Focus should always be on what’s best for the children at Christmas - Beverley Johnson

Christmas can be a wonderful time of the year for families however, it can also be a difficult time for separated parents. As Head of Family Law at Johnson Legal Family Law, I’ve been helping families with their Christmas co-parenting arrangements for over 25 years.

Communicating effectively with your ex-partner is one of the most important aspects to a smooth Christmas. One of my colleagues, Fiona Mundy, recently trained as a coach with the New Ways for Families training programme. The pilot is run by Shared Parenting Scotland and aims to keep high conflict cases involving children away from court.

Fiona has coached several parents to communicate more effectively and de-escalate conflict. Our Family Law team has collated our top tips to help separated parents communicate better over the festive period:1. Keep all correspondence with each other brief and informative. Don't respond to comments that don't require a response. Where possible, ask a question which has a yes/no answer.

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2. Be respectful when discussing Christmas arrangements and make it clear that you understand their position. This applies whether you agree with it or not and can take the heat out of a difficult discussion.

Beverley Johnson,​​​​​​​ Head of Family Law and Director of Johnson Legal Family LawBeverley Johnson,​​​​​​​ Head of Family Law and Director of Johnson Legal Family Law
Beverley Johnson,​​​​​​​ Head of Family Law and Director of Johnson Legal Family Law

3. Try to stay friendly at all times and don't get into arguments unnecessarily.Christmas can also become very stressful if co-parenting arrangements cannot be agreed. Many families will be planning festivities in advance so it’s wise to have this confirmed sooner than later.

When planning festive arrangements with your ex, do your best to view things from the point of view of the children, rather than thinking about what you and your ex-partner want. Most children want to see both parents at Christmas time if this is practical.

It’s also of the upmost importance to think about Christmas logistics. Will the children be okay with leaving presents at one parent’s home to go to the other parent? Will you be able to travel between each parent’s homes on a day when weather conditions might be poor?

If you and your ex-partner can’t agree on arrangements, there is still time to take a case to court. It can take about six to eight weeks for the court to fix a hearing so we would advise you to get in touch with a family lawyer now.

The outcome of a hearing might be that the children spend most of Christmas Eve with one parent then most of Christmas Day with the other, or perhaps one parent has Christmas with the children this year and the other has Christmas with them next year. There is no one size fits all solution, the focus is always what’s best for the children.

If you need help reaching an agreement on your Christmas plans or advice on arranging a court hearing, please get in touch with us.

Johnson Legal Family Law has also recently set up an anonymous Q&A platform to open up our specialised legal advice to anyone who has a family law related question. All questions are 100 per cent anonymous and we'll be posting the responses to these questions on our social channels on an ongoing basis.

Beverley Johnson, Head of Family Law and Director of Johnson Legal Family Law

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