Family Re Organisation
THE PARENTS CANNOT SUSTAIN AN INDEPENDENT RELATIONSHIP WITH ONE OR MORE CHILDREN
In many households one parent assumes the bulk of responsibility regarding care for the children and the other parent relies on this comfort. During separation and divorce both parents need to be able to fulfil the caregiver role. Some parents need time to achieve this result. It is important that both parents should support the notion of sustainable independent relationships with the children.
This implies that it is not useful for parents to have their access to the children in the other parents company or home. If you are concerned that your children’s other parent cannot independently take care of the children you need to find ways of communicate your concerns and be supportive towards the other parent in developing an independent relationship with the children.
Some pointers in this regard are:
- It is important that both parents have a basic awareness regarding safety issues.
- The ages of your children will determine what their needs are and what you as a parent need to do to meet these needs effectively. Both parents need to educate themselves regarding these aspects.
- If you have vastly different ideas about care and parenting, it could be useful to attend the same parenting course (even is you do so separately). In doing so you develop a baseline idea of what is acceptable that lies outside either parent’s personal wishes and expectations.
- In extreme cases, supervised access might be necessary. Supervised access could be highly vigilant or moderately vigilant or low vigilant in nature. The problem will determine the type of supervised access that would be appropriate. Supervised access is either used to facilitate a movement towards a situation where unsupervised access is possible or unfortunately in some cases the only manner in which access could take place.