Holidays and trips overseas are great experiences, especially for children, however, as your family lawyers will advise you, if you are a divorced parent, packing your cases and flying off to some far off land with your children, can be a complicated matter, if not done correctly.

When we say ‘done correctly’ we are not talking about choosing the correct resort or airline, but instead, doing it correctly with reference to family law in Australia.

You see, whilst taking one’s children overseas for a holiday or to visit family, for example, is undoubtedly a positive, there needs to be a process followed to ensure that you are doing it lawfully.

This follows from the fact that in most divorces cases where there are children, there is an assumption of equal shared parental responsibility, and most parenting orders issued by the court as part of a divorce will signify this.

What it means in practical terms with regards to children, is that no major decisions can be taken regarding their lives without the agreement of both parents. These are the decisions that relate to their education, their health, and their religious upbringing, to name but three.

There are others, and one of those is any decision to take the children out of the country, whether that is for a holiday, a family wedding, or to visit their grandparents on the other side of the world.

Let’s take a look at a positive scenario and that is where you discuss the matter with the children’s other parent, and they agree that you can indeed take the children overseas with you.

In truth, the vast majority of these types of situations happen like this. After all, if the other parent genuinely has their children’s best interests at heart, why would they object unreasonably?

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