On Aug 23, 2:05*am, wrote:
On 21 Aug, 18:10, George Washington George.Washington.



wrote:
I have been representing myself for the first 2 hearings, during which I
have managed to get a court order forsharedschool holidays, alt
weekends-fri to mon and every Tuesday night. *I actually applied for
sharedresidency order, but it seems to have moved more into ashared
careorder.

The final piece of the puzzle is to add alt Monday nights to bridge the
alt weekend to the regular Tuesday night. This will in effect almost
give ussharedcare. *At hearing 2, the RP wouldn't agree to this, so
the judge has asked us to prepare statements and come back to court in
a couple of months.

The RP states that to add these 2 extra nights per month would be
disruptive to our childs school life, and that during term time his
primary address should be with her.

So, my statement needs to focus on my benefit to our childs school
life, that the extra night on Monday will in fact add more continuity
for our child and that he will still live the majority of his time with
the RP.

That makes good sense.

We had 12 months of an extra night every other month up until
last year - again, this was stopped because the RP felt it was
disruptive.

Disruptive to his schoolwork presumably? The Tuesday is already
"disruptive" and the Monday is neither here nor there.

In your situation it must be impossible for either of you to look
objectively at anything. Present your statement to the court in the
way you have presented it here, with the emphasis on Education,
Education, Education, and I don't see why you would be turned down.

If you are don't worry about it - let it go. One day a month isn't
much either way.

I have just been through six years of this same problem with my 2
boys, I have recently been awarded shared care on a week about
arrangement, this was from doing the same things you are doing. You
cannot give your ex partner anything that she can use in a court
against you. You must treat her with respect only because your child
or children love her. This is a very hard thing to do, but in the end
it is worth it. My ex has thrown every possible thing at me to stop
this shared care arangement from going ahead, complaints of child
abuse, neglect and 'disrupting the childrens routine'. You have to
develop a thick skin and alway realise that if you are there for the
children and never play at that level, the child will always know the
truth.
The clincher for me was getting a order from the court for a 'family
report', in Australia you can apply and pay for this without a court
order. What happens here is that both parties and the children speak
to a psychologist and he/she makes recommendations to the court, the
court takes these recommendations very seriously as they are always in
the best interest of the children, once I had that she had very little
to argue against and the court ruled unanimously in my favor. It was
a long and hard battle to get here, and the one piece of advice I can
give is to always be there for the child and never let your emotion,
or her emotion for that matter get in the way of what is your role, of
parenting a child that you both created. Good luck.
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and read my blog www.thefatlindas.blogspot.com