Making Joint Decisions About Your Child's Future

You may have split up from your child’s mother but you are still both jointly responsible for your child’s upbringing and making choices that influence their life. It can be difficult if you have differing opinions, but you need to respect each other's viewpoints and discuss them maturely. You have a legal right, as your child’s father, to have a say in major decisions in their life.

Why Make Joint Decisions?

It doesn’t matter that you have split up from their mother, or how far away you live from them, you will always be your child’s father. This means that you will be always be responsible for their wellbeing and major decisions that affect them. You and your ex need to find a way to work together for the sake of your child and respect each other’s opinions. Your child will feel better knowing that you act as a united front and can set an example.

How to Work as a Team

Of course, you and your ex are not going to agree on everything – even if you were still together you wouldn’t. What is important is finding a way to listen to each other, consider and respect the other person’s opinion and come to a decision together. Stay calm and focused on the needs of your child. Never raise your voice, make any kind of threats or undermine your ex as this will only make future communication much harder. (Read our article How to Improve Relations With Your Child's Mother on this site.)

Legal Rights

As the father of your child, you have a legal right to be involved in any major decisions in their lives. If your ex has custody, they have the responsibility for your child’s everyday upbringing and have the final say over the decisions. However, for major things such as medical or financial matters, you have a right to be involved. If your ex tries to cut you out, consult your lawyer for advice.

The Benefits of Mediation

One of the best ways of finding ways to communicate and make decisions together is through Mediation. A mediator can help you to talk with each other calmly and teach you the tools to do so in the future. Whatever you think about your ex and her decisions, you need to find a way to work with her so that you can be involved in your child’s upbringing.

No two people are ever going to think exactly the same about everything. As parents, though, you need to work together to make important choices about your child’s upbringing. You have a legal right to be involved in major decisions and if mediation doesn’t help you communicate, you should contact your lawyer to make sure you can execute your right.

The Next Step

Now that you have read through the advice above, you might want to put it into practice. Our Mediation Prep Tool lets you prepare your key points and priorities before mediation. Takes 5 minutes. Try it now →