Parenting isn’t easy – it can be emotionally exhausting, stressful and non-stop – and that’s when things are going well. When you’re going through a divorce or separation, parenting can be even harder, especially if you’re locked in a child custody battle.

Unfortunately, when a relationship or marriage ends and you have children, it means that you’re faced with a lot of challenges and changes as parents. From new living arrangements and financial pressures to how and where your kids will spend their time and co-parenting. It can be overwhelming just thinking about it.

Due to the emotional nature of child custody and parenting matters, it’s very common for parental conflict to occur, which can lead to more stress and result in a perpetuating emotional cycle that can take a huge toll on both parents and their kids. It’s also common that during these matters, the parents get caught up in their emotions and overlook what is actually truly in their child’s best interests.

As family lawyers, we see many instances where parental conflict is so extreme that the Federal Circuit and Family Court needs to get involved to help resolve parental disputes. This is a scenario that most parents would rather avoid and that’s what we’re here to help with in this article.

We’ve put together a list of behaviours that commonly cause conflict in child custody matters and co-parenting and our aim is to help you understand why these behaviours can make your custody disputes more difficult and help you to avoid further or potential conflict.

The child’s best interests

Before we dive into the common custody battle mistakes you could be making, it’s important to understand the concept of the best interest of the child.

While the phrase itself is somewhat self-explanatory, it’s also an incredibly important principle in the Australian Family Law system. Under the Family Law Act, when decisions regarding children need to be made, they should be made with the best interests of the child in mind. The best interests of the child are based on a number of considerations including the two primary considerations:

• the benefit to the child of having a meaningful relationship with both of the child’s parents; and
• the need to protect the child from physical or psychological harm from being subjected to, or exposed to, abuse, neglect or family violence.

As you read through our list of common custody mistakes parents make, you will see how these behaviours are not in the child’s best interest.