concerns your ex may have and addressing them if you can rather than dismissing them out of hand. If all is going well perhaps you can then extend the weekend into long holiday weekends and build up step by step from that.

As a parent, i would worry about the logistics of 2 young kids on a camping trip:

Let''s say the 7 year old wants to go to the bathroom in the night. Do you leave the 4 year old alone in the tent, where she can wake up, panic and get lost looking for you, or do you wake him/her up so you can take the other to the bathroom safely.

My ex is relatively hands on but nowhere paranoiac enough to imagine the worst scenario for every situation and therefore keeping them safe.I know i sound slightly insane, i''m just a bit overprotective of my children

My 4 and 9 year old spent a week in France with their nana earlier this year. They only see their nana about once every 2 months but they love her, she is their nana. They had a great time, didn''t miss me at all, and apparently the 4 year old only mentioned me when she was being told off!

I have also been in the position of being stepmum and my 4 year old sd spending a week with us (along with older brothers); again, no problems. My 9 yr old has regularly spent weeks with her dad since we split when she was 3.

This all worked, but every case is different and it worked largely because I encourage all these different relationships.