How to Agree Arrangements For Our Children in Our Divorce
“I feel like an elastic band that might snap”
The words of a 12 year old boy having to navigate his parents’ acrimonious divorce.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual is the handbook widely used by clinicians and psychiatrists in the United States and the United Kingdom to diagnose psychiatric and psychological conditions. It covers all categories of mental health disorders for both adults and children. The DSM 5 (2013) introduced CAPRD “child affected by parental relationship distress” the entry consists of one sentence stating that children may react to:
Parental intimate partner distress
Parental intimate partner violence
Acrimonious divorce
And/or unfair disparagement of one parent by another
Exposure may lead to heightened behavioural, cognitive, affective or physical symptoms: stomach aches, nose bleeds, bed wetting.
It doesn’t mean that parents should stay together for the sake of their children.
It doesn’t mean that all divorces are bad for kids.
What it means is it matters to your children how you, as their parents, separate.
Reported in the Daily Mail on 3rd February 2023 with the headline “I have asked your mum and dad to behave a bit better … and stop the c**p."
Without a doubt the research is useful for us to know. However, some of the factors listed there are not things that one parent alone can always change; but in family mediation we offer you a neutral, confidential space for you to look together at what can be done - or done better - by you as parents to help your children navigate your divorce and to keep your children’s lives as normal and unaffected by your separation as possible.
You may be aware of the Government’s Voucher Scheme currently operating which offers parents a contribution of £500 (£250 each) towards the costs of child arrangements mediation sessions. This is because mediation is the Government’s and Courts preferred method of resolving disputes in family matters.
In a recent case Re B (a child) (Unnecessary Private Law Applications) HHJ Wildblood QC made a direct appeal to stop clogging up the legal system with unnecessary applications. In short anyone not heeding his warning will be censured and may be penalised for wasting court time.
So, ask yourselves, is it really sensible to leave the decision-making process around your children to a third party, who does not know them as well as you do?
Going to Court during a separation should be seen as absolutely the last resort.
At Horizon Mediation we have many years of experience helping separating parents work together to make suitable arrangements for their separating families.
As Family Mediation Council accredited mediators we can help you put in place arrangements that work for you and for your family, arrangements which, with our help, you have made together.