Handout 8
Contact guidelines
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Ensure children know you approve of contact with their other parent.
Actively encourage children to attend and enjoy visits.
Interrogation of a child by a parent lessens their enjoyment.
Visits occur more smoothly when the parents can talk reasonably and encourage positive feelings about each other.
Avoid making negative comments about your ex-partner to your children.
Extended visits allow a new relationship to develop in a more realistic manner.
With younger children parents should assume the responsibility for the visits, rather than leaving the children to decide whether they want to go or not.
Make every effort to keep timetables concerning the children which have been agreed upon with the ex-partner.
Children need consistent and stable schedules.
To assist in an emergency, parents need to give an indication of general whereabouts and contact telephone numbers.
If a child withdraws during or after a visit, there may be no problem, they may simply be overwhelmed or adapting to change.
Source: Lewis-Nicholson A., Unpublished Material. Lifeworks. 1998.