[Solved] How do you pick yourself up?

Hello
I'm the nan, my son lives with me so his son, my grandson comes to my house.
Luckily for is we see him every 3 days, we took ages working on the child arrangement order, to get best agreement. 12 days would be awful, can you not change the order so you see them more often? Our grandson is here from Friday after school all weekend we then take him back to school Monday morning. Thursday overnight and Tuesday after school. Like you say when he goes home, it's horrible, I keep waiting for him to come running in or to call me for something, such a massive part of our lives now. We cope by thinking back to when he wasn't in our lives. I saw him at 6 weeks old and not again until he was 2 years old. He is now 4, but for ages he was 2, I couldn't move passed 2, weird. We leave his coat and shoes next to ours. Normally books or toys left lying about as well. Just so grateful he is now in our lives, we treasure every second with him. How old are your children, child can you phone or Skype with them in the week when not with you? Beware thou mom might expect the same, need to think would you be ok with that.

Sounds like an ideal arrangement, I would absolutely love to have something in place like that, but he lives over an hour away making midweek visits impossible. It would be his bedtime by the time I get there..and the mother won't entertain the idea facetime or Skype!

Have you got good arrangements for extra time for holidays, if he's started school you should be looking at shared school holidays, if your work commitments allow. Also shared birthdays and Christmas.

Usually where long distance means less frequent contact, courts would award a bigger chunk of school holidays to redress the balance. Might this be something you could consider? Do you have a court order for contact, or is the current arrangement agreed between yourselves?

Mediation might be a way of negotiating Skype/FaceTime, it's for your sons benefit....12 days is a long time not to see you!

Thanks for the replies here. He is only 2 and a half so he's at nursery and to be fair I'm not sure how much I would gain if I was to Skype at the moment. There is no court order in place and she just point blankly refuses to allow me to facetime, because I guess it means she'll have to converse with me. I've tried the mediation, ended up going on my own last week. Waste of [censored] time that was, everything that I needed to know was covered here!

I guess his age is a factor, but many 2/3 yr olds are totallly at home with technology!

At least, as you've tried mediation, you have 4months to decide to f you want to try for more time via court order....that said, court should always be a last resort and does put further strain on separated parents relationship.

My advice is to stick with it and revisit it when he's three and try and get some progression. I'm the meantime you could think about working on a Parenting plan, perhaps print a couple of blank copies off and send one to your ex and ask her to work on it to see if you can't work out a parenting plan that will carry the three of you into the future.

I'll link you to the CAFCASS parenting plan and also our own Dad info app.

All the best

With the new Family Justice Reforms the focus is on reaching agreements outside of the courtroom, using tools such as mediation and parenting plans

www.cafcass.gov.uk/grown-ups/parenting-plan.aspx

www.cafcass.gov.uk/media/190788/parenting_plan_final_web.pdf

Also heres a very own app to assist in making arrangements for the kids after break up.

http://dadinfo.splittingup-putkidsfirst.org.uk/home

Thanks Mojo, appreciate the pointers, and will definitely try the above....it's hard to stay positive when you are fighting a dragon of an ex and the ball being totally in their court...or so it seems!