A lot of child contact and residence matters that come before the Courts have elements of complaints from parents that the other parent is making negative and offensive comments about them to the children.

This causes even more upset and anxiety for a child who may already be struggling with the breakdown of their parents’ relationship.

Unfortunately, it can be human nature to make unpleasant comments to or in front of a child without thinking of the damage that can be caused.

Usually, when met with clients experiencing these problems, as a firm we are able to provide them with relevant guidance and, sometimes with the assistance of the Court, are able to help clients resolve such issues.

These issues are unfortunately commonplace in many marital and relationship breakdowns. 

Often, parents are able to move on from the initial breakdown of the relationship and move forward with their focus being on that of the children.

Sometimes, however, we are met with situations where one parent is unable to refrain from making unhelpful comments around children, and sometimes parents will even act in a way to try to disrupt the relationship between their child and the other parent.

When a parent acts in this way, it can be extremely upsetting and frustrating for the parent who is being alienated from their child and is not in the child’s best interests.

So is there any way to protect children from ending up in these situations? After all, children do not ask to become embroiled in adult situations and are entitled to have meaningful and loving relationships with both of their parents. 

What steps can the Courts take?

The Courts will always try to work with both parents to resolve their stance, and this can be by the way of parenting courses, such as the Separated Parenting Programme, or may involve third party agencies to become involved in order to work with the child. 

But what happens if even after the Court’s early involvement, one of the parents still continues to cause problems for the relationship between the child and the other parent?

The Courts can penalise parents but rarely tend to do so; imposing a fine or imprisoning a parent will obviously have a negative effect on the child.  Therefore, the Courts have taken more steps recently to remove children from a parent who is deemed to be emotionally abusive towards their child, due to the damage that the parent is causing to the child’s right to a relationship with the other parent, and placing them with the other parent.

An example of this occurred in April this year, when a Judge in Norwich ordered for a child to leave his mum in order to live with his father after deciding that the child would be ‘exposed to significant emotional harm’ if left with his mother.

This was following a lengthy period of the child’s mother persistently portraying the father as a bad person to the child, who was starting to share his mother’s feelings. The Courts sought to put an end to the child’s relationship with his father being damaged even further.

Of course, it isn’t just mums will act in this way, and at Jackson Lees, we help both mums and dads in this situation.

A change of residence for a child is usually a last resort but the Courts are tending to make these Orders more frequently. At Jackson Lees, our experienced family lawyers will provide you with the very best legal advice from the outset in order to hopefully resolve issues in relation to children without the necessity for Court proceedings.

I am based in Birkenhead and we also have offices in Heswall and Hoylake.  I am also able to meet with you in our Liverpool City Centre office if this is more convenient for you and our Hoylake office is open on a Saturday morning for convenience for clients.

If you would like to talk to one of our specialist advisers, please call us free on 0151 625 9364, email family@jacksonlees.co.uk, request a callback at your convenience, or message us your enquiry