The short answer, before anything else
You do not force your child into the car, and you do not quietly let the visit lapse either. Both are decisions made at the front door, under pressure, with a child watching, and neither holds up well afterwards.
You do three things instead. You make the handover available, so nobody can say you stood in the way. You tell the other parent plainly and early what has happened, in writing, rather than leaving them on a kerb wondering. Then you work out what sits behind the refusal before the next handover, because the reason is the whole case. A frightened child and a child who is cross about bedtimes do not get the same answer.
This is general information, not legal advice. If there is a court order in place, or there may need to be, talk to a solicitor. The site lists free and low cost legal advice in Ireland, and the same for England, Northern Ireland and Scotland.
What the refusal is probably about
Cafcass, the body that advises the family courts in England, sets out several reasons a child might reject or resist time with a parent after a separation. Their list includes fear of a parent who has been abusive, anger at the parent who left, straightforward dislike of a parent or of their circumstances, and a child simply opting out because the conflict between the adults has become too much to stand in the middle of.
The order matters. Where a child does not want to go, a Family Court Adviser looks at domestic abuse and harmful parenting first, and Cafcass is explicit that those can sit alongside other explanations rather than ruling them out. Only after that comes the question of whether one parent has been running down the other.
Alienating behaviours are "one reason why a child may reject or resist spending time with one parent, grandparent or carer following family breakdown."
Two things in that guidance are worth holding on to. The first is that a child who had a good relationship with a parent and now refuses flatly, for no reason anyone can point at, is a situation the court will look into rather than accept at face value. Where a child has been pressed into rejecting a parent, Cafcass notes this may amount to emotional abuse under the Children Act 1989. The second is the mirror image: Cafcass warns that someone who has been controlling or abusive may claim the other parent is turning the child against them, as a way of moving the attention off themselves. Advisers know that happens.
For you, standing in the hallway on a Friday evening, the practical point is that your child's refusal is information rather than a verdict. Ask open questions at a quiet time that is not the handover, and ask once rather than six times. Children work out quickly which answer makes a parent happier, and one who is asked all week will give you the answer they think you want.
If what comes back worries you, there is a separate guide on signs your child is struggling after separation, and one on a child who cries at handover, which is a different problem with a different fix.
Where you stand if there is an order
In Ireland, if parents cannot agree access themselves, the court decides, and your child's welfare is the most important factor in that decision. The courts treat a child's relationship with both parents as very important and are slow to deny access to a natural parent. Your child's own views can be taken into account where their age and understanding make that appropriate, which is a different thing from your child choosing. There is more on how much that view weighs in last week's edition on what age a child can decide which parent to live with.
Where a court has granted access and a parent is then unreasonably denied it, section 18A of the Guardianship of Infants Act 1964 lets the other parent apply for an enforcement order. Before making one, the court has to be satisfied of three things: that the access was unreasonably denied, that an order is in the child's best interests, and that it is otherwise appropriate. If the court decides the denial was reasonable, it does not have to make an order at all.
What an enforcement order can contain is worth knowing, because it is less dramatic than most people imagine. The court can grant compensatory time to make up what was lost. It can order the other parent to pay back expenses actually incurred in trying to exercise access, which is not the same as general legal costs. And it can require one or both parents to attend a parenting programme, to use family counselling, or to be given information about mediation. One Family note that legal aid may be available for these proceedings, subject to the usual eligibility rules.
Notice what that list is for. It is built to repair a parenting relationship, not to punish a child. A parent who made the child available, said what happened, offered an alternative and kept trying stands in a very different place from one who stopped answering the phone. The court decides which of the two it is looking at, on what it can see.
In England and Wales the route runs through the family court and a Cafcass Family Court Adviser, who explores the refusal, weighs how intense the adults' behaviour is against its effect on the child, and reports. Where alienating behaviours are found, the court may use its authority to help rebuild the relationship with the rejected parent, balanced against safeguarding, and especially carefully where domestic abuse is in the picture.
Before any of that, mediation is the cheaper and quieter road. There is a guide on preparing for co-parenting mediation, and the Family Mediation Service in Ireland is free.
What to do this week, and what to write down
Handovers go better when the work happens days beforehand rather than at the door. Tell your child what is happening and when, in plain words, early, and keep your feelings about the other parent out of the sentence even when you are right. If a full weekend is too big a jump, offer a smaller step, a phone call or a short afternoon, and offer it to the other parent first rather than announcing it. If the handover is the flashpoint, a neutral pick-up place or a different person collecting takes most of the heat out of it. Where the conflict between you is the real problem, parallel parenting is worth reading, and so is what to do when a co-parent will not communicate.
Then write it down, the same evening, while you still remember it accurately. Not a case against anybody. Just what happened, what you said, what you offered, and what the answer was. A record kept like that is dull to read, which is exactly what makes it useful six months later, whether it ends up in front of a mediator, a solicitor or nobody at all. There is a longer piece on what makes co-parenting records usable if you want the detail.
ParenThing is built for that evening. Messages are tone-checked before they send, which matters most on the nights you least want to be fair. The shared calendar holds the arrangement you both agreed, and handover check-ins record calmly that a collection happened. Documents, expenses and child maintenance sit in the same place, and you can export a neutral record when a professional asks for one. The Free plan costs €0, Premium is €12.99 a month or €119 a year for the family, and access for mediators, solicitors and family support workers is scoped and read only.
One last thing, and it is what most parents get wrong here. Your child does not need to know how hard this is on you. They need to know that both parents want to see them and that neither one is asking them to choose. That is a sentence you can say on a doorstep on a bad night.
Sources
- Cafcass set out the reasons a child may reject or resist time with a parent after a family breakdown, and put domestic abuse and harmful parenting first among them: Cafcass, Alienating behaviours.
- The guidance Family Court Advisers work from when a child does not want to go, which weighs the intensity of adult behaviour against its effect on the child: Cafcass, Indicators of understanding why a child does not want to spend family time with a parent.
- How access is agreed and decided in Ireland, including the welfare test, the weight given to a child's views, and what an enforcement order can contain: Citizens Information, Access to children after relationship breakdown.
- The section that lets an Irish court make an enforcement order where court-granted access has been unreasonably denied, and the three things it must be satisfied of first: Guardianship of Infants Act 1964, section 18A, as revised.
- A plain explanation of enforcement orders, and the note that legal aid may be available for them, from the Irish charity One Family: One Family, Enforcement order.
- The source of the figure quoted in this edition: Cafcass, Annual data summaries.