any advice would be great..
I wish to take my 4 year old son abroad to see my sister who lives out there and have been told that I'm not trusted with him as I don't "know" him.
I currently have him 2 days every other weekend and pay up to date payments of maintence and just wondered what I can do to take him abroad.
also I am on the birth certificate so have parental responsibility
Hi there
Does he stay overnight with you? Do you have a court order in place for contact arrangements?
Without a court order, she can pretty much call the shots unfortunately. You do however have a couple of options. Your first step would be to attempt mediation to try and reach agreement. If that fails, the mediator would sign off the form to enable you to make an application to court for a Child Arrangements Order, to have you schedule of contact written into an order and also other arrangements such as extra time for holidays, travel abroad and shared Christmas and birthdays.
If you didn't want to go for the full Child Arrangements Order and just wanted the holiday abroad addressed,you can instead apply for a Specific Issue Order, to ask the court to make an order to allow you to travel with him.
In my opinion, once you start taking legal action to sort it out, the mother is likely to see this as a challenge to her control over your child, and this will affect your relationship with her. In this case going for a Child Arrangements Order would probably be the best option, otherwise she may well frustrate future contact as a "punishment"