I recently had a divorce mediation where, as often is the case, I was working with two divorce lawyers and two co-parents who couldn’t stand each other. It literally took me hours to get them into the same room together and, although these parties had many written divorce settlement agreements between them, years later we were still there, fighting over interpretation and compliance.

In speaking with them alone (I sent the lawyers out of the room to do child support and other financial calculations) about their practically non-existant communication in the years since the divorce had become final, I targeted my focus on an area that I had been doing unconsciously for many years. It hit me like a hammer on the head. Of course, it was so simple!

It doesn’t matter how many agreements that parties make with each other, the only way they are going to live up to them is if they want to! Therefore, it is my job to inspire a desire in them to begin to agree with each other, and to work together as a team to raise their kids.

It is my belief that this is one of the primary roles of the mediator. To inspire the desire.

Once that is done, we can roll up our sleeves and help them start to dig through that pile of resentment that is keeping the them from behaving in a way that is best for their children, and also give them a new set of tools to enable them to work together as a team.

Add, as a further incentive, if the divorce mediator needs it, the co-parents can be reminded that it will also vastly improve the quality of their own lives and future relationships, minimize the effects of divorce on children, and their friends and families probably wouldn’t mind it one bit either!

Tags: divorce court, divorce settlement

One of the most significant questions that people considering divorce ask themselves and others is “what effect is this divorce going to have on my children?” The expectation almost always is that it is going to have a negative effect on them, to harm them. I am here to tell you that I have witnessed on several occasions, the effects of divorce on children be positive.

I recently had a mediation that was typical of what I call my “co-parenting” mediations. At the beginning, the parties were stuck in an angry, fearful and ugly place. At first this negative energy (combined with the fighting energy of the two divorce lawyers) landed on me like blows, but I breathed through it and kept on keeping on. And by hour ten of the mediation it ended as many of my co-parenting mediations do – with a meeting of the minds, and the hearts.

As the soon-to-be-divorced couple embraced with tears freely flowing, I felt my drained countenance revive and I remembered, for the millionth time, why I do this. For deep in my heart I knew that these parties’ children were going to be the beneficiaries of that intense labor, on all of our parts, in that sacred space called mediation. These parents left communicating better than they had in years, with compassion and acceptance replacing bitterness and resentment.

One might say that it is sad or unfortunate that it took getting divorced to get these co-parents to this place, and that may be true. But these are the cases where the effects of divorce on children can be positive. And on their parents.

Tags: divorce law, child custody