Video call contact with your child — making remote family time work

REVIEWED BY: Sean McNamara on 2026-09-01

Why remote contact matters

Video calls keep the parent-child relationship alive between in-person contact — daily goodnight calls for small children, homework help and shared screen time for older ones. Courts increasingly build video contact into child arrangements orders, especially where distance, work patterns or safety concerns limit face-to-face time.

What courts expect

Video contact is a supplement to, not a substitute for, meaningful in-person contact where that is safe and workable.
The resident parent must make the child available and co-operative — sabotaging calls (scheduling clashes, handing the phone late, staying in earshot) is treated like any other breach.
The contact parent should show up prepared: on time, appropriate setting, age-fit activities. Missed calls count against credibility both ways.

Practical setup that reduces conflict

1. Fix times in the order or a parenting plan — e.g. "7pm daily for 10 minutes; Saturday 45 minutes" — vague "reasonable video contact" invites fights. 2. Agree one platform the resident parent controls; the contact parent should not add the child to new accounts or contacts without consent. 3. No recording without agreement — recording a child during calls can become a prohibited-steps issue and erodes trust. 4. Let the child choose topics; a call that is an interrogation ("who lives there now?") makes children dread calls, and Cafcass hears about it. 5. For young children, short and frequent beats long and rare; parallel play (show a book, draw together) works better than conversation.

If calls keep failing

Log each failure (date, time, what happened) — the same evidence discipline as any breach.
Raise it once, in writing, proposing a fix (different time, different platform).
If it still fails, an application to vary or enforce the order can ask the court to spell out the video-contact obligation precisely — courts can order, for example, that the resident parent initiates the call at a set time.
If abuse makes live calls unsafe (hearing the abuser in the background, threats during calls), tell Cafcass and the court; conditions can be attached.

For international distance

Video contact is central to relocation and abduction-adjacent cases: courts approve relocations far more readily when a serious, scheduled video-contact regime is proposed and honoured.

Official links

https://www.gov.uk/child-arrangements-order
https://www.cafcass.gov.uk/ (parenting plans and contact guidance)
https://www.naccc.org.uk/ (contact centres, some offer supported remote sessions)

This page is general information, not legal advice. YourFamilyCase.co.uk is an independent information directory and is not affiliated with HMCTS or gov.uk.

Content verified against the official HMCTS court directory, gov.uk forms and fees pages, and the professional body registers (SRA, FMC, Bar Council). Last reviewed September 2026.