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      Travelling abroad when your kids have a different surname

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      It’s peak holiday season for UK families as the schools get ready to close for the six-week break. Travelling with kids can be tricky at the best of times but travelling abroad when your kids have a different surname can be complicated.
      Emma Newman, the Managing Partner at the Stowe Family Law office in Esher shares her first-hand experience and explains what a parent can do in advance to help prevent any issues.
      Many of us are now looking forward to enjoying some time away in the sunshine as the summer holiday approaches but if you have a different surname to that of your child you need to take action to avoid unnecessary stress.
      What is in a surname?
      Women are more likely to have a different surname to their children; some, like me, may be divorced from their child’s father and have remarried taking on a new name, others are married but have chosen not to take their husband’s surname whilst their children do, and of course, there are more and more unmarried couples who have children.
      The checks that are in place at ports, airports and international railway stations are designed to prevent children from being kidnapped and are all very understandable, but they have caused a huge amount of stress, upset and even missed flights for many parents and their children. This can easily be avoided by ensuring you carry the right documents. So, what can you do to ensure your holiday goes smoothly?
      Documents you may need
      Much depends on your particular circumstances but the officials need to be satisfied with your relationship with your child so the documents you may need are:
      Your child’s Birth Certificate:
      This document gives the name of your child, their date and place of birth and will match with the details on their passport. It will also give the full names of both parents at the time of their birth. So be careful; if your name has changed since your child was born you will need to take more documents with you.
      Proof of your change of name:
      This could mean travelling with your Marriage Certificate or a Change of Name Deed. On my last trip abroad I also found carrying an expired passport in the name I held at the time of my child’s birth (and therefore as set out in his birth certificate) was very useful as not only did it show what my name was then but it also had a photograph of me and the Border Official was able to marry up the Birth Certificate, Marriage Certificate and the expired and current passports.
      Prepare your children
      You might also want to warn your children that they may be asked questions directly by the immigration officials and they should not be worried and answer clearly and honestly. This is not the time for them to make jokes.  When I have been stopped at immigration my son was asked who I was, who my husband was, where he had been and how old he was.  It was made very clear that he needed to answer himself and I couldn’t answer for him.
      Consent to travel
      If you are not travelling with your child’s other parent, I would always ensure that you can prove you have their consent to your taking the child abroad.
      If there is a Child Arrangement Order in place which states that the child lives with you, technically you only need to obtain the other parent’s consent if you are going to be out of the UK for more than 28 days.
      However, in every other case, you should have the permission of every other person with parental responsibility for the child. If you don’t have this consent or a Court order, you are committing child abduction.
      I always recommend asking the other parent to sign a consent form before travel or to write a letter setting out their consent. The document should provide the full contact details of the other parent and specific details of the trip including the dates, destination and address. The other parent should sign the form. It is also a wise idea to attach a copy of the other parents’ passport to the consent form.
      Travelling abroad with children can be stressful enough. However, you can minimise some of the costs by ensuring you have enough space in your luggage to pack these multitude of documents. Happy holidays! More

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      Child Development (Ages 4-12) – Child and Family Blog

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      Child Development (Ages 4-12) – Child and Family Bloghttps://childandfamilyblog.com Transforming new research on cognitive, social & emotional development and family dynamics into policy and practice.Fri, 25 Jun 2021 09:29:40 +0000en-GB hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.7.2The Justice Gatekeepers for our Childrenhttps://childandfamilyblog.com/modelling-justice-for-children/ Thu, 24 Jun 2021 19:01:55 +0000https://childandfamilyblog.com/?p=16147The justice children experience at home and at school shapes their expectations […] More

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      Early Childhood Development (Ages 0-3) – Child and Family Blog

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      Early Childhood Development (Ages 0-3) – Child and Family Bloghttps://childandfamilyblog.com Transforming new research on cognitive, social & emotional development and family dynamics into policy and practice.Fri, 14 May 2021 09:32:46 +0000en-GB hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.7.2New parent during the COVID-19 pandemic? There is a simple way to make meaningful connections with your babyhttps://childandfamilyblog.com/making-meaningful-connection-with-baby-in-pandemic/ Fri, 14 May 2021 […] More

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      The Justice Gatekeepers for our Children

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      “That is not fair!” Any parent or teacher knows how early in children’s lives this notion drives human behavior, motivation, and belonging. When children feel they are treated fairly, they develop a sense of safety and predictability, and find reason to comply with rules and legitimize authorities. Parents and teachers are justice gatekeepers in children’s lives. How they handle conflict and discipline shapes children’s expectations of justice in other settings. Most children and adolescents do not have direct contact with legal authorities, such as police or judges. However, one of the ways they build their perspectives is based on the justice they have grown to expect from closer authorities. Data from a diverse group of 680 Brazilian adolescents revealed that parents’ justice at home and their evaluations of school fairness predicted how adolescents perceived their personal access to justice and the justice of the world at large. Furthermore, adolescents’ world views of justice predicted how much they legitimized the law and avoided delinquent behaviors the following year. It is easy to think about justice as simply getting what you deserve, but that bypasses one of the more powerful cognitions of justice – the process of justice. Procedural justice considers the respect, neutrality, voice, and fairness of the authority’s actions. A child may not agree that she should be disciplined for her dishonesty, but if the parent is respectful, explains the rules, and listens to the child, she is more likely to continue respecting her parents’ authority, despite her frustration. The point is not to be lenient, but to emerge on the other side with your child’s respect so that, even when consequences are firm, the child experiences the safety and predictability of justice. “How parents and teachers handle conflict and discipline shapes children’s expectations of justice in other settings.” It is vital that children experience justice and come to expect it. Harsh punishments or rules without explanation do not feel fair, and chip away at the legitimacy youth attribute to authorities at large – and that illegitimacy makes them vulnerable to future delinquency. When you find out your child has done something wrong, do you: Listen to their side of the story? Talk to them politely? Explain why you are disciplining them? Youth should be given the chance to articulate their perspective and practice civil dialogue in common daily scenarios. When children are consistently given a chance to explain their perspective and be respected by the authorities they know, they will anticipate and even demand to be given the same rights in society. The world is not a fair place, and failing to expose injustice underprepares children at best, and leads them to blame the victims or be the victims at worst. The goal is not to have children believe the world is fair, but is to make their lives fair so they can be equipped with the courage to engage in positive civic behaviors and avoid fatalistic mindsets. “We want to raise children to speak up and expect to be heard and understood.” We want to raise children who are equipped for the challenges of the world. Doing so begins by providing a safe haven at home and at school, where they can learn to connect their actions to outcomes and to be outraged by, not cynical of, injustice. We want them to have good reasons to legitimize their authorities. We want to raise children to speak up and expect to be heard and understood. We must model for them the kind of justice we want them to demand from society. Header photo: MTSOfan. Creative Commons.  More

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      Stowe talks: How to successfully co-parent

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      Join family lawyer Sarah Barr-Young and our special guest Tom Nash, aka Mr Divorce Coach and internationally certified Life, Divorce & Business Coach, as he shares his advice on how to navigate and become a successful co-parent following a divorce or separation.In this free hour-long webinar, Tom will share practical tips and techniques to help you improve how you and our partner co-parent, including:
      Book now
      About the speakers 
      Tom Nash, otherwise known as Mr Divorce Coach, is an internationally certified Life & Business Coach, specialising in Divorce, Separation & Family Coaching. Accredited by the Association for Coaching, he also holds Master Practitioner certifications in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), Timeline Therapy, Hypnotherapy & more.
      Partnering closely with family law professionals, he offers an alternative support resource for individuals, couples and their families, assisting in multiple disciplines that include but are not limited to:

      Understanding, Managing & Overcoming Negative Emotions (anger, sadness, fear, guilt, shame, etc.).
      Increasing Confidence & Self-Esteem
      Fostering Improved Communications Strategies
      Positive Mindset & Emotional Wellbeing Techniques
      1:1 Coaching
      Couples & Uncoupling Coaching
      Co-Parenting & Blended Family Coaching

      On a personal front, Tom has experienced divorce, co-parenting and the related ups and downs from a young age. First, during his parents’ acrimonious divorce at the age of 3 years old, and later in life as husband and father of his own marital breakdown. He is a successful co-parent, step-father and blended family specialist.
      Sarah Barr-Young is the Managing Partner of our Ilkley and Leeds offices and has far-reaching family law experience. She is widely regarded for her expertise in complex cases involving allegations of domestic abuse and safeguarding issues. She is frequently chosen for her empathy and unrivalled approachability, and as such, a large majority of her clients choose her due to personal recommendations. More

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      New parent during the COVID-19 pandemic? There is a simple way to make meaningful connections with your baby

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      Around this time last year, an inexorable force swept into people’s lives. It upended everything — relationships, friendships, routines, work life, independence, and sense of control. In this respect, the COVID-19 pandemic has similarities to another dramatic event — becoming a parent. And just like the pandemic, nothing quite prepares you for it. For all those who became parents in the last year, these two realties have collided. New parents have been left without many of the usual support networks that help support them through the early days. Those networks include their own parents, parent-baby groups, informal social networks, and in-person postnatal and breastfeeding support groups. Added to all this is the constant threat from a life-threatening virus. “We hope it is a comfort to know that there is something simple and easy to do together, safely and in the comfort of home, that lays positive foundations for the developing brain.” It is too soon to say what effect these extraordinary circumstances will have on babies born during the pandemic, but the effect on parents is already being felt. Numerous studies show that parents have found lockdowns extremely hard emotionally, and that the strain they are under has affected their ability to parent, which has consequences for children. The lockdowns have been linked to an increase in parental anxiety, depression, and hostility. And the pandemic has put women at increased risk of anxiety and depression in the perinatal period. At the same time, increased parental support has been shown to help decrease stress associated with the pandemic. The brunt of this burden has fallen on certain groups, including single parents and low-income families. Because of this, it is vital that new parents receive additional support at this difficult time, especially in terms of their mental health. There are some very simple, intuitive ways parents can work on laying the foundations for their children’s development from the very early days. One of the simplest of these is to pick up a book and read together. Plenty of evidence shows how important it is to read with children, not least for their cognitive development and vocabulary. In one study, both the quality of the books and the amount of reading time starting at six months were important predictors of literacy and vocabulary four years later. New parents might be surprised to learn that a shared activity like reading promotes a kind of back-and-forth interaction between child and caregiver that can trigger a chain reaction of long-lasting beneficial effects, and that these interactions might also help reduce the stress parents are feeling. Adults who interact sensitively with a child — for instance, reading or singing, looking at the same things, and copying sounds and faces — help children feel safe and secure. In turn, these feelings can help children cope better in challenging situations later on — something we know is important during the pandemic. These interactions also encourage children to explore more, which helps them develop problem-solving skills. All this builds to the kind of learning and development that prepares children for big steps in life, like starting school. This cascade of development is supported by the science of early learning, which shows that parents and caregivers lay the foundation for secure caregiver-child attachment relationships, which help children develop the ability to focus and pay attention, remember instructions, and demonstrate self-control (also called executive function). Positive caregiver-child interactions also help children develop social-emotional skills, such as cooperating and playing well with others, and managing feelings appropriately. Together, secure relationships and strong social-emotional and executive function skills in children are related to resilience and school readiness. “New parents might be surprised to learn that a shared activity like reading or singing together promotes a kind of back-and-forth interaction between child and caregiver that can trigger a chain reaction of long-lasting beneficial effects.” The children are not the only ones who benefit. Positive and engaging interactions between children and the adults in their lives are also good for the adults, helping them become more confident caregivers. Reading to children may also help with parental stress and even depression. It can feel strange to read books to very young babies. Even without a pandemic, the early days of parenthood can be overwhelming and it can be hard for parents to know what they should be doing, especially given the deluge of parenting advice. Parents also underestimate just how early the care they provide has long-term impacts on their children’s development. For instance, in one survey, parents said they believed what they did started to make a difference at six months, but we know that the impact starts from birth. At a time when uncertainty abounds, especially for new parents, we hope it is a comfort to know that there is something simple and easy to do together, safely and in the comfort of home. And that the simple back and forth that reading and rhyming creates can extend beyond the pages of the book and lay positive foundations for the developing brain that last for many years. More

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      What makes us human? How minds develop through social interactions

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      Just how social we are as a species is made even more evident by the COVID-19 lockdowns that have restricted our everyday social interactions and affected our physical and mental health. Social engagement influences us at an even more fundamental level because it is crucial to the formation of human thinking and minds. We address this issue in What Makes Us Human? How Minds Develop Through Social Interactions. In the words of a 9-year-old, the question is, “How do you go from a bunch of cells to something that thinks?” How are we as humans able to explore such questions about our own origins and the workings of our minds? Humans are intrigued by the possibility of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, but a puzzle unfolding right before our eyes is how intelligence develops in our homes as babies start to communicate and then understand the world in ways that adults simply take for granted. In our book, we develop and justify the idea that the essential aspects of being human arise through our relations with other people. To understand these processes and the way human intellect develops, it is essential to look closely at the nature of communication in infancy and childhood, with which much of our thinking is intricately entwined. To explore the complexities of human language, we begin by describing the rich social and emotional niches in which human babies develop and the forms of interaction on which communication is based emerge. We develop and justify the idea that the essential aspects of being human arise through our relations with other people. Have you ever considered why human infants are born so helpless that they must be cared for over many years, yet they develop such powerful ways of thinking? Our answer to this question follows a historical tradition that suggests that this helplessness is an important factor in the development of human thinking. This is because the need for constant care in the early years necessarily produces a social context in which complex human skills develop. Although the infant is unable to fend for herself, she is born with a host of evolved biological characteristics that draw her into engagement with others. For example, typically developing babies are interested in looking at human eyes, which are particularly striking compared to the eyes of other primates because the dark center is surrounded by contrasting white sclera. Such attentiveness to eyes may be interpreted as indicating babies’ apparent interest in other people, and this interest is typically reciprocated by parents, who love to engage with their infants. This bidirectional process of attentiveness promotes the infant’s development. Initially, this consists of staring into the eyes of a caregiver, or cuddling into the caregiver for comfort, but these early and simple skills soon develop into more complex abilities like smiling or cooing. These new forms of interaction elicit even more positive experiences because they are so rewarding for parents. This repeated daily social interaction between infants and their parents becomes increasingly coordinated, which reflects early forms of communication. For instance, when a baby reaches her arms toward her parent, the meaning of this action — a desire to be held — is clear to the parent, who typically picks up the baby. Through experiencing this response to her reaching, the baby learns to anticipate this outcome of her reaching action. That is, she comes to grasp the meaning that her action has for others and then she gradually learns to communicate this desire intentionally. This is a crucial change in ways of interacting, not seen to such an extent in other species that lack an extended period of helplessness: The baby becomes aware of the meaning in the interaction and can then anticipate the response and communicate intentionally. Later, she can learn to add words such as up or uppy to these sorts of shared social routines. Other acts, such as mutually sharing a toy with a caregiver or gesturing in a specific way, develop in a similar fashion as their meaning emerges within shared patterns of interaction. Beginning at about 10 to 12 months, babies typically start to point, but not in a sophisticated way. It takes a lot of experience to realize that successful pointing involves the pointer gesturing to the object and checking that the receiver is following the line of the point. It also requires the receiver to identify what is being pointed to and why their attention is being drawn to it. The hard-won reading of these sorts of gestures reveals the origins and nature of children’s understanding of other people. It shows how a grasp of simple experiences like reaching to be picked up facilitates further interaction in which children develop yet more complex communicative and social skills. These are concrete examples of how increasingly sophisticated human thinking and minds emerge as communication develops in everyday interaction, a fact that makes their significance easy to overlook. They are instances of the sort of mundane interactions on which human ways of being and thinking are based. The use of words is an extension of earlier communication with gestures. Language gradually becomes part of the way thinking can take place. Initially, the baby’s words refer to objects and actions in the here and now, but gradually they can be applied to experiences not directly perceptible – for example, toddlers can relate what happened at preschool or make up a story about an imaginary character. More sophisticated forms of social understanding emerge when children gradually master the language skills needed to talk about human activity in psychological terms. Most toddlers articulate what they want with words by age two, and soon afterwards use words like think and know to show that they are aware that they and the people around them are influenced by their own thoughts and motivations. By acquiring the ability to talk about the psychological world, children can begin to reflect on themselves and others in these ways. From the perspective we have developed here, morality emerges at the level of interaction as children learn to coordinate their daily activities with others in relationships of mutual affection and respect. These interactions based on equality are well suited for reaching mutual understanding because they require children to listen to others and explain themselves. This allows them to coordinate conflicts and develop a practical morality in their interaction with equals. A further step is to begin to articulate what was first implicit in their activity, which then makes reflection possible. In this way, children become able to articulate and reflect on their initially practical ways of interacting with others. Moral notions such as fairness and justice do not have their source in biology alone, nor are they pre-existing and passed on from a previous generation to be imposed on children. Instead, they arise through particular forms of cooperative interaction among equals based on mutual affection and respect. To understand the way human intellect develops it is essential to look closely at the nature of communication in infancy and childhood, with which much of our thinking is intricately entwined. Of course, explaining the origins of human thinking is controversial and not everyone will agree with our account. In our book, we compare our developmental account, which is grounded in the processes of social interaction, with two competing explanations for human thinking: that it is either simply determined by biology or that the computer makes a good metaphor for the human mind. First, we show that although biological factors are crucial in structuring the developmental system in which human skills emerge, the claim that thinking is determined by genes is incompatible with work in biology over the last 50 years. Research in genetics and developmental neurobiology highlights that we must consider the complex developmental system in which multiple levels of biology and environment interact with each other to drive the individual’s development. Key aspects of human thinking, although based on neural activity, emerge only at the level of the person interacting with others. Second, the claim that thinking can be likened to computation is based on a flawed assumption that meaning is fixed, as it is in a computer. Instead, as we illustrate, human communication is rooted in shared ways of interacting. This is also why current approaches to artificial intelligence that attempt to model human intelligence are based on the wrong foundation. Revealing the flaws in these two general approaches to human psychological development supports our argument that human communication and thinking emerges within interaction with others in a developmental system in which biological and social levels are thoroughly interwoven. We trace this development by beginning as gestures emerge in early interaction, leading to language and then to human forms of thinking. Header photo: Gigin Krishnan. Creative Commons.  More

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      Obituary: Dr. Graeme Russell

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      Dr. Graeme Russell died on 2nd April 2021 after a long battle with cancer. At the time of his death, he was a Flexibility and Diversity Consultant in Sydney, Australia, Research Collaborator and Knowledge Program Facilitator for the Diversity Council of Australia, and a retired Associate Professor of Organizational Psychology at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. Graeme cared deeply about the issues of gender equality, diversity and family well-being in Australia, devoting his professional life to research and practical work to promote these goals. He collaborated with scholars and practitioners throughout the world and will be sorely missed.
      Graeme pioneered research on fathering, starting in the late 1970s, and his 1982 book, The changing role of fathers, remains the point of reference for research on primary caretaking fathers because it sought to place the fathers’ behavior in the context of intrafamilial and broader societal beliefs, practices, and constraints. Graeme continued to publish articles and book chapters on primary caregiving fathers, father-child relationships in childhood and adolescence, shared parenting, grandfathering, Australian fatherhood, and family policy over the succeeding decades. Because of his scholarship, researchers now recognize that men can be active parents in the move toward greater gender equality and that social attitudes and institutional policies play an essential role in constraining and facilitating parental behavior. Graeme was actively involved in organizing and disseminating outcomes from the first International Fatherhood Summit at Oxford in 2003 and was a key figure in helping the Australian government design policies to promote gender equality and work-family integration, for example, by engaging in several projects for the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, established in 2012. In 2017, he co-authored a book entitled Men make a difference – engaging men on gender equality.
      For nearly four decades, Graeme was avidly involved in supporting working fathers, consulting with companies interested in promoting gender equality and work-family integration in many countries, including Australia, China, Japan and Korea. He established workshops for fathers in the workplace to help them integrate work and family demands and published several articles on the impact of workplace practices on father involvement. His keen interest in workplace flexibility and its promise for gender equality led him to design team-based approaches for work redesign, making it possible for companies to implement flexible work arrangements, assuring benefits for individuals and companies. At the time of his death, he was focused on ensuring that human resource professionals were aware of these important possibilities.
      Graeme’s success as a consultant and colleague was facilitated by his genuine warmth, friendliness, and accessibility, which allowed him to get along with everyone regardless of their personal characteristics or ideology.  His personal strengths were especially evident in his skillful engagement with diverse groups, including senior managers, employees, unions, politicians, academics and social activists. While Graeme’s professional and personal lives were mutually enriching, his first priority in life was always his family, comprising his wife Susan, his children (Kirsten, Emily, and Benjamin) and his eight grandchildren. He especially adored his grandchildren and played an important role in their daily lives, spending as much time as possible with them. He was a loving husband, father, and grandfather.
      Graeme’s legacy as a pioneer of gender equality in Australia will be long-lasting and his influence on students, collaborators, scholars, human resource practitioners, and policy makers has been profound.

      Linda Haas, Indiana University, Indianapolis, USAPhilip Hwang, University of Gothenburg, SwedenMichael E. Lamb, University of Cambridge, UK More