Arbitration Grants Father Equal Parenting Time After Years of Reduced Access

A father who had limited access to his children following an isolated domestic assault incident was granted a gradual increase to shared parenting after undergoing arbitration via Zoom conferencing in the midst of COVID-19.

Following a singular instance of domestic violence against his partner several years ago, which contributed to the end of their partnership, the father of two experienced reduced access to his children. To ensure that the children’s best interests were being maintained and that the father could improve his mental and emotional health, he attended regular counselling sessions.

The children’s mother, however, was reluctant to increase the amount of time that the children could spend with their father. As they spent more time apart they became less eager to see him and were entering a relationship pattern that, if not mended, could cause a long term divide between them.

In this case, it was found to be in the best interests of both children to increment time spent with their father, including an increase in overnight stays, for a definite period of time. The case was decided on a couple of factors, including:

• The volume of time that had passed with extremely limited parenting time allotted to the father was deemed to be detrimental to the best interests of the children.
• The slow pace of graduated parenting could be setting the children up for negative results associated with increased parenting time.
• Both of the parents had made mistakes in their parenting approaches but these were seen as “opportunities for learning and improving their parenting styles going forward”.

Finding a solution to this matter through arbitration instead of taking it to court saved both parties a considerable amount of stress and money during the process. They are now able to work on improving their child-parent relationships in a healthy way that provides the children to build stronger bonds with both parents.

To ensure that your children have the best representation and that their interests are protected, contact Richmond Tymchuk Family Law to work with a family lawyer for your divorce and custody disputes.