Why Mediation is Best for Kids
Mediation is a process that serves the best interests of your children. In our private, confidential, and supportive mediation process, both parents work together to resolve any issues related to their children. Issues that commonly cost thousands of dollars and take months to resolve in court are worked out at the mediation table in one or two sessions at a fraction of the cost, both financially and emotionally.
Top 10 Parenting Tips
The following is a list compiled with the help of mental health professionals & experts in the co-parenting field:
- Find a new co-parenting style which avoids conflict with each other.
- Never involve your children in your disagreements.
- Don’t let your emotions about one another affect the decisions you make regarding the children.
- Treat your children as children, not as adults. Don’t give them information on finances or custody. Don’t depend on them to fill your emotional needs.
- Never say bad things about the other parent in front of your child or to another person who may tell your child.
- Don’t ask you child about the other parent. That is spying and asking your child to violate a trust. Don’t put your child in the middle.
- Never pass messages or things to one another through your child. Talk directly to each other about things related to your child.
- Reassure your child and correct any misconceptions your child has about the divorce.
- Recognize and respect the wide range of emotions your child has regarding the divorce.
- Put in place a consistent set or rules for both households.
- Recognize that your child is not divorcing the other parent’s family.
Child Centered Divorce
Because mediation considers the “big picture” and looks to the future, families who mediate find that they are better equipped to work together amicably should issues involving their children arise in the future. Avoiding continuing legal battles not only saves parents money, it reduces the emotional strain children experience when their parents must resort to an adversarial litigation process to resolve each dispute that arises.
Co-Parenting and Mediation
Being a parent is challenging. Being a single parent can be even more challenging, especially if you and the other parent do not see eye-to-eye about child related issues. Our mediation process gives you an opportunity to come up with sensible solutions to your co-parenting dilemmas.
Our Parenting Plan
We have a comprehensive Parenting Plan that we give to clients to review outside of mediation. This Parenting Plan covers many issues and is a useful tool to help you make important decisions about how you will co-parent your children, both now and in the future. Making decisions in mediation will help you avoid conflict in the future.
When you come in to discuss your parenting plan, we will ask you to bring in photographs of your child or children and place them in the center of our table. We will look at these photographs as we discuss your parenting plan to help keep the focus on your children.