Month: October 2012

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What to Do When Co-Parenting Doesn’t Work

What to Do When Co-Parenting Doesn’t Work

In a good-enough divorce, exes work through feelings of anger, betrayal and loss and arrive at a place of acceptance. Frustrations over the other parent’s values and choices are contained and pushed aside, making space for the Holy Grail of post-divorce life: effective co-parenting.

Co-parenting is possible only when both exes support their children’s need to have a relationship with the other parent and respect that parent’s right to have a healthy relationship with the children.

But some people never get to acceptance. They become, essentially, addicted to anger. They convince themselves that the other parent is incompetent, mentally ill, or dangerous. They transmit this conviction directly or indirectly not only to the children, but also to school staff, mental health professionals and anyone who will listen.

High-conflict exes are on a mission to invalidate the other parent. No therapist, mediator, parenting class, or Gandhi-esque channeling will make an anger-addicted ex take off the gloves and agree to co-parent.

If this scenario feels familiar, and you are wondering how you’re going to survive raising kids with your high-conflict ex without losing every last one of your marbles, I offer you this counterintuitive suggestion: Stop trying to co-parent!

Try Parallel Parenting instead.

What is Parallel Parenting?

Parallel Parenting is radical acceptance. It means letting go of fighting reality. Divorce is terrible enough, but to have a divorce that is so hellish as to make co-parenting impossible is another kind of terrible altogether.

It’s helpful to conceptualize Parallel Parenting as an approach many Alcoholics Anonymous folks use when dealing with the addict in their lives: they stop going to the hardware store looking for milk. Why are you trying to have a reasonable conversation with someone who isn’t reasonable, at least with you? Stop expecting reciprocity or enlightenment. Stop needing the other person to see you as right. You are not ever going to get these things from your anger-addicted ex, and you can make yourself sick trying.

How to Practice Parallel Parenting

You tried to co-parent so your kids would see their parents get along, and to make them feel safe. That didn’t work. Now you need to limit contact with your ex to reduce the conflict in order to make your kids feel safe — and to keep yourself from going nuts. So how do you do this?

1. Communicate as little as possible
Stop talking on the phone. When speaking with a hostile ex, you will likely be drawn into an argument and nothing will get resolved. Limit communication to texting and e-mail. This way you can choose what to respond to and you will be able to delete knee-jerk retorts that you would make if you were on the phone.

2. Make Rules for Communication
Hostile exes tend to ignore boundaries. So you will have to be very clear about the terms for communication. E-mail or texting should be used only for logistics: travel plans, a proposed weekend swap, doctor appointments. If your ex tends uses e-mails to harass you, tell him you will not respond, and if the abuse continues, you will stop e-mailing altogether.

3. Do Not Respond to Threats of Lawsuits
Hostile exes frequently threaten to modify child support or custody arrangements. Do not respond! Tell your ex that any discussion of litigation must go through your attorney. This will require money on your ex’s part: phone calls between attorneys, disclosing financial statements, etc. It is quite possible that your ex does not really intend to put her money where her mouth is, so don’t take the bait.

4. Avoid being together at child-related functions
It’s great for your kids to see the two of you together — but only if they see you getting along. So attend events separately as much as possible. Schedule separate parent-teacher conferences. Trade off hosting birthday parties. Do curbside drop-offs so your child doesn’t have to feel the tension between you and your ex.

5. Be proactive with school staff and mental health professionals
School staff and therapists may have heard things about you that aren’t true — for instance, that you are out of the picture or mentally ill. So be proactive. Fax your custody order to these individuals so they understand the custody arrangement. Even if you are a non-custodial parent, you are still entitled to information regarding your child’s academic performance or mental health treatment and the school and therapists want you to be involved. Talk to school staff and therapists as soon as possible. Do not be defensive, but explain the situation. When they see you, they will realize that you are a reasonable person who is trying to do the right thing for your child.

6. Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff
Parallel Parenting requires letting go of what happens in the other parent’s home. Although it may drive you crazy that your ex lets 6-year-old Lucy stay up until midnight, there is really not much you can do about it. Nor can you control your ex’s selection of babysitters, children’s clothing or how much TV time is allowed.

Your child will learn to adapt to different rules and expectations at each house. If Sienna complains about something that goes on at Dad’s, instruct her to speak to him directly. Trying to solve a problem between your ex and your child will only inflame the conflict and teach her to pit the two of you against each other. You want to empower your child, not teach her that she needs to be rescued.

Parallel Parenting is a last resort, to be implemented when attempts at co-parenting have failed. But that doesn’t mean you have failed as a divorced parent. In fact, the opposite is true. By reducing conflict, Parallel Parenting will enhance the quality of your life and most importantly, take your child out of the middle.

And isn’t that what a good-enough divorce is all about?

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/virginia-gilbert-mft/co-parenting_b_1540479.html?utm_hp_ref=parenting-after-divorce

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Mediation Day!

Sherri Donovan, Esq.

Divorce and Family Lawyer

Celebrate Mediation Day: Top 10 Reasons To Mediate Your Divorce

Posted: 10/18/2012 12:20 pm

October 18, 2012 is Mediation Day. Mediation is a process for resolving conflict and coming to an agreement where decision-making remains with the parties. A neutral mediator assists parties in arriving at a mutually acceptable agreement. In contrast to an adversarial proceeding, mediation emphasizes cooperative problem solving and addressing the needs of all involved. Mediation can be used for all types of conflict, however it is particularly useful in the context of divorce and family disputes. Here are some reasons why:

It’s less costly. You and your spouse will typically pay one professional who is dedicated to helping you both reach a resolution. You will pay for meetings rather than waiting time at court. You will not pay for the costly drafting of motion papers back and forth and the accompanying court appearances. Lengthy divorce battles and trials have led to the financial ruin of many families. Divorcing families already have enough financial strain. Pay for your child’s college education, not your lawyer’s child.

You control the discussion and the outcome. You choose the topics that you want to discuss and settle. You, not the court, have final say over the terms of your agreement. Important decisions about you and your children are not left in the hands of strangers.

You get more personal attention. The mediation process allows you to speak and be heard. You work directly with your mediator, who will propose and get a consensus on the resolution process, elicit, explore and generate options, help you negotiate, refine decision-making and arrive at a final agreement. Most judges are overworked and understaffed with too many cases. Judges often do not have the time or opportunity to get to know each family and by necessity, must speak to the lawyers more than the people actually going through the divorce.

There is faster resolution. Parties set their own timeframe for resolving issues, without having to wait months for the next court date or for a time when two lawyers and a judge can coordinate their calendars. It is possible to resolve your issues in a few sessions. One of the worst parts of divorce is the anxiety brought about by living with unresolved, lingering issues for a prolonged period and by having to remain attached to someone after you have decided to separate.

There is greater confidentiality. Communications, documents and work notes made or used in mediation are privileged and confidential. Meetings are private and at your mediator’s office (or even held via Skype or conference call). At court, you will argue your case in a public courtroom in front of a judge, officers and court employees as well as other litigants and attorneys. It is dreadful to have your children and problems discussed in a room full of strangers, or in front of people in your community.

There is greater flexibility. Mediators often agree to meet in the evening, or even on weekends. Mediators are more able to work around your family’s busy schedule, as opposed to a court, with its rigid operating hours and overflowing dockets. Mediation can even work when parties desire to mediate their disputes but cannot do so while in the same room. Mediation can be achieved online via Skype or another online service, or via conference call or speaker phone.

It protects children from conflict. Custody trials usually require your children to be interviewed and observed by several experts. Your children may even be required to appear at court. The animosity between parents can increase significantly while embroiled in an adversarial process, which can expose children to increased conflict, verbal attacks and tension, leading to stress, confusion and long-lasting damage. A mediator can help educate parties in a neutral manner and keep the focus on the children’s needs, while engaging parents in a more sensitive and less inflammatory process.

It’s a less adversarial process. A neutral mediator assists parties in arriving at a mutually acceptable agreement, but, in contrast to an adversarial proceeding, mediation emphasizes cooperative problem solving and addressing the needs of all involved. The mediator can help raise points that an attorney would not be free to raise for strategic reasons and he or she may help the parties view issues from a neutral standpoint with a focus on resolving the dispute, rather than validating one party’s position and seeking to “win”. A mediator can minimize side arguments and avoid the adversarial positioning between attorneys, while concentrating everyone’s efforts towards a mutually satisfactory conclusion. Resolve your issues by communicating rather than fighting, working as a team, rather than engaging in battle.

There are more opportunities for a creative, tailored family plan. Mediating parties do not have to work within the confines of the litigation system as far as process or result. Sticking points particular to you can be addressed more in-depth in your mediation session and in your final agreement, which can lead to more effective co-parenting post-divorce.

It allows for greater post-divorce stability. In contrast to the adversarial nature of the traditional litigation system, mediation seeks to improve parties’ understanding of each other and their ability to communicate. In the context of divorcing or separating parents who will need to co-parent for years to come, emerging from a divorce with the ability to communicate effectively and with respect is especially important. You may also return to your same mediator if conflicts arise in the future. Your mediator can help moderate, settle disputes and clarify or modify your agreement as time goes by. Your mediator already knows your agreement, is attuned to your families’ issues and dynamic and can be on standby, able to quickly step in when you need it.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sherri-donovan-esq/celebrate-mediation-day-t_b_1968763.html?goback=%2Egde_4441767_member_177057979

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Parental Alienation – Defined

 

Unhappy Parents with Child

Parental alienation syndrome is a term coined by the late forensic psychiatrist Richard Gardner to describe a phenomenon he witnessed where children were being turned against one parent, usually as the result of a divorce or bitter custody battle. He described parental alienation syndrome (PAS) as a “disorder that arises primarily in the context of child custody disputes. Its primary manifestation is the child’s campaign of denigration against a parent, a campaign that has no justification. It is caused by a combination of a programming (brainwashing) parent’s indoctrinations and the child’s own contributions to the vilification of the targeted parent.”

What are the Symptoms of Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS)?

A syndrome is simply a cluster of symptoms with a common etiology. The eight symptoms of PAS are the specific symptoms found in a child who has been successfully alienated. The more symptoms one sees of the eight, as well as the intensity of them, determines the level of severity of the PAS disorder. The eight symptoms are:

  1. a campaign of denigration;
  2. weak, frivolous, and absurd rationalizations for the deprecation;
  3. lack of ambivalence in the child;
  4. the “independent thinker” phenomenon;
  5. reflexive support of the alienating parent in the parental conflict;
  6. absence of guilt over cruelty to and/or exploitation of the alienated parent;
  7. presence of borrowed scenarios;
  8. spread of animosity to the extended family of the alienated parent.

In mild PAS, the eight symptoms are mostly present with the exception of two symptoms (lack of ambivalence, and absence of guilt over cruelty to the alienated parent).

As a child moves from mild to moderate PAS, the remaining six symptoms increase in their severity, and the two symptoms noted above begin to appear. In severe PAS, all the symptoms have progressed to the severe level including the two noted above. In other words, with severe PAS, the child loses his or her ability to empathize and to feel guilt in a patterned and predictable way. This level of symptom organization is the very hallmark of the existence of a syndrome.

Is Parental Alienation Syndrome Real?

According to Baker (2006b),

PAS is not universally accepted by therapists, lawyers, judges, or custody evaluators, and the concept has not yet made its way into the mainstream consciousness. There may in fact be some underlying resistance to the notion that an otherwise “good” parent could be so vehemently rejected by his/her child. Perhaps such skeptics hold the belief that a parent must have done something to warrant their child’s rejection and/or the other parent’s animosity.

The problem PAS faces is the problem all new proposed mental disorders face — providing sufficient, objective empirical research that builds upon a solid theoretical foundation. Without such research, professionals can propose all the new diagnoses they’d like, but they will never appear in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (the mental health bible of diagnoses).

One contributing factor to the debate is the lack of sufficient empirical data regarding construct validity. The current literature is only about 20 years old and, thus, still in its relative infancy. Moreover, the majority of books and articles on the topic of parental alienation syndrome and parental alienation are theoretical, descriptive, or proscriptive.

As you can see, something that is only 20 years old in psychological and family research tends to be seen as something “new” or “untested.” Some clinicians and researchers see PAS more as a family dynamic rather than a formal diagnosis, and therefore are resistant to slapping another label on a family or child already going through a stressful family dynamic (Baker, 2007). There have yet to be any psychometrically valid diagnostic tools used to assess PAS, and even amongst professionals, what constitutes parental alienation syndrome is in disagreement (are all eight symptoms necessary or prevalent?).

There are also some misconceptions about PAS, despite its relative newness. Baker (2006a) found that alcoholism, maltreatment, and personality disorders co-occurred in most of the alienating families, suggesting possible areas of targeted intervention for PAS families. Parental alienation could occur in intact families as well as even non-litigious divorced families. In other words, the power games parents play with their children aren’t necessarily because of litigation or legal issues.

In late 2005, the American Psychological Association released a brief statement saying it didn’t have a formal stand on parental alienation syndrome, but noted the lack of empirical research supporting this syndrome.

Despite this syndrome not being too well known outside of custody, legal and family therapy circles, there appears to be a growing body of research to support its use.

References:

Baker, A.J.L. (2007). Knowledge and Attitudes About the Parental Alienation Syndrome: A Survey of Custody Evaluators. American Journal of Family Therapy, 35(1), 1-19.

Baker, A.J.L. (2006a). Patterns of Parental Alienation Syndrome: A Qualitative Study of Adults Who were Alienated from a Parent as a Child. American Journal of Family Therapy, 34(1), 63-78.

Baker, A.J.L. (2006b). The power of stories/stories about power: Why therapists and clients should read stories about the parental alienation syndrome. American Journal of Family Therapy, 34(3), 191-203.

Gardner, R. (1998) Parental alienation: A guide for mental health and legal professionals. Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics Inc.

 

Source: http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2008/02/13/what-is-parental-alienation-syndrome-pas/

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Parental Alienation

Parental Alienation Not A Mental Disorder, American Psychiatric Association Says

By DAVID CRARY 09/21/12 01:50 PM ET EDT AP

NEW YORK — Rebuffing an intensive lobbying campaign, a task force of the American Psychiatric Association has decided not to list the disputed concept of parental alienation in the updated edition of its catalog of mental disorders.

The term conveys how a child’s relationship with one estranged parent can be poisoned by the other parent, and there’s broad agreement that it sometimes occurs in the context of divorces and child-custody disputes.

However, an acrimonious debate has raged for years over whether the phenomenon should be formally classified as a mental health disorder by the psychiatric association as it updates its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders for the first time since 1994.

The new manual, known as DSM-5, won’t be completed until next year, but the decision against classifying parental alienation as a disorder or syndrome has been made.

“The bottom line – it is not a disorder within one individual,” said Dr. Darrel Regier, vice chair of the task force drafting the manual. “It’s a relationship problem – parent-child or parent-parent. Relationship problems per se are not mental disorders.”

Regier and his APA colleagues have come under intense pressure from individuals and groups who believe parental alienation is a serious mental condition that should be formally recognized in the DSM-5. They say this step would lead to fairer outcomes in family courts and enable more children of divorce to get treatment so they could reconcile with an estranged parent.

Among those on the other side of the debate, which has flared since the 1980s, are feminists and advocates for battered women who consider “parental alienation syndrome” to be an unproven and potentially dangerous concept useful to men trying to deflect attention from their abusive behavior.

Some critics of the concept say it’s being promoted by psychologists, consultants and others who could profit if parental alienation had a more formal status in family court disputes.

“At its worst, it lines the pockets of both attorneys and expert witnesses by increasing the number of billable hours in a given case,” wrote Dr. Timothy Houchin, a University of Kentucky psychiatrist, and three colleagues in an article earlier this year in the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law.

“It creates an entire new level of debate, in which only qualified experts can engage, adding to the already murky waters of divorce testimony,” they wrote, arguing that courts could deal with parent/child estrangement without labeling the child as mentally ill.

Advocates of the concept of parental alienation had been braced for a decision by the APA not to classify it as a syndrome or disorder, but held out hope that it would be specifically cited in an appendix as an example of a parent-child relational problem.

Regier, in an e-mail Friday, said this is “very unlikely,” even though the final draft of the DSM-5 remains incomplete.

Dr. William Bernet, a professor emeritus of psychiatry at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, is editor of a 2010 book making the case that parental alienation should be recognized in the DSM-5. He contends that about 200,000 children in the U.S. are affected by the condition.

Bernet’s proposal to the DSM-5 task force defines parental alienation disorder as “a mental condition in which a child, usually one whose parents are engaged in a high conflict divorce, allies himself or herself strongly with one parent, and rejects a relationship with the other parent, without legitimate justification.”

In a telephone interview, Bernet contended that the task force had made up its mind based on factors beyond the scientific evidence.

“I think they’re being motivated not by the science, but being driven by friendships, by political forces,” he said.

Parental alienation surfaced on the pop-culture scene several years ago as a consequence of the bitter divorce and child custody battle involving actors Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger. Baldwin was assailed by some feminist groups for citing parental alienation syndrome as a source of his estrangement from his daughter.

“The truth is that parental alienation really is a dangerous and cleverly marketed legal strategy that has caused much harm to victims of abuse,” said the National Organization for Women amid the controversy.

Bernet, in his proposal to the DSM-5 task force, said he agreed that “in some instances the concept of parental alienation has been misused by abusive parents to hide their behavior.”

“However, we strongly disagree with throwing out the baby with the bathwater,” he wrote, arguing that such abuse would be curtailed if diagnostic criteria for parental alienation were established.

Source:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/21/parental-alienation-is-no_n_1904310.html