Parents who love their children will always put their chidren first. Won't they?
What if they are separated and don't like each other very much? That shouldn't make a difference should it?
What if they both think they are putting their children first, but disagree on what represents best parenting in a particular situation?
Today's Courier Mail at p.20 (link below) points to a case in which a separated parent couple disagreed on what school their little fellow could attend,with the outcome that each tried to enrol him at a different school and the schools quite properly both refused to accept the enrolments because, presumably, the parents had "equal shared parental responsibility" for their child so needed to agree on this issue. Ultimately, the Family Court had to decide where their son would attend Prep.
The problem for this little boy was that he missed that exciting first day of school that many of us remember well into adulthood and he started school ten days late without friends he had made at daycare. Even more importantly, his parents demonstrated that they were incapable of resolving a dispute over a most important and basic parenting issue.
Unless separated parents are able to develop strategies to assist them in co-parenting their children, the children's futures risk being fraught with difficulties and they may suffer negative psychological impacts.
Help is at hand in the form of post separation parent training programs and child focused mediation to assist parents caught in the blaming culture of separation conflict to accept their separated status and responsibilities as parents and to move on in a cooperative manner - even if for no other reason than to give their children the best possible chance of growing up as healthy adults who achieve their full potential.
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Brisbane Mediations
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