• Home
  • >
  • Preparing for first direct contact

Preparing for first direct contact

 
Making contact

You and your child may be ready for direct contact and that’s really exciting for both of you. For it to go well, you can do some simple things to prepare for it.

  • Find out what they would like to do.
  • Arrange a time limit so you both know what time you will meet and what time they will have to be back home or delivered to a pick up point.
  • Agree with their mum or carer what you will do and how long you will be – if necessary, go through a trusted person to communicate, if you can’t do this without getting angry or having an argument.
  • Think about what you already know about them – this might give you some ideas of things they would like to do.
  • Focus on doing something together which doesn’t cost much money or is free, this will put less pressure on you both to have a visibly good time and allow you to get to know each other more
  • Agree where is a good place for you to go – it may be that you aren’t allowed to have your child at your home yet, or that you have to have supervised contact, in which case there are certain limits on where you can go. If there aren’t any such restrictions, it could still be a good idea to meet outside your home at first, perhaps at the park or at a relative of yours or a relative of your child’s mother.

Direct contact – day 1

Follow the preparation guide above and you should get off to a good start!

Don’t be too rigid, if your ideas don’t work out, try something else. Maybe you wanted to kick a football around the park and they don’t feel like it – perhaps you can get them to change their minds but also be prepared to do something else instead.
Remember, focus on what they need from you rather than what you want from the visit.

Don’t put pressure on them to decide if they want more direct contact with you immediately but make sure they know you would like this if they want. You can phone them or their mother later or on another day to discuss whether and when you will next meet.

Next: Tips for direct contact!

 

Making contact after some time: if you left your ex to live with ...

 

You may think that you don’t know much about your child, if you h...

 

If you only have indirect contact, here's a few questions you can...

Dads Space survey

Help us improve Dads Space by answering some quick questions. You could win a £10 Amazon voucher!

Take the survey

Dads Space channels: