Transcript:

Episode 05 – Child Arrangements: From ‘Custody’ to Co-Parenting

Speaker 1: Hello, I’m Emma Bradford and welcome to the EB & Co. Mediation Podcast, along with my colleague Charlotte Chambers. We’ll be sharing honest, practical conversations about separation, divorce and co-parenting. We believe it’s possible to separate well with clarity, respect and care. And we’re here to guide you through how. EB & Co. are accredited family mediators and Emma and Charlotte are co-founders of EB & Co. mediation. With warmth, clarity and over two decades of combined experience. We support families through separation with empathy and professionalism. On this podcast, we’re going to share some practical guidance and insights and expert advice on everything from finances and co-parenting to communication and emotional wellbeing. Our aim is simple. We want to show that separation doesn’t have to mean conflict.

From ‘Custody’ to ‘Child Arrangements’

So welcome to episode five of our podcast. Today we’re going to be talking about children’s arrangements, also known as plans for the kids. So yeah, what do we want to say to start with? We talk about sorting out the children’s arrangements a lot. Yes. I mean, it’s obviously the thing that most people are people with children. Parents worry about is what’s going to happen with the kids.

The term child arrangements is quite odd, I suppose, because it’s not what you would normally say in conversation with somebody. What are your arrangements for the child? It comes from the form that you may have to fill in if you were to make an application to court. That’s where that term child arrangements come for asking the court for a children’s arrangements order. Yes. Isn’t it? And I think there was a lot of thought went into that term. Yes. Because for many years most people will recognize the terms getting custody. Yeah. Contact arrangements? Yes. And it was felt for many years that it was very much slanted towards the mum. Yes. And the language as a whole is getting in custody. Your child custody is very adversarial. And you’re not getting your child. You’re both parents. So whilst child arrangements might not be the best term is a lot better than custody. It’s neutral, isn’t it? Yes. Yeah, absolutely. It’s not like one of you is getting more. No one of you is the A parent? No. Oh, and the B parent. Yeah. It’s not like that at all.

It was part of that shift of focus. Yeah. And so we thought we’d talk about that today because that’s a very big part of mediation. He’s doing just that. Yeah. Helping people work out what’s going to happen with the children. Where are they going to live? When are they going to see the other parent and everything else surrounding that parenting… Yeah. …Separately. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that’s another term that’s probably come much more to the for now is co-parenting. It’s the idea that you’re always parents. And even if the children child lives with one parent for more time than the other, the parent that doesn’t make the other person a lesser parent. No, no. And that’s it, isn’t it?

The 50/50 Shared Care Debate

And and I think there is a much greater claim, I think, with dads. I think dads are coming in saying I want equal time with my children. I want I mean, I struggle when they come in and say, I want 5050. But I understand where that’s from. They just don’t want to. They want as much as possible. Both of them want as much as possible while staying fair. Yes, absolutely. So they feel that’s equal. We tend to talk about people who are going, well, let’s see what’s possible. Yes. Absolutely. How much time the children are with you isn’t doesn’t necessarily go hand in hand into how much time you want to spend with them. No. So yes, I think that everybody starting from the idea of shared care being equal amounts of time, understandably comes from the fact that your life is changing enormously where you spent, in theory, 100% of your time with the children because you’re all in the same house. That’s not going to be the same now. And everybody, both parents, are understandably worried and defensive of themselves and their children, and it’s an expression of that.

But like you say, when you actually come to mediation and you begin to talk about the practicalities of what that looks like in your family situation, then try not to get too hung up on percentages. This isn’t money. This is your children. And you know, parents know how to focus to do what’s best for their kids. So try not to get to hang up on percentages.

Yeah, there’s a there’s the other aspect of that as well, unfortunately, is that if you have 50 over 50 care where it is literally no Monday and Tuesday with one Wednesday’s Thursdays or the other, there is an impact on whether child maintenance is, needs to be paid. So if just spends two days a week with one parent, five days of the same week with another parent, the person who’s spending the least amount of time with their children is potentially liable to make child maintenance payments. So there is that side of it, and I don’t I don’t think this is probably the right episode to talk about that in any more detail.

Focusing on Logistics and What is Possible

I think the purpose of talking about children’s arrangements today was more about the different things that we asked people to consider. Yes, I was going to say, yeah, yeah, because I think it’s very easy and automatic when you’re talking about how much time the children are going to spend in either of your their new homes is you’re basically talking about logistics, like you mentioned the days of the week, you’re pretty much going straight to what days do I work? What days do you work? Are the children at nursery or school? Are they going to be able to walk themselves to school if you live locally to it? Or do they need to catch the bus, or do they need a lift? So you can very quickly and easily because everybody knows their own family schedules get to the logistics. And that’s fab. And I think I don’t know about you, I’d say quite a lot of the time parents who come to mediation have had that. The very least go at that and have probably been living some kind of shared care arrangement with the children in the week since they separated.

Yeah, but sorry. No, that’s fine. I was just going to say the the only thing with that sometimes is an interim because they’re still in the same. Yes. But quite often people will come in and go, well I don’t know where I’m going to believe it. No. And that’s where it becomes quite difficult, because they, especially with people who’ve got the finances to sort out as well. And they said, I want to talk about the children first. It’s really important that we know when, you know, we all need to know when we’re going to be spending time. And you, you spend time talking about it. But then there’s a well, hang on a minute. I don’t actually know where I’m going to be living. If one of them’s going to be moving quite often, we’ll say, well, is the plan to be local? You know, is the plan to still be in the area? Yeah. Well, let’s just work on that as a basis. 

And I think that’s one of the great joys of mediation, is that you can move your conversation from the children. Clearly, how and where you’re going to live is absolutely key to that. So you talk a bit about what that house might look like or not, but actually that’s still focused on the children. So are they going to stay in the same school. Can you afford to do that. Yeah. And that actually then also allows you to focus on what your priorities overall, if your priority is the children / child is going to stay in the same school and be near their friends and near grandparents or wider family, if that’s your focus, then that’s great. Good for you. And that will help maybe frame some of your other parts of your conversation. But anyway, you mediation allows you to talk a little bit about finances in relation to your children and then back to your children.

Yeah, yeah. And I often find that when we start talking about the arrangements, especially if there is one, one party saying I want it to be completely equal, want as much time as possible, that sort of thing. And you say, that’s fantastic. I mean, if you can create an environment where the children are going to have two homes they’ve got there, they’ve got their their bedrooms in both their homes, they’ve got, you know, two iPads as they’d probably ask for. And then you say, well, that that would be really good. How is that going to work for you? Yeah. And then unfortunately, like you said about the logistics, it’s well, well there’s off school club, which is absolutely fine. And then my mum can pick them up and they go to mum’s and they’ll, she’ll probably give them a tea and then I’ll pick them up after I finished work for mum. And as in their mum not the children’s mum. Yeah. And then you kind of have to go. Yeah. That’s, that’s not really the, the sentiment behind trying to have shared care for your children.

The ‘First Reserve’ and Co-Parenting Boundaries

I’m not saying you can’t rely on people to help you, but if you’ve got one parent who is able to do the school run, drop and pick up and whatever, they have got a work rota that allows them that flexibility. If the other parent is saying, well, no, I want it to be exactly equal, but that other person has to rely on childcare effectively. That’s not shared care. No, it’s really you’re this bit of the conversation is sort of starting to move more. It is logistics because who’s going to pick up from school and is that going to be me, you or another or another? But it’s actually also really how and when you’re going to talk to each other about this kind of stuff and how your who’s your first kind of who’s your first reserve when things go wrong. For me, as the single parent is my first reserve. You my ex-partner, or is it actually nanny or a friend or. And that’s really for me as a mediator. Equally important part of your conversation when your mediation about being a parent is how what are your what are you or your priorities as parents for each other? When do you need to talk to each other? When don’t? What do you expect from the other one in terms of stepping in? If you’re unwell or had to go off work on travel, when are you going to ask the other parent to step in?

And I think that probably becomes we quite often talk about in this podcast, but we can’t often talk about people coming to mediation and possibly, probably not sure. Because it’s just happened. Yes. They’ve just separated. Quite often people come to children, come to mediation about the children’s arrangements being separated for however many years, and it’s broken down. They’ve it’s been working out fine. And now it’s broken down. And it often is because of the thing that you’ve just said. And I call it the first reserve, that they’ve agreed the arrangements. But when the other parent, is supposed to be on child duty and they’re unable to, they then get their Mum to cover or their sister to cover, and the other parent saying, if there’s an opportunity, I’m here, I’m here, I’m here. Don’t forget me, forget me. I want that opportunity to be able to be to have extra time. Yeah. And often that is often something talked about in a mediation about the children’s arrangements of when they’ve actually been separated quite, quite a time.

Because when you are first splitting up, clearly you don’t want to be spending that much time with each other. And as as that coming emotion fades a little bit with time. So when you come back to mediation to three years down the line and things have broken down, the other parent is saying, ‘I am here, I want to be respected, don’t forget me, don’t forget me…’ And yeah, we have that conversation a lot about. Yeah. So having a think about when you’re going to need to talk to each other or how you’re going to use each other, what do you mean, have a think about just that. I often ask people to think something will happen in the future. Could be to, like you said the other day, if your child needs tonsils, take their tonsils out. You need you’re going to need to talk to each other. That’s probably a conversation then, either by phone or by email or face to face more than a text message. I would imagine if you’ve got a text message saying our son’s having their tonsils out Tuesday, at two would be a very different thing than if I spoke to you about it.

Communication Strategies: The ‘Three Fs’ and BIFF

Some couples, they may never want to talk to each other again, and they could deal with the message by text. I guess I for the sake of the children, if you can demonstrate to each other over time that you are able to talk to each other on some level about the really important stuff that will benefit your children in the long run, because they just see you having a respectful conversation. It doesn’t need to be friends. Nobody suggesting that doesn’t need to be any other word. We hear a lot. And this is I want to be amicable. There you go. Yeah. You said you said people say I want to be amicable. I want to keep it amicable for the kids. That is a fantastic aim. But when I say think about, I am encouraging the clients to think about what amicable means for them in relation to their children. And it probably means that when you do have to talk about your child having the tonsils out, to be amicable means sending a text message might not be the most sensitive way to handle this situation. Are you in a position to pick up the phone, or when you pick up or drop off the child the next time to stand at the doorstep and have a conversation that says, we need to talk about having the tonsils out.

Does that make sense? What? I don’t ever actually really speak like that. I have to say, we speak to you. It’s not a conversation or it’s not. I think the subject is possibly in mediation. The ones that I do, I think it’s probably a little bit more about how when, I use the terminology, the three F’s, you know, factual and functional, ideally friendly. Yeah, but not essential. So if that’s all they can manage, because there’s been a lot of hurt, there’s been a lot of anger and all of those things. At the bare minimum keep your communication functional factual. So I use that term – BIFF -brief, informative, factual, friendly. Oh yeah I got mine from a book. But it’s the same thing isn’t it. Because if you can keep your communication such a ridiculous word, but if you can keep your lines of talking factual, fair, friendly, whatever informative, then it is in fact becoming amicable. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? It’s not. It’s the practical steps that you have in place to be respectful to each other, to be factual.

The fact is this has happened. I need to tell you this. Try not the recipient of that message. Think about the children. Try not to have an overly emotive response. Take a break. Take a beat. Have a think. Take if it’s come by email. So this is what I would encourage you to think about in mediation. If the if the conversation is about our child needs to have their tonsils out and you choose to send a message by email, the recipient of the email has a chance to have a think overnight and send a friendly factual three f whatever it was response back. Yeah. So I don’t know. Yeah it’s complicated. It’s different for every every couple. It’s different for most of the time I feel that the people that come into mediation are quite often in crisis. It’s rare that you were sitting there apart from yesterday. Yes. Apart from yesterday, they quite often whatever’s happened. Either it’s just that the separation has just happened or it’s happened ages ago.

But they’ve now fallen out about something. Yes. That’s a lot of emotion that they are. So I suppose I suppose at that point I see the first things that we do, and we’re talking to the people about what the arrangements can be for the children is what’s possible. So, so literally looking at what’s possible. Yes. And I would probably talk about the three areas that you have to consult each other on about the arrangements. And you said about the tonsils, for example, is there anything to do with their health? You need to consult each other about that, anything to do with their education and anything to do with overseas travel, and then and introduce the word of consultation, because quite often they hate the expression or they hate the feeling that they have to ask. They get permission from, get permission from. And that understandably, you know, equal parents, equal parental responsibility. So I use the word see it as a consultation. You are consulting with the other parent about something quite important. Yeah.

If it’s a quick message, obviously texts will work for you. If it needs somebody needs to think about what information you’re giving the emails. Great. Obviously in the ideal world, you pick up the phone and have a chat about it. But if that’s not possible, just think of it in that respect, I suppose. I’m just trying to. I’m just trying to think. So you’re talking to what I’m hearing is you’re saying very similar thing to me. Really. It’s just that how we always express ourselves different. Yeah. That is our. Yeah. The difference between us as individuals because we’re saying the same thing. There are things you will need to talk to the other parent about. You’re going to have to always, in your 20 plus years relationship as parents, there are going to be times when you’re going to have to talk to each other. And is it actually going to talk, talk? Or is it that you’re going to email or is it and so have encouraging you as parents to think about that?

Navigating Crisis Points and New Relationships

If so, if a couple of recently split. Yeah. Then they won’t have thought about that because they’re in the upset of their end of their relationship. They’re trying to deal with the day to day. Like I said, practical, what’s happening. And if I could encourage them within those few months that we’re working with us to think about those longer term. Yeah, moments, that’s a good thing, I think, because if they don’t think about it, then they come back to us three years down the line where they’ve where they’ve just focused on the practical and inevitably, something where they needed to talk has probably, possibly, probably happened, whether that’s a new partner coming in or that that brings us to the next day, really, because everything can be going really well. Yeah. And then they’ll come in and said, oh, we were fine. We’ve been doing this. It’s worked really well. And so something’s happened. Well, yes. And I would say nine and a half times out of ten, that’s some of them for a new partner.

So yeah, that is often it is it is. It’s very normal. It’s very all it’s very complicated. It happened to be normal and complicated. Well it is, it is, it’s normal. Of course, people eventually move on and find new partners. And even actually if you have a tremendously respectful relationship with your ex, the new partner just changes the dynamic because your your ex-partner is listening to somebody now who has a probably a slightly different point of view. Oh has gone through something similar and has organized it in a different way. Yeah, it’s somebody else’s view on the partner. Not that we would encourage the partner to come to the mediation. No, no, it’s only the parents and the one person that all the people that we haven’t actually talked about in child arrangements is the children. And what we have generally been talking about, about under the banner of children. 

What About the Children’s Voices?

But how much, say, do the children have in the arrangements that their parents make for them? So I guess when you’re a baby under five, you get no choice because your needs, your actual needing to be fed, fed and watered are entirely different to if you are a 16 year old and you happen to live walking distance from school, and it’s a very different. There’s no rules around this, but it’s a very different conversation you would be having. And as everybody can imagine, it would be different. Again. If you’ve got a ten year old and a 14 year old and a 16 year old or so. Yeah, it’s a wide range of, yeah, things to consider and to think about. And for people to actually manage to do this without falling out or without finding dispute. Yes. They probably don’t even go into it thinking this is going to be a problem, but it can be. It is only a problem and hopefully most people can sort it out.

But if they can’t, that’s what they come to us for. Yes. And we literally sit with them, don’t we? We sit in a room, we sit in this room and we say, like, you’ve got some work to do. Let’s talk about let’s talk about what’s going on. Let’s see sort of thing I’d say and just say, you know, you’ve told me what you want mediation to help you with. Why don’t we talk about tell each other. Let’s talk about it. And I think once you once you ask people, tell us what it is that you feel isn’t working or tell us what you feel. It could happen to make things better. And once you open it in that way, quite often people are very clear about what? What’s wrong? Yes. What’s wrong? And not often that clear about what it needs to be. They just know this isn’t working. Yes. And all attempts at trying to sort it out between them. Generally via text. 

Hasn’t worked. Exactly. So we just said there’s no strict rules in this room it’s confidential. We’ve got an hour and a half. Let’s just talk about what you need to talk about, and let’s see if we can reach an agreement about what will work. Often is what’s possible. Yes, it is absolutely what’s possible. Yeah. Yes and yes. But picking up on what you said about what’s the children’s viewing is that’s what we’re going to talk about in our next podcast, because there is something called child Inclusive Mediation. And I must admit, when I was first made aware of this, I thought, oh, no, no, I’m not. I don’t agree with that. It’s a grown up decision. They shouldn’t be involved, the children. And then I did the course to learn about it and I was completely turned round. Yeah, I just didn’t understand what it was. And I think that’s probably how a lot of people will have not heard about it, not understand it and think, could we bring children into that sort of environment? Absolutely. Completely understand. But it’s not what you might think it is. No, it’s they don’t. Oh, he’s so fascinating. But we’ll talk about it next time. Next time.

Thank you for listening to the EB & Co. Mediation Podcast. We hope to inform, support and occasionally challenge your thinking when it comes to separation and divorce. We’ll also be joined by guests along the way, bringing fresh insights and perspectives to the conversation. Whether you’re going through a separation, supporting someone who is, or simply curious about how mediation works, we’re really glad you’re here.