We are now well with­in the Ju­ly/Au­gust school va­ca­tion pe­ri­od. For sin­gle par­ents and par­ents strug­gling through di­vorce pro­ceed­ings, it is one of the most dif­fi­cult times of the year.

Ju­ly/Au­gust va­ca­tion brings about many small crises among those who are shar­ing cus­tody. It be­gins with shared hol­i­days with each par­ent hav­ing half of the school va­ca­tion, it spi­rals in­to the need for ad­di­tion­al funds for ei­ther sum­mer camp or ad­di­tion­al su­per­vi­sion, school sup­plies and even en­ter­tain­ment. Agree­ably, these are costs, bur­dens and con­cerns faced by all par­ents, but can be more tax­ing when the per­sons shar­ing the cost or de­ci­sion-mak­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ties are un­able to get along or have a ma­ture con­ver­sa­tion.

Ac­cess arrange­ments for chil­dren can ei­ther be lib­er­al or struc­tured. In lib­er­al ac­cess, par­ents can make de­ci­sions on ac­cess times and pe­ri­ods to­geth­er which al­lows a cer­tain lev­el of flex­i­bil­i­ty in shar­ing time with chil­dren.

Lib­er­al ac­cess would usu­al­ly be prac­ti­cal in in­stances where di­vorced par­ents still main­tain a good re­la­tion­ship and are able to com­mu­ni­cate with some ease. Struc­tured ac­cess is usu­al­ly pre­ferred where par­ents are prone to dis­agree­ment or un­able to ef­fec­tive­ly com­mu­ni­cate. A typ­i­cal struc­tured ac­cess al­low

s ac­cess to the par­ent who does not have care and con­trol which in­cludes every oth­er week­end, al­ter­nate hol­i­days, half of all school va­ca­tions and oth­er nec­es­sary de­tails such as the shar­ing of the child’s birth­day.

There are many par­ents who would agree to struc­tured ac­cess while their mat­ter is be­fore the Court. How­ev­er, af­ter the Court pro­ceed­ings is­sues arise. There are par­ents who will refuse to grant per­mis­sion for the oth­er par­ent to trav­el out­side of the ju­ris­dic­tion dur­ing their ac­cess pe­ri­od. There are oth­ers who would refuse to de­liv­er the chil­dren to the oth­er par­ent for their half of the school va­ca­tion. Yet still, there are some who would en­ter their chil­dren in­to a sum­mer camp or pro­gram which would oc­cu­py their en­tire va­ca­tion pe­ri­od with­out con­sult­ing the par­ent who would have shared ac­cess dur­ing that time.

Ac­cess is just one hur­dle. Next comes fi­nances. Ju­ly/Au­gust hol­i­days means the end of one aca­d­e­m­ic year and the thresh­old of an­oth­er. This re­quires school books, sta­tion­ar­ies, new uni­forms, shoes, book bags, lunch bags and the list go on, all in an at­tempt to have chil­dren prop­er­ly out­fit­ted and ready for the new aca­d­e­m­ic year.

The cost of these items ap­pears to in­crease each year, so, whether a child is a pre-school­er, en­ter­ing pri­ma­ry school or even sec­ondary school, the cost can be bur­den­some for many par­ents.

An or­der in court con­cern­ing chil­dren (if par­ents have sim­i­lar fi­nan­cial ca­pa­bil­i­ties) would usu­al­ly be that the costs be shared equal­ly.

In most in­stances the par­ent with care and con­trol of the chil­dren would make the nec­es­sary pur­chas­es and present the re­ceipts and/or in­voic­es to the oth­er par­ent so that they can be re­im­bursed. Ide­al­ly it seems sim­ple enough. It is not al­ways. Many par­ents ei­ther fail to col­lect all re­ceipts or de­pend on where they are shop­ping does not get de­tailed re­ceipts. This re­sults in bick­er­ing over pay­ments, ar­gu­ments about the au­then­tic­i­ty of in­voic­es and a fail­ure to re­im­burse ful­ly or re­im­burse at all.

Sad­ly, the ones caught in the mid­dle of it all, are the chil­dren.

The chil­dren who are un­able to go on a va­ca­tion, not due to the lack of funds, but sim­ply be­cause par­ents feel the need to be vin­dic­tive or ma­li­cious.

The chil­dren who can­not go to sum­mer camp or at­tend ac­tiv­i­ties be­cause their par­ents refuse to have prop­er dis­cus­sions or agree on the costs and pay­ments.

The chil­dren who are long­ing to spend some ex­tra time with the par­ent who no longer lives with them, but, say­ing that re­sults in them feel­ing that they have some­how be­trayed or hurt the par­ent that they live with.

The Court, even dur­ing the va­ca­tion pe­ri­od, stands avail­able for emer­gency mat­ters. Should a par­ent who had ad­vance no­tice of a booked va­ca­tion refuse to grant con­sent, the Court an in­ter­vene through an emer­gency ap­pli­ca­tion, sim­i­lar with a par­ent who is be­ing re­fused their half of the va­ca­tion ac­cess pe­ri­od.

Con­tempt ap­pli­ca­tions can be brought against the par­ent who re­fus­es to pay their share of the school sup­plies or sum­mer camp or ex­tra cur­ric­u­lars. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, these sug­ges­tions re­sult in ad­di­tion­al cost, Court time and fur­ther an­i­mos­i­ty be­tween the par­ents.

It may be more pru­dent to con­sid­er the chil­dren. Pur­chas­ing school sup­plies is not meant as a form of fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance to a for­mer spouse, we need to stop view­ing it this way. School sup­plies are meant for your chil­dren, it is a re­quire­ment for their aca­d­e­m­ic life.

A va­ca­tion, isn’t sim­ply a for­mer spouse go­ing away and hav­ing fun while the oth­er par­ty is de­prived of the op­por­tu­ni­ty. It is a chance for chil­dren to cre­ate mem­o­ries and en­joy new ex­pe­ri­ences with a par­ent. Ac­cess, is not a child choos­ing to share the time with one par­ent over an­oth­er, it is an in­tri­cate jug­gling act to al­low both par­ents to be present in their child’s life.

Chil­dren do not choose di­vorce. In our le­gal sys­tem it is the norm for chil­dren to be giv­en an op­por­tu­ni­ty to voice their opin­ions on which par­ent they would rather live with. Their de­ci­sions are made for them.

As par­ents, it should be your du­ty to en­sure that this life al­ter­ing pe­ri­od is still man­age­able for chil­dren and not let chil­dren be caught in the mid­dle of adult bit­ter­ness. So, Ju­ly/Au­gust va­ca­tion is here, buy the books, al­low the ac­cess, sign the con­sent for the va­ca­tion. The chil­dren will not be chil­dren much longer and some­day their re­sent­ment and bit­ter­ness over bad de­ci­sions will be vis­i­ble.

Pavi­t­ra Ramharack is Head of Cham­bers at Pavi­t­ra Ramharack At­tor­neys at Law and can be reached at ramharack_pavi­t­ra@out­look.com.