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Increasing access in high conflict cases

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  • Increasing access in high conflict cases

    I've been searching Canlii for cases where a parent was granted increased access; however, a lot of cases seem to be with parents who generally got along.

    All of the relevant literature I can find points to the fact that joint custody is only awarded when both parties show they can communicate amicably.

    Does anyone know of any cases where a parent was awarded increased access (possibly even joint custody from sole) in a high conflict case?

  • #2
    Search "parallel parenting". That's shorthand for "parents can't stand each other so each does their own thing and they parent separately but (more or less) equally".

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    • #3
      Transitions are problematic for high conflict parents. But regardless I think your stance must be: what is in children's best interests. And that can be subjective. How will you illustrate that more access is in kid's best interests? Or joint custody is?

      And before you rip me to pieces - this isn't my opinion - this is what you will need to convince a judge.

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      • #4
        increasing access is far from impossible, changing the decision making from sole to shared/parallel is hard. In your question you are mixing the two.
        It seems judges are not that tough when it comes to increasing the access until ~40%. Changing the sole custody is much, much harder.

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        • #5
          Originally posted by Serene View Post
          Transitions are problematic for high conflict parents. But regardless I think your stance must be: what is in children's best interests. And that can be subjective. How will you illustrate that more access is in kid's best interests? Or joint custody is?

          And before you rip me to pieces - this isn't my opinion - this is what you will need to convince a judge.
          Thank you. Absolutely no need for me to rip you to pieces. That is what we are trying to prove with this case. All attempts for any increase in access have been denied including failed mediation. So court is the next step and we just want to go into it with the right mind set.

          Originally posted by BitHunter View Post
          increasing access is far from impossible, changing the decision making from sole to shared/parallel is hard. In your question you are mixing the two.
          It seems judges are not that tough when it comes to increasing the access until ~40%. Changing the sole custody is much, much harder.
          At this point just starting with increasing access would be good but eventually he would like week on/week off.
          One of the issues is that the other parent makes it very difficult to ever change anything so to avoid multiple court dates down the road, just trying to get everything sorted at once. This may not be the best approach though if it confuses the two.

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          • #6
            At this point just starting with increasing access would be good but eventually he would like week on/week off.
            One of the issues is that the other parent makes it very difficult to ever change anything so to avoid multiple court dates down the road, just trying to get everything sorted at once. This may not be the best approach though if it confuses the two.
            Our lawyer said that you need to ask for what you want and that you should not do an incremental approach. If you want week on and off then you should be asking for it. You will likely have to settle for less but that should be your starting point for negotiations.

            I feel for you. We have a very high conflict mom that we deal with. EVERYTHING is an issue - from the socks we buy the kids to her consent for the kids to get on the bus here... it is exhausting to say the least. Less transitions has been better for the children, we are able to have more quality time with the kids as well.

            The best part of less transitions is that there are less points of conflict. And by this I mean the children are grilled less: less times for mom to criticize their clothing they wore, the lunches we provide, asks the kids what they did and with whom, etc. I hope that makes sense. Because as much as it is stressful on us, it is also stressful on the kids.

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            • #7
              The best place for parenting time to change is school. Parenting time starts at the end of the school day and ends at the beginning of the school day. So one parent drops them off to end their parenting time, and the next parent picks up the kids.

              No need for face time with the ex.

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              • #8
                Agreed Hammerdad! But if you are dealing with an HC parent they WANT the face time. We did 2 years of waiting for kids to get off the bus at mom's (although the bus would have dropped them off at dad's had she just given her signature) only for kids to go inside, empty lunch pails, then have mom take our pictures....maybe flip us the bird....I'm sure you get the picture.

                Point is HC people crave this. They want to stay connected to the other people, even if it is through negativity.

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                • #9
                  Serene, I feel for you, it seems that my ex is very much the same way. I am about to start proceedings to change from 5 exchanges / week to 1 (week on / week off). I can't understand why the EX refuses to do this, but as you state, it seems that HC people tend to want to maintain contact only as an outlet for their anger.

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