Divorce and family law solicitor Kathryn McTaggart represents many fathers who are going through divorce and separation and worried about maintaining contact with their children. In this video she provides three invaluable pointers for dads.
Dads are often the parent who ends up leaving the family home and the reason they do this is usually because they have the more practical and financial options available to them and in fairness most dads want to minimise disruption for their children. The advice I always give dads is to look at three particular issues before they leave the former matrimonial home. It’s a lot more difficult to sort them out afterwards but if they nail these three things before they go hopefully it is an agreement that will stand them in good stead as they embark on the separation process.
So the first one would really be to consider who is going to be responsible for what outgoings, once dad has left, and who is going to contribute to what. And if there is a clear agreement on that it is going to minimise tensions and potentially financial problems down the line.
Secondly and perhaps most importantly there needs to be some broad agreement about when children are going to see both of their parents. Again it is much easier to sort that out before dad has left the home than trying to broach an agreement when there are separated parents living in two different homes.
Thirdly, and equally as important, it’s vital that parents give consideration together as to what children are going to be told where their life is going to change quite dramatically. If there is a joint approach by both parents and children are given sensible age appropriate information about what’s going to happen and what the likely changes will be their emotional adjustment will be so much easier.
