One of the worst aspects of any relationship breakdown is how the trauma can affect the children involved. Children always feel the effects of the break up of their parents most profoundly, even if they sometimes endeavour to hide how they feel. With this in mind parents should take extra care to ensure that the children are reassured by both parents that they are not responsible for any break-up and that they won’t lose either parent’s love, nor will they lose contact with either parent.

Of course doing this requires both parents to remain civil to each other and put their own differences aside in favour of their children’s needs. This is often easier said than done as break-ups rarely run smoothly, especially where children are involved.

What is essential to avoid however is using the children to cause the other parent emotional grief, which again is all too common. When an unscrupulous mother realises that her best weapon in upsetting her ex-husband lies in refusing access to the children, she can sometimes be tempted to use her own children in this way. This means that she is denying her children their father, refusing them access to one of their parents at a time when they need both parents around them, just to gain some petty revenge.

Is this bad parenthood? Yes. Is there anything that can be done about this legally? Well no, actually there isn’t. When the mother is absolutely determined to stop her ex seeing his children there sadly isn’t anything that can be done about it in the courts, as any contact order made by the courts isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on due to the powers the mother is given by social services.

This again is why we Fathers 4 Justice campaigning in aid of non resident fathers everywhere. This is why we need a law change in the UK. As long as women have this power children can be abused by their mothers and have their fathers blocked out of their lives.

This is a form of child abuse, when the child is too young to form their own opinion they are being denied what is rightfully theirs, access to their father.

Clive Bellmore