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Hi all,
I know this might sound tedious, but I'd like to know: are inset days considered to be part of the school holidays? My 6 y/o son is subject to a Child Arrangements Court Order - something I'm not proud of, but grateful for nonetheless as it ensured his mother was forced to recognise he had a right to a relationship with a willing and able dad, and her persistant refusal to allow it more than one day weekly was impeding this right. I had some concerns that order wasn't as detailed as I would have liked it to be as I was certain the mother would claim ownership over anything that wasn't 100% clearly defined, and this is increasingly turning out to be the case in several areas.
Though there is no specific reference to them in the order, we have included inset days and other days of planned school closure as being part of the holidays (I have this from her in writing), and done so for the last 15 months. The order states that our son is to spend his holidays equally between both parents . She's flouted this a couple of times, but because it was only a day or so in question, I felt it best to simply point it out (in writing, so there is a record). When our son is with her, an inset day is the whole 24 hours, when with me she expects him to be handed over to her at 3pm (the end of the school day), and I've rolled with that to avoid even more animousity. She is now however moving the goalpost again -the inset day is no longer being described as a holiday, but as 'additional time' within her gift to dispense as she sees fit.
What I'm seeing is the re-emergence of the unlistening, unreasoning "I'm the primary carer" behaviour that caused considerable distress, and made going for the court order inevitable in the first place.
Can anyone please give me advice on this?
Hi
Unfortunately, these issues are very common as a lot of court orders are not detailed enough to cover these situations.
It's a bit of a rock and a hard place. As you have stated, sometimes where it's the odd day here and there, it's better to let it go and avoid a situation snowballing over the smaller things.
I'm not really sure what you do in this situation, you will know her better than we do. If trying to reach agreement with her is proving impossible, then only you can decide if it's worth pushing the matter further or not. Ultimately, in my experience, these smaller issues eventually lead on to bigger issues, so it might be worth considering mediation to try and reach agreement. If that is unsuccessful, you could try applying to the court to vary the order to include anything that isn't working. If it is successful, you could apply to the court to have the order amended by consent.
If she isn't complying with the current order, you can apply to have that enforced without the need for mediation.
Only thing I would add to actd's reply is that a lot of people have them included in court orders as 'holiday' days in the same way bank holidays are.
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