It’s a sad fact that when couples separate or divorce they are usually very angry and unhappy and therefore not quite in their right minds.
All the evidence suggests that if a divorce is handled calmly it’s better for the children and for the health of your next relationship. But all too often, people are so full of blame and the need for retribution that they rush to a lawyer in the hope that they can win.
Nobody wins in divorce. Handing decisions over your finances and childcare arrangements to a judge who doesn’t know you is not necessarily in your best interests.
But what Mediation can do is help everybody lose less, and, importantly, to minimise distress for the children. Instead of going to separate lawyers who have a tendency to crank up the acrimony and the cost, couples in Mediation settle and sort out their future co-parenting relationship together, in the same room with a mediator. It’s quicker and cheaper and research shows that these agreements are more likely to last because they are self determined.
Mediation helps couples to have the all important conversations about the end of their relationship, which can help them to move on. It’s not counselling or therapy but it can be therapeutic. Mediators can see the children in a separate meeting to establish whether there are concerns and messages which they would like to pass back to their parents but are too afraid to voice in case they make things worse.
And mediators can help parents do their best by their children through this difficult time with tactics which will help to minimise their distress. As I find myself saying so often to couples at this terrible time: ‘Your relationship may be over but your relationship as co-parents will go on for the rest of your lives. And you have the opportunity now to make that experience as good as it can possibly be for your children.’
Mediation is increasingly becoming the norm for separating couples. It works in roughly 80% of cases. Mediators take couples by the hand and lead them from an emotionally complicated place to a better future, as two separate individuals. And perhaps more importantly, if and when things break down, with arguments or concerns over their children in the years to come, separated parents know they have somewhere safe to go to resolve their differences.
All the evidence suggests that if a divorce is handled calmly it’s better for the children and for the health of your next relationship. But all too often, people are so full of blame and the need for retribution that they rush to a lawyer in the hope that they can win.
Nobody wins in divorce. Handing decisions over your finances and childcare arrangements to a judge who doesn’t know you is not necessarily in your best interests.
But what Mediation can do is help everybody lose less, and, importantly, to minimise distress for the children. Instead of going to separate lawyers who have a tendency to crank up the acrimony and the cost, couples in Mediation settle and sort out their future co-parenting relationship together, in the same room with a mediator. It’s quicker and cheaper and research shows that these agreements are more likely to last because they are self determined.
Mediation helps couples to have the all important conversations about the end of their relationship, which can help them to move on. It’s not counselling or therapy but it can be therapeutic. Mediators can see the children in a separate meeting to establish whether there are concerns and messages which they would like to pass back to their parents but are too afraid to voice in case they make things worse.
And mediators can help parents do their best by their children through this difficult time with tactics which will help to minimise their distress. As I find myself saying so often to couples at this terrible time: ‘Your relationship may be over but your relationship as co-parents will go on for the rest of your lives. And you have the opportunity now to make that experience as good as it can possibly be for your children.’
Mediation is increasingly becoming the norm for separating couples. It works in roughly 80% of cases. Mediators take couples by the hand and lead them from an emotionally complicated place to a better future, as two separate individuals. And perhaps more importantly, if and when things break down, with arguments or concerns over their children in the years to come, separated parents know they have somewhere safe to go to resolve their differences.
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