If your child and her/his carer agree to the contact, you will often need to build up slowly and regularly.
Start with small, specific things you can stick to:
- Birthday and Christmas cards and presents, via a third party if necessary
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Dads' Space 1-2-1 contact – starting with indirect contact is a useful way for you both to get to know each other slowly and carefully
- Using e-mail, via the child’s carer or directly, if this is agreed with their carer or the courts if necessary
- SMS messages, perhaps at specific times agreed with the child’s carer
- Phone calls at a regular time each week
Don’t put pressure on the child to spend longer with you than they or their mum feels OK with – it will just make things difficult for your child.
Do use the time you have to get to know your child and to focus on them.
Don’t go quicker or further than agreed with your child’s carer, or, if you can’t agree, further than the courts decide is best. Ideally you and your ex or whoever is caring for your child should come up with something you can both agree to and which, most importantly, your child feels comfortable with.
Do think about how it might feel from your child’s point of view. You may know you love them more than anything, but if they haven’t had much contact with you, no matter what the reason was, it will still be confusing or difficult for them for a while, perhaps for a long time. It really helps you to stop getting frustrated or impatient if you think of how they might feel.
Do always stick to your agreement: one of the things your child will need to learn for themselves is that you are reliable and can be trusted. If you agree to call at 7pm on a Sunday you will have to stick to this, even if it is really tricky for you, and if you absolutely can’t, for a really good reason, you will need to be able to explain this to your child in ways they can understand.
Next: First overnight contact