Studies show that focusing on the needs of your children is one of the best ways for parents to take care of themselves and to deal with their pain from divorce. So, putting children first is both the right thing and the smart thing since the effects of a bad divorce on children can be devastating. After 30 years of academic study, we know for certain that in a divorce, the entire family wins or loses, together. When parents are able to cooperate, they can:
* Protect the children from their conflict
* Speed up the creation of a better future for everyone
* Keep money in the family (instead of wasting it in legal wrangling)
* Model priceless life lessons that the children can carry into their own adult relationships.
Almost always, legal maneuvering causes more problems than it solves. One-on-one discussion, counseling, mediation and Collaborative Law offer families much better solutions than those available from the adversary court system. Adults may think they have a legal problem when their family is breaking up, but children see it as a family problem and need their parents to put their well-being as the very highest priority.
I am committed to helping my clients keep their eyes on the prize. Accessing their best selves, couples can make it through the legal minefield of divorce in a way that helps preserve their ability to successfully co-parent their children in the years ahead.
Maybe it’s a mistake to talk so much about conflict’s long term damage to children. Surely, that’s a tragic outcome. But don’t we want to protect a child from even the pain of the moment? Won’t parents who once stayed up all night to comfort a child through the mumps care about the same child’s broken heart — if we only help them notice? ~ ALF MAMO, BARRISTER, LONDON, ONTATIO
If divorcing parents will agree on one thing, they will agree on everything, if that one thing is ‘What do we want our relationships with our children to be when they are 25?‘ ~ PAT BROWN, ATTORNEY & MEDIATOR
