Protective Caregiving
How to create a safe, secure environment while sharing care after family violence. One of the most difficult aspects of family law is coming to terms with sharing time when there have been allegations of family violence. Even when children are named on a protection order, the Family Court, after considering all the issues in […]
Doing What It Takes
Doing What It Takes Within my Parenting Coordination and Mediation work I am grateful to come across parents who have made sacrifices to shield their children from their feelings and animosity towards the other parent. Sadly, it’s often not enough. What I do hear frequently is “I will do absolutely anything for my kids”. This […]
Recent Changes to the Family Court – and what it means for parents
On the 1st of September 2021, the Family Court and Federal Circuit Court merged, creating a new pathway for parents navigating disputes after separation. The new abbreviated name is the FCFOA. The purpose of the FCFOA is to create a faster, less stressful process for finalising matters in dispute. The focus is on early resolution […]
Letting Go – the powerful end to separation conflict
In working with the volume of parents I do on a daily basis, one constant I notice in ongoing conflict cases is the subconscious emotional attachment each parent has to the past relationship, or to their co-parent. Yet, if I asked any of these parents if they were still emotionally attached, they would disagree and […]
Six Questions To Ask Before Family Mediation
What helps the mediation process is if you are putting the children first in parenting decisions. It can be hard to separate your own needs from those of the children, so I’ve prepared some questions to keep the kids in mind.
The Non-Negotiable Coparent
There is an enormous cost to society if we do not radically change the pathway for parents in dispute. We tend to focus on fixing the legal system when what we need to consider deeply is embarking on a support pathway that makes the court system far less relied upon. Our children, the very people we purport to protect, carry the lasting burden of their parents’ conflict.
Activities for engaging your children online
Often the non-resident parent (be that for a week, or extended period) will report having difficulty in engaging children online. Phone calls, Skype and Facetime are all wonderful ways to interact. But how do you keep them interested? Firstly, I think it’s important to acknowledge that online engagement can be both necessary and sometimes the […]
What are the legal implications of parental alienation?
Co-Authored by Lisa Wagner and Ashleigh Middlin, Doolan Wagner Family Lawyers. Republished with permission. Parental alienation is a term which is used to describe when one parent (the “alienating” parent) behaves in a certain way to undermine and damage the other parent’s relationship with a child. Whilst this term is considered to be controversial and there is […]
Early Childhood Regressions: Trauma or Conflict?
Milestone regressions and behavioural changes of young children are frequently a major concern of separating parents. There are two, very rigid viewpoints often held by parents when regressions are reported. Parent A often reports that the child has regressed to bedwetting; is having unexplained tantrums, or appears to be over-tired etc. They fear that the child […]
Parenting Coordination – a new approach to resolving ongoing parental conflict.
Disputes and conflict do not always end after court orders or agreements have been reached. The nature of drawn-out family law disputes can mean that conflict becomes entrenched and is hard to overcome. Parents don’t necessarily have the right tools to move on from what’s happened in the past and focus positively on their future […]
