Observing Contact

Most observations of contact last between one and a half or two hours, occasionally the duration of supervised contact can be longer but for the most part it is only a couple of hours. So, in reality only a short space of time, when you compare or consider how much time children normally spend with a parent they reside with.

It is a drop in the ocean, or a snapshot of the relationship between parent and child, observed in the laboratory of a contact centre, or in the less controlled environment of outside in the community.

What value or significance can be assigned to such observations, even if the observations occur on more than one or numerous times?

I think it is always necessary to be conscious when observing contact that the parent and child are in an unnatural environment. They are not at home, or in familiar surroundings, and of course their behaviour and actions are being scrutinised, which makes people self-conscious and likely to behave in some ways differently than they might under other more normal circumstances.

Having said that what you are observing is just a snapshot of their relationship, what are some of the things that can be drawn from it?

It can demonstrate the level of attachment between the child and the parent, and when looking at the child's responses you can sometimes gain an insight into how significant that parent or caregiver is to that child.

I was once involved with a case where one of the parties, who thought he was the birth father of the child discovered that he wasn't, but nevertheless was so attached to this little child, that in terms of his relationship with the boy he called his son, it didn't matter because as far as he was concerned, he was still his son...and he was the only father the child knew.

What came to light whilst assessing this father was that this child's responses just lit up like lights on a Christmas tree when he saw his father, and his father's responses completely mirrored those of the child's.

This came to my attention because the child had been placed in foster care due to the neglect he had experienced from his mother's care. While observing the child's contact with his mother and how he responded at the end of contact, when collected by the foster carer, it became clear that the only time the child's expressions literally exploded with excitement and joy was when he saw his father.

Since it was apparent that he did not beam with intense excitement when he saw his mother or his foster carer. The beam of joy was something marvellous to behold, and for me signified the sheer love which existed between this father and son.

What it also highlighted for me was that this child's animated and ecstatic behaviour had been evoked by the exact same excitement and joy which the father had showered on his son whenever he saw him.

Often observing contact is nowhere near as illuminating. Even when the quality of contact is good it reveals or says nothing more than that: under the confines of the contact setting, that the parent can offer a reasonable, or reasonably good care during the observation time period.

Barristers for parents may frequently seek to attribute a lot more meaning to contact than is reasonable under the circumstances, but despite the example I gave above, rarely can it be effectively argued that observation of a couple of hours of contact (or numerous sessions of contact) alone can be considered as strong evidence that a parent's care of a child, is or is likely to demonstrate sufficient evidence of 'good enough parenting' throughout a child's childhood.

Even in the case of the example mentioned above it was not just the witnessing of this special bond at contact which led the court to place the child in the care of the father. It involved a number of other factors, but those factors all demonstrated how focused and committed this father was to the child in question.

I suspect the way he responded to discovering that he was not the birth father of the child was another factor which cemented them together in the eyes of the court.

Parenting is a twenty-four hours a day, seven days per week responsibility, for every day of the child's life until he or she reaches independence. For this reason, there is a limit to exactly what can be concluded in connection with assessing parental capacity from observation of contact.

Just to be clear though there are a number of conclusions that can be drawn from observing contact (which I will discuss at another time) but there is a limit to the conclusions that can be drawn from it.

It is I think sobering to think about this when assessing others whilst working and in our personal lives - that we may assess others (sometimes unconsciously) on the basis of knowing little information about which to base our conclusions.

But it is also relevant when others assess us particularly when they do so negatively, and we take it on board or accept it as the truth about who we are and what we are capable of, without reflecting on the depth of our abilities.

Being more circumspect about the basis on which we form opinions and assess others, may hopefully help us to be less willing to ingest the views of others about us, even when those views come from relatives or loved ones.