No. The court does not have a set of presumptions about who should be caring for children. Each case is individual and the court will be interested in one thing only: what is in the children's best interests.

There are families in which one parent has taken a step back from employment or reduced their working hours to care for the children and this could mean that the children would spend more weekday time with that parent for practical reasons. This could equally apply to a mother or a father.

In other families, the children will divide their time pretty much equally between their parents' homes after separation. There are almost as many permutations as there are families.

It is a really important principle of the law relating to children that the court will not become involved in family life unless it needs to do so. Even though the court will be handling your divorce, this is very much a paper exercise and it will not scrutinise the arrangements for the children unless either you or your wife makes an application to decide a substantive issue you cannot agree between yourselves. For most divorcing couples, the court will play no active role whatsoever.

Even if a difficult issue does arise, you and your wife can attempt to resolve matters through discussions or through a slightly more formal process of mediation. This can work really well to bring about a resolution before issues escalate and become acrimonious. In fact, in all but exceptional cases, the court will expect parents to have been to a mediation information and assessment meeting (MIAM) before applying to court.

There are lots of ways to try and deal with a dispute, even when talking face to face seems not to be working any more. Mediation can work really well for some families. A specially trained facilitator, usually a family lawyer themselves, will bring the parties together to try and work something out that everyone can live with.

If an important process cannot be resolved within mediation or another non-court dispute resolution process, either party can make an application to the court. The court will not impose a solution on a family unless there is an insoluble issue that needs to be determined. Even within the court process, judges will do their utmost to bring parents towards an agreed arrangement and avoid a contested hearing, if at all possible.

Yes. It is very important that anyone going through mediation has the opportunity to seek advice and support from their own solicitor. Although the actual meetings will usually only involve the separating couple and the mediator, who is neutral so cannot give legal advice, you can and should take legal advice whenever you feel it necessary between sessions.

Often someone will meet with their solicitor before a mediation session to get a clearer idea of their legal rights going into negotiations and then catch up with their solicitor afterwards to debrief.

If the birth was registered or re-registered after 1 December 2003 and you are named on the birth certificate, you will have parental responsibility for the child. If the birth was registered before this date, then you do not have parental responsibility. However, you can acquire parental responsibility for the child in several ways:

• If you marry the mother of the child
• If you enter into a parental responsibility agreement with the mother
• If you obtain a parental responsibility order from the court

If either parent is unable or unwilling to act in the best interests of a child in a way that could expose them to harm, it is sometimes necessary to seek to restrict the involvement they have with that child, together with their ability to make decisions in respect of the child’s upbringing and/or to obtain certain information about the child that they would otherwise be entitled to.

A parent’s ability to exercise parental responsibility, whether in respect of decision making, or obtaining information, can only be changed by the court.

There is no scope in law for the court to remove parental responsibility from a birth mother or a married father, unless their legal parenthood is ended by a parental order (part of the legal process involved in a surrogacy arrangement) or an adoption order, but there are various orders that can be made to restrict a person from exercising their parental responsibility.

Parental responsibility can be removed from other individuals who hold it (e.g. a grandparent with a “lives with” order), or it can be restricted. It is only in very rare circumstances that a court will outright remove parental responsibility from a parent who falls into this category and the court will consider very carefully what measures are proportionate to balance any risk to their child, against their and their child’s right to family life.

Orders that restrict the exercise of parental responsibility can also be made in conjunction with other protective orders, such as injunctions, where it is considered necessary to safeguard the child and protect their interests.

As families evolve, it is common for a situation to arise whereby different members of the family have different surnames. In some families, a time may come when everyone wants to have the same surname. There are two ways in which this can be done:

• By completing a valid change of name deed
• By order of the court (specific issue order)

There are strict rules regarding who can change a child’s surname. If only one person has parental responsibility for a child, they can do so unless the court prohibits it. Where more than one person holds parental responsibility, a change can only be effected by everyone who holds parental responsibility providing their consent, and in default of that consent, an order of the court.

Even if a parent does not hold parental responsibility, they can make an application to the court for an order prohibiting any change by one parent with parental responsibility if they do not agree. If a change is made without the necessary permission - whether from the other parent or the court - the court can, and usually will, reverse the change and, in some circumstances, can impose costs orders in relation to the proceedings. It is therefore crucial to obtain legal advice beforehand.

The court considers a surname to be an integral part of a child’s identity and will closely scrutinise any application for a change. There is clear guidance set out in case law regarding when the court will and will not consider it to be in the interests of a child for their surname to be changed. This includes a careful consideration of how the child’s bonds with all of the adults involved in their life can best be respected and maintained. An application should never be made until all of the relevant factors have been carefully weighed up so that the likelihood of the application succeeding can be assessed.