Essential Rules to Follow for Parents
Hopefully, your parenting dispute never crosses into court litigation. Or, hopefully, you and your ex-partner naturally follow the rules below. But, unfortunately, family court is overwhelmed with parental conflict these days. We outline below some of the Essential Rules for parents to follow in court to land on the right side of your matter in and to avoid a judge’s displeasure.
Rule No. 1. Never fight in front of the children. This rule likely trumps all other rules. When children have front-row seats to parental conflict, their sense of security and well-being can be severely and negatively impacted. The quickest, surest way for a judge to not like a parent comes from parents who violate this rule and expose the children to parental conflict. Conversely, parents who can choose a time and a place to air their grievances, far from young, vulnerable ears and eyes, will do much better in court.
Rule No. 2. Never record access exchanges. Many a parent feel they are best protecting their rights by recording the other parent at access exchanges when there are breakdowns (or in anticipation of breakdowns). Get out the cellphone and start recording in full display of the other parent and the children ”to keep the peace and to keep a record.” There are several problems here: 1. Recording in this manner may violate the Criminal Code; 2. No judge will ever hear or see that recording. It will never be permitted as evidence in Court. It just does not happen; 3. What a judge will hear is that a parent is creating conflict in front of the children by recording. We once heard a judge remark to a parent who continued to record access exchanges that, “Your recording the other parent at exchanges makes you a bad parent. Can I be any more plain than that?” We expect that parent got the message.
Rule No. 3. Be Careful what you write! We are in the digital age. Virtually every trial in family court now contains a large volume of exhibits dedicated to your text messages going back several years. That one time you lost your cool and said nasty things by text to your ex-partner? That will be Exhibit “A” in every affidavit or Exhibit Brief ever filed in court.
Rule No. 4. Never Miss Your Parenting Time. Nothing weakens a parenting claim in court faster, or more easier, than a parent who routinely cancels their allotted parenting time. It becomes very difficult to argue the other parent is at all deficient in their parenting skills if that parent is always the default parent. Likewise, it becomes difficult to argue that a parent who misses his or her parenting time is sincere in their parenting claims and should be trusted with additional parenting time. The occasional one-off cancellation, especially with notice, is fine. Routinely cancelling is not.
Rule No. 5. Don’t Keep Your Ex-Partner in the Dark on Major Points. Knowledge is power and the temptation to withhold key information and developments on your child can be strong. A new doctor, a new illness, a new school, a new city (or province!) – these are things that probably should be disclosed in a timely manner to the other parent.
Our Take: Of course, many of the above essential rules are often broken out of legitimate concerns or frustrations in parenting disputes. We understand that well and we can help you address those frustrations and help you establish evidence (without recording) to demonstrate you are not the problem, and that the other parent is.
And if you find that you have violated some of the above rules, if you see yourself in some of the above examples, we are very good at repairing the harm and turning things around. Judges are willing to have short memories if you will let them.
