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MOTHER SEEKS TO CHANGE THE “SHARED CARE” PARENTING ARRANGEMENT INVOLVING HER CHILD

Tanberg & Remmy [2020] FCCA 3175 (12 October 2020)

This is an application filed by the mother seeking to change the parenting arrangement of X.

Facts:

Since consent Orders were made on December 2019, X has been in a shared care/equal time arrangement with her parents.  Stated summarily, the Mother now says this arrangement is not working. Among other things, she now says that the communication with the Father is poor; she also complains that the shared care arrangement is having an adverse impact on the child.

The Mother gives evidence of X becoming anxious or clingy about her separation from her mother. The Father says he has not seen this behaviour from X. The Mother seeks to provide that stability for X by providing a base of primary care with regular and significant time with the Father. The arrangements sought by the Mother will assist X’s sense of stability and provide for defined weekend time for each parent.

Issue: Should the court order a new parenting arrangement?

Analysis:

Last December the parents determined that it was in X’s best interests for there to be a shared care/equal time arrangement.

In March 2020, the family consultant noted some of the stresses and strains on the child and on the parents. None of those stresses and strains are either novel or unforeseen, especially for a three year old child. In the court’s view, it would be highly remarkable if a three year old child was not, at some stage, somewhat “clingy” towards one parent or another.  But, “clinginess” is not, without more, sufficient to warrant Court intervention where quite a few other factors or stressors seem clearly to be in play. Here the court had in mind the difficult relationship between the Mother and the Father’s partner. What was in the child’s best interests in December 2019, and not cautioned against by the expert in March 2020, still seems, for the most part, to be in the child’s best interests. 

In the circumstances, for better or for worse, the court does not see that it can grant any relief of the kind that the Mother seeks on the evidence that the court has. It might all reasonably or readily change at a final hearing. Yes, there may be distress on the child’s part at times – the court does not question what the Mother has said to the court – but that distress in a three year old, which is hardly novel, without more, in my view, is an insufficient basis, given the existing Orders agreed by consent and the imprecision in the expert’s Report, to change those now relatively longstanding arrangements.

Conclusion: Application by Mother to change shared care not accepted.

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