One of the challenges for parents during and after a divorce is figuring out how to co-parent in a way that meets the children’s best interest. Parenting decisions can become especially difficult when resentments have been building up for some time. Now that you’ve made the decision to divorce, often these previously unstated resentments are exposed, causing more tension when trying to discuss challenging issues, such as how to co-parent your children. Here are three ways that mediation may help you to create your parenting plan.

1.     Mediation will help you and your co-parent begin to work together on challenging issues for your children.

Whatever your parenting plan looks like, it must be in the best interests of your children. Part of that best interest is determining how to cooperate as you co-parent. Mediation is a facilitated conversation between you and your co-parent about essential things in your lives – your children. Engaging in mediation in good faith shows that you and your co-parent may disagree but may do so in a way that allows you both to work through challenging issues. The mediator will consistently ask questions about the decisions and disagreements, help you navigate difficulties, and let you find a resolution that works for the parents and is in the children’s best interests. Through the mediation process, you have the opportunity to create a model for addressing future parenting disagreements.

2.     Mediation allows you to identify the many issues that need to be decided for your parenting plan.

When divorcing, parents have a lot of decisions to make together about how to parent their children. Parents need to determine when the children will be with each parent. Other choices include when the children may transition from home-to-home, or whether the parents will transition from home to home (this second option is called “nesting” and occurs when the children stay in one home and the parents move into and out of that home according to who is the on-duty parent). Other decisions include considerations such as where the children will go to school. What after-school activities will the children participate in? Where will the children spend the holidays? What time will the off-duty parent pick the children up? This is by no means the full list. It can be a challenging process and requires a lot of communication and decisions. 

The mediator will work with you and your co-parent to identify the many issues and explore whether each is important to you and how you can together make agreements that are in the best interests of your children. 

3.     Mediation allows Parents to Explore New Roles and Create Boundaries

Co-parenting often requires each parent to take on new roles that may have never been needed. For example, one parent may have made dinner while the other worked with the children on schoolwork. Or, one parent may have been the one to transport the children to their various activities. Now, both parents must figure out how to juggle these new roles. Mediation can help the parents work through complex challenges associated with these roles. For example, it is entirely appropriate that a parent may not know the children’s routines. The mediator can help the parents share this information in mediation in a manner that allows each other to provide information within the confines of a safe space. The mediator, especially a child-centered mediator, will help the family transition from their previous positions to new ones. 

After a divorce, the children will continue to have both parents, who will likely remain a significant part of their children’s lives. The law favors ongoing and frequent contact with parents who act in the children’s best interests. It encourages parents to share the rights and responsibilities of raising their children. ORS 107.101(1)-(2). Parents should use mediation to encourage ongoing communication to create a safe, respectful, and emotionally healthy co-parenting relationship with the other parent.

An 83 old mother and her daughter were in conflict over moving the mother from Corvallis to Portland. The mother, who became widowed two years ago started showing signs of MS, which worried her daughter. The mother insisted on staying in her house where she lived with her husband for over 50 years and felt her husband’s spirit in the house. She was also comfortable in the community and enjoyed her daily routine.

Dana, the daughter, understood her mother, but was more concerned as she was witnessing her mother’s declining health. She was still working full time and needed to help her divorced daughter who had a a couple of young children. She struggled to find time to drive down to Corvallis to help her mother.

While I prepared to mediate the case, the mother told me in a private meeting that she could not move in with her daughter as she did not care for her husband. She said that he was critical and reactive to Dana. She did not want to see him often and preferred to remain in her home.

In mediation, both mother and daughter had the opportunity to hear each other out without interruption, as they usually interrupt each other. Each one was asked to summarize what she heard was important to the other. When the mother heard her daughter’s wish to be closer to her because she cared about her, she heard more than a request to move for the daughter’s convenience.

The daughter heard her mother’s painful struggles to let go of the home she loved and shared with her husband for 50 years.

Both decided that it would be best for the mother to stay in her house for another couple of years and they would gauge the progress of her MS. In the meantime, they would hire a woman to visit her three times a week for a few hours to help take care of her and some of the household chores. Dana will come to visit every other Sunday and they will come back to mediation when it’s time to make new decisions. Through mediation, they said they were able to hear each other in a new way and began building a more respectful relationship.

I was a long-time litigator representing the State of Oregon in child welfare cases. My job was hard – factually, legally, and emotionally. At one point, I had to acknowledge that I did not like my job and needed to find something else – something that I could feel privileged to do. I needed to explore what was missing. I did not think that I was helpful to the people and children who most needed help. My job was to force a resolution – not help people come to a resolution. So I left my job without a plan (with special thanks to my wonderful wife) and without knowing what I was missing in my life.

Mediation gives clients the space to talk to each during joint mediation sessions. In my experience, clients can find ways to come to a resolution that works best for the family. I’m reminded of a case I recently co-mediated. A young divorcing couple with children also had a small, not yet profitable, growing business and a home with a large property. They did not have many other assets. The most significant concern between the parents appeared to be ensuring that the children were protected and how to divide the real estate property and the business. My co-mediator and I had several sessions to address the issues. It was clear to us that the wife was hurt and overwhelmed. The husband had put together a spreadsheet offering possible resolutions, but the wife could not accept the proposals. The parents could parent their children together – but they could not discuss how to divide the property.

We had three sessions. The wife had the opportunity to discuss her emotional struggles with her husband directly. y. My co-mediator and I explored their ability to work together especially given that they had children to parent. During the final session, we allowed the wife the time and space to explain to her husband her underlying emotional needs. It was emotional and difficult, but this allowed her to move past her emotions and address the resolution initially offered by the husband – which she accepted without any modifications. Mediation allowed the wife the time to explore the barrier to resolution for her. To his credit, the Husband allowed the wife the space and time to explore the issues (although he disagreed with her conclusions.) Once she received the space and time, and respect that allowed her to share her needs, she was able to accept the offer.

I’m convinced that mediation allows people the opportunity to explore and share their needs, not only their positions. Given the opportunity and space to be heard by the mediators and each other allow couples the opportunity to solve their conflicting issues in a way that preserves their dignity and opens up for cooperation. The opportunity to enable people to be vulnerable and honest with each other is a privilege that I am honored to accept.

Patrick Ward is a Family Mediator and Lawyer based in Portland, Oregon. He is the owner of Clarity Law LLC, www.claritylawllc.com.