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The word "Contact"

Ash

Ash

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Avoid using it in anything you write for the court. Even if Cafcass use it, even if Solicitors use it. If you have a solicitor who uses it - explain to them you would prefer them to describe it in a different way, like "when the Father spends time with the child" or "when the child is in the Father's care" or "when my child is with me".

The word "contact" is still bandied about a lot, in a lazy, demeaning fashion usually. It is usually intentionally demeaning. Sometimes it is just a bad habit without the writer knowing their own subliminal biased attitude. Sometimes people are like sheep and just use it because other people have used it in certain documents.

Don't be a sheep.

I have a particular bugbear about this.

They just drag you in with this word - it's not just about time, it's about brainwashing you into feeling inferior and sounding inferior. Contact contact contact - go away go away go away. To me, when they start bandying that word around it is completely and totally loaded with - "secondary", "unimportant", "unsafe" "supervised" "go away" and "mum knows best".

Ok so why is it bandied around so much? Pre 2014 it was a technical legal term. A parent either had a residency order or a "contact" order. The legal terminology was changed, quite rightly, in 2014 to make things less divisive and extreme. The terms were changed to "lives with" and "spends time with" as part of the Child Arrangements Programme and the new Child Arrangements Orders (instead of Residence orders and Contact orders). A child arrangements order was one order, instead of separate orders - setting out the arrangements for the child with both parents. An order for both parents.

This was a great improvement. Some people preferred the old way when Mothers sounded more superior. And because the word "contact" can generally mean "contact" as well as being a legal term, they get away with still using it. But they take it to the extreme and solicitors for ex's will still use the vomit-making expression "when the child goes to contact". "Goes to contact"!!!! You are not even a human being any more! You are just "contact".

I strongly believe language influences people - in everything you write. Judges are highly qualified and intelligent. They read pages and pages and pages of documents all the time - huge bundles of evidence, multiple written documents. If yours stands out as easy to read, human, addressing a human, written like a human, using positive language that makes you sound human and makes the situation sound human - you have a good chance. Not only that you are dragging the Judge out of the mire of disappearing down a tunnel vision "contact led" dialogue.

The way you describe something changes things.
 
I have added other adjectives in my position statements such as "vital" and "essential to "spends time with." So he "spends vital time with me" and "spends essential time with me" before the quote "Fathers, like mothers, are pillars in the development of a child's emotional well-being" because yes, written words make us think. They make us change our behavior.

Just look at advertising. Copywriting is the art and science of strategically delivering words (whether written or spoken) that get people to take some form of action, i.e. buy something. And we can all relate to a time when that has influenced us.

Judges are indeed intellectual, educated, typically middle-aged. Relating to their mindset is really key. The opening sentence or paragraph of a statement can be a powerful way to promote you and instill credence that you are the sound one in the dispute.
 
Yup! It's still called that because nobody thought to change it - habit. Sounds grim doesn't it? How about "Family centre"
 
To be fair. The one I use is referred to as a Children’s Centre and is run by a charity in a local Primary School.
 
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I also hate the word “ position “ in relation to kids . I.e. “ whats your position regarding contact “ . Children aren’t pawns on a legal chessboard .
 
I hate the word "visit". I correct everyone who uses this term to refer to the time when the kids are living with me, asking them to use "lives with". I also the hate the word contact. I have never used it and in all my dealings with the family court, I have used "care for" , "lives with", etc.

Words can psychologically relegate non-resident parents to just a minor inconvenience only there for child maintenance.
 
I think the word "home" is really important here. For a very long time after "permission to remove" was granted by the court, my daughter refused to refer to her mother's new abode as "home". She was very young, but I explained to her that "home" is a feeling, not a place. Used examples like when you are visiting family abroad, or staying in a hotel, when you get to the end of a long day and feel tired, you say you want to go "home". The hotel or the relatives house, is your home at that time. It is where the things you need and the people you love are going to be. Slowly, she became able to call both places "home". It helped in the beginning to have a place name as well, so she could say "Inverness home" and "Glasgow home". Now she instinctively has a "two homes" mindset.

In correspondence with ex I get the word "contact" all the time. I don't acknowledge the term at all and refuse to use it. Instead I write things like: "when we are at home together"; "when xxxxx is at home with me"; "at our family home": "while xxxxx is living with me"... I also use: "during her time with you"; "during her time with me".

On a couple of occasions early on, I switched it, wrote about my ex's "contact". It is a meaningless term legally, so we can use it how we please. I regret doing this for two reasons: two wrongs do not make a right; if anything was achieved by me retaliating, it was only notifying them they were getting under my skin.

It has slowly been revealed to me how much power there is in doing the opposite to my ex. Where she denigrates me, I celebrate her. I support my child's relationship with her mother and speak positively of that relationship. This has such a massive positive impact on my kid, it is a massive weight visibly lifted off her shoulders each time I show approval/acceptance of her love for her mum. We should love our parents, even when they are c***s! I try to make sure the tightrope we have to walk is not projected onto the one innocent party in this car crash.

Anyway, here is a song on the theme, I've shed many tears of joy and sadness to this:

 
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So we can all agree, the words 'Contact',to describe our relationship with our children is now banned. And it is important to replace this cold, meaningless legal term in all documents, correspondence and communications with one that accurately describes the important bond between a child and a father.

  • Spends time with
  • Bonds with
  • Benefits from
  • Enjoys
  • Develops
  • Learns
  • Grows

What about replacements for 'Position' and 'Visit.'
 
For position, I use "view", "understanding", "feeling", "perspective", "assessment"... Try to make it feel considered and taken on balance of relevant factors.

I think "visit" can be replaced with the terms used to replace contact. I sometimes use "return(s)", the child is coming back to me or going back to mum. "When you return xxxxx to me" is quite powerful, it shows a two way process.

On the "time with" there is another subtle switch I think makes a massive shift: it is not my "time with" the child, it is the child's "time with" their father. The other side will always make it "your contact" like this is something they are giving you. This is totally wrongheaded, it is there as the child's entitlement. When it is taken away, it is being taken away from the child. Remembering this really helps to keep correspondence on a child-centred tone.
 
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Yet at the same time they castigate you if you refer to “your time “ rather than the child’s time.

I used to say that in emails to my ex too - when son is at his home here. She would write back and say - that isn’t his home, it’s just a visit. So it was clear she used to tell my son that too. But to him it was his home here - after many years. Why can’t they just accept it?

Even now there are a lot of professionals who believe children do best with just one main home. They don’t get it - home is where the heart is. Home is with people. How can mainly being at one house be enough if they miss a parent?
 
I've read it a few times over the past couple of days and I wish I had done so eight months ago. I now refer to a Family Centre and I'll pull her up if she uses the word. It's a deep post that you wrote.
 
I had to say to my solicitor, I would prefer you not to use the word "contact" in any documents, even if the other side does, and explained why and said I preferred terms like xyz. She accepted it and did that. The odd time she'd forget and I'd request a change of wording.

But the main thing is in court orders. I've heard of quite a few orders recently, written by solicitors for the other side that say "Lives with order" - child lives with Mother

Then a separate heading

Contact Order - and set out things like Father will have contact xyz

To me this is very wrong and not what Child Arrangements orders were for, It isn't a lives with order or a contact order (as they used to be) it's a child arrangements order and within that it states lives with or spends time with.

Another thing recently is orders saying "spends time with or otherwise has contact with". That's not quite so bad but they're still getting "contact" in there.

The courts seem to approve the orders as well as written so they are at fault for not requiring solicitors to write orders in the way the CAP programme intended them to be written - to make both parents sound more human and equal.

It's very difficult when someone is self-repping because the other side's lawyer will alway write the order then. In some ways it doesn't matter as long as the order is followed, but ..........
 
Just rereading this thread.
On a recent interim order which would have been written by the court I believe, they use the word 'contact'. After just looking at it I literally did this face 😖
 
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