Summer 3 weeks on a trot

Hi

Has he spoken to the mother to suggest this? What has she said? If he hasn't that could be the 1st place to start.

In respect of court there are no guarantees, if he can make a compelling case then possibly especially if mother has no real reason to reject it.

Are there are negatives for the mother if this change happens? Eg would her having for 3 weeks cause her an issue such as the fact she appreciates breaking up the summer hols currently or she have any other plans that could be impacted? If so thinking of responses to these may help too... 

If he goes back to court and applies with a C100 then they have to attempt mediation first unless there is an exemption.  Courts always prefer parents to agree between themselves so I agree its best to approach mother first.  She may have good reasons to object but if not, you might suggest mediation.

Thanks for responses : 

We have full intentions to ask the mother but 99% sure that she will refuse. So just wondering on chances of courts granting it. Obviously having to go mediation, get the form signed, and apply to court will cost a fair amount of money and would like it in place for next summer which means asking the mother sooner rather than later and proceeding with mediation etc but just wanted to have opinions and views before spending all that time and money to possibly be against odds. 

Reason I am confident the mother will refuse is because, this year she proposed to have 2 and half weeks on the trot for herself and proposed for my husband to have 3 separate contact times i.e 3 days (F) - 17 days (M) - 12 days (F) - 4 days (M) - 6 days (F) 

So instead we suggested 17 days each followed by 4 days each to be equal and mother simply refused stating the court order says maximum 2 weeks and is an absolute non negotiable to go beyond 2 weeks.

I think the response from the mother will be down to personal emotions and feelings of the child being away for the additional period of time.  Currently the child has been away for a maximum of 2 weeks and 2 days. I personally do not think the additional 5 days will have a negative impact on the child but the mother will definitely argue this point due to her own feelings. 'making me be away from my daughter longer' type of response which is what her refusal reasoning was for 17 day proposal.

We are offering the following proposals: 

1. Mother to have 2 weeks, father to have 3 weeks and mother to have 1 week - this is because the mother's birthday always falls within the first 2 weeks of the summer holidays and the mother raises the fact she would rather have the last week to prepare the child for school (although this year she was happy to give us the last week) 

2. Mother to have 3 weeks, father to have 3 weeks (if mother is happy for us to have the last week of holidays as she was this year) and again because mother's birthday falls within first 2 weeks. 

I don't know of any plans or anything that would impact the child or the mother by halving the holidays (other than mother's birthday which we've taken into consideration) but always happy to play devils advocate for anything we may not have taken into consideration. 

Thanks again! 

I think those proposals and reasons sound sensible. For completeness I would also suggest the benefit of all children spending time together as a family too, this should be the main reason and the not the inconvenience..

In your original message

- and now we have our own children it means my husband has to lose time with his children to take his other child back to her mum - 

His other child is his 'children' and language such as this should be avoided...

Just my thoughts..

All the best.. 

Hi,

I think applying to court for 1 extra week would look pretty trivial. Application may get rejected. How old are the kids? If you would like to take kids on holiday abroad and this is being denied, you hay have a stronger case in court if you seek their permission, and then at same time ask about the 3rd week in summer.

Thanks again for responses. Obviously the language used here was just to explain the situation and not confuse who I was referring to. When applying to court it's easily communicated as it is only child focused on one of his children. Apologies if it caused any offence. 

We have permission to go abroad already in the court order but would like to change the summer arrangements to have 3 weeks together rather than 2 weeks and 1 week.

There are a few other things we would like to amend in the court order but the main focus is to change the arrangement of summer