Your children and your ex: are you obliged to encourage contact?

Navigating your children’s contact with their other parent can be tough. Logistics can be complicated, parenting styles may differ, and you – or your children – may find visits stressful.

It’s understandable then if you’re sometimes tempted to pause the arrangements, especially if your children have mixed feelings about their visits. But, what you may not know is that, as a parent, you have a legal duty to encourage your children’s relationship with their other parent.

The courts in Scotland take this duty very seriously. So much so that a mother in Glasgow was recently jailed for seven days for breaching a contact order and failing to encourage her daughter’s relationship with the father.

What is your legal responsibility?

The law in Scotland generally takes the view that, following a split, children benefit from maintaining direct contact with both parents. Unless there are exceptional circumstances at play, you and your ex both have a responsibility to support your children’s relationship with the other parent by encouraging and facilitating contact.

For parents grappling with real-life family relationships and arrangements, the big question is what this encouragement involves in practice. And you may be surprised at how much you’re expected to do on this.

What if your child doesn’t want contact?

The child in the recent Glasgow case lived with her mother and saw her father three times a week in accordance with a contact order. This went on for two years, until the mother stopped the contact abruptly, saying the daughter no longer wanted to see her father.

The court said this was not a legitimate excuse for breaching the contact order. As the resident parent, the mother was required to make sure her daughter saw the father. Even if the child didn’t want to.

Expectations on parents

When trying to protect children from the negative impacts of a separation, it may feel uncomfortable forcing them to do things they don’t want to do – whether that’s going to the dentist, taking exams or seeing your ex.

But the courts say this is part of parenting, and that parents are expected to deploy ‘carrot and stick’ tactics to encourage contact. These range from ‘argument, persuasion, cajolement, blandishments [and] inducements’ to sanctions such as grounding or confiscating phones.

In short, you’re generally expected to use any strategy you can think of, except physical force, to ensure contact takes place.

Exceptional circumstances may apply

All this being said, safety and the welfare of children are always a priority, and it may be deemed acceptable to discontinue contact if there’s a risk of harm to your child or yourself.

But even in these situations, you shouldn’t take matters into your own hands. Before breaching a contact order, you need expert advice about your options. While the courts will always take children’s wishes into account, you can’t just tell your ex, their solicitor, or a court that your children don’t want contact with their other parent.

Three things to keep in mind

It’s unusual for a child contact dispute to end up with a jail sentence. This recent case was quite extreme in that the child missed over 150 scheduled contacts and the mother blocked contact abruptly rather than asking to change a court order she’d previously agreed to. She also ignored solicitors’ letters and previous court proceedings encouraging her to resume contact.

So, while it’s unlikely you’ll find yourself in prison for failing to encourage your child’s relationship with your ex, it’s still important to understand your responsibilities and to do your best to deliver them.

• Try to maintain a constructive dialogue with your ex about contact arrangements. We know this may be difficult, but it can help prevent things escalating into a more damaging dispute.

• Don’t make unilateral decisions about contact.

• If you want to vary a contact order or are concerned about any risks to your child or yourself, talk to a family law solicitor.