Mediation Can Help Solve Child Behavior Problems

Parents who are separated or divorced often fail to realize the extent to which child behavior can be affected by their conflicting expectations. Both parents love their children, and this may lead them to compete to retain the children’s loyalty and affection. The children are caught in the middle, and this confusion can result in a serious slide in their behavior.

Example of Child Behavior Problem

This is illustrated by the case of Jonathon, who has been living with his mother since his parents separated some years ago, but sees his father on Wednesdays and alternate weekends. The school has observed a deterioration both in his behavior, and in his academic performance, and this is causing disagreements between the parents. The mother accuses the father of spoiling him during their contact sessions, while the father is convinced Jonathon’s behavior is expressing that he is unhappy with his mother. In fact, the father wants the whole arrangement to be reversed, so that he becomes Jonathon’s main carer, and this disagreement is causing Jonathon a lot of confusion.

Mediation Instead of Court

A conflict of this nature often ends in a costly court battle, but to avoid this the lawyers have referred the family to a mediation process. The mediator initially meets with each parent individually, and also meets Jonathon with each parent separately.  This helps the mediator to assess Jonathon’s interaction with each parent, and to analyze the significance of the differences in his narrative when with each parent.

How to Solve Child Behavior Problems

The aim of the mediation is to come up with a plan for Jonathon’s shared care, which is acceptable to both parents. The main obstacle to its success is the difficulty in reconciling the defensive attitudes of both parents, whereby each prefers to place the responsibility for the problems on to the other parent. Before the process can move forward, it is necessary — without blame — to help each parent understand the extent of his or her own responsibility for the situation. Quite naturally, the mother may have appeared to begrudge the time Jonathon spends with his father, and consciously or unconsciously communicated this feeling, while the father will have been trying hard to make his limited contact time special, and may have overdone the gifts, and relaxed the discipline too much.

Counseling

The mediation process often includes counseling for each parent. In this particular case, the counseling would be aimed at helping the father to see that he needs to take equal responsibility for discipline and for school work. Meanwhile the mother needs to understand the importance to the child of the relationship with his father, and the necessity of allowing adequate time for this relationship to develop. The ultimate aim is to help both parents to work together, rather than against each other, in bringing up their son.

In these situations, prolonged conflict between the parents, going all the way to court, can be very destructive for the child. A good family law firm such as Fine & Associates can help to set up a mediation plan which can resolve differences in a less adversarial way. This offers the best hope, not only of resolving child behavior problems, but of ensuring that the child’s best interests are met.

Going through a divorce can be a traumatic experience. Going through the legal system without a team of qualified family lawyers can be even more stressful. If you need a divorce lawyer in Toronto or the surrounding area, please give us a call.