One of the most unfortunate consequences of divorce or separation is when the kids are negatively impacted by the dispute between their parents. It is well understood that kids can often blame themselves for the split and, even with everything provided for them, they may not ever be the same.
A common dispute during divorce proceedings concerns which parent will be given primary caregiver status over the kids, meaning the will be the primary parent that they spend most of their time with. One of the ways to solve this dispute, without going to court, is to engage professional services for child custody mediation.
The following will examine some of the benefits of pursuing child custody mediation.
1. Avoids a lengthy and stressful court battle
Family law issues are stereotypically portrayed as lengthy, bitter, and seemingly constant, back and forth battles between ex-lovers. Rather than go down this adversarial road, have you thought about whether or not it’s really necessary?
While emotions might be running hot right now, it’s more than likely that you and your ex will be able to be mature enough to engage child custody mediation rather than try to battle it out in court. There are several reasons you would rather want to go down this road than attempt to go to court, including:
- Litigation takes a long time.
- There is a long waiting list of cases in the family court before yours will be given attention (which is why courts encourage child custody mediation wherever possible).
- Litigation costs more money than the alternatives.
- It will be more stressful for you, your ex AND your kids.
- There will be a winner and a loser, which will cause more resentment and potentially cause future strife
Instead, child custody mediation seeks to sit both parties down in a neutral, calm environment where they can both be heard and listened to. The session is supervised by a 3rd party, unbiased mediator who seeks to help both parties identify a mutually agreeable arrangement for the future care of their kids.
Even if the arrangement reached via child custody mediation is similar to what a judge would have ruled, both parties will feel better about it because it was approached from a standpoint of mutual respect. The arrangements reached via this process are, on average, much longer lasting that those mandated by a judge.
2. Puts the issue to rest and reduces animosity
Disputes involving kids are often the most bitter when it comes to family law, and ex-couples who engage child custody mediation get to enjoy freedom from the stress of arguing much sooner than if they went to court. It is simply so much faster to go the route of fair negotiation than to try and defeat your ex in some kind of indulgent quest for revenge.
Engaging child custody mediation puts the issue to bed much faster than a court battle, meaning that you can move on with the rest of your life knowing that you maintained your self-respect and got an arrangement that’s agreeable.
3. Save you money
In this new chapter of your life, money is probably going to be more important for a while. It’s a good idea to save money by pursuing child custody mediation rather than paying a lawyer to battle in court on your behalf.
