26 Nov The Short and Long of Family Mediation
In a recent pre-mediation meeting, a separating client told me of his fear of becoming a “lonely old man” when his children grew up. This was in contrast to many clients who just focus on their immediate concerns for themselves and their children, and ignore longer term consequences. Here is an important study of the beneficial long-term impact of even small amounts of family mediation on the relationships between separating parents and their children. The study examined high conflict families who were already involved in contested parenting disputes in court. One half of the sample group were randomly assigned to mediation whilst the other half remained in the litigation process. The mediation was only brief (5 hours on average) and was primarily focused on working out the routine of a parenting plan, but was also sensitive to the parents’ emotions including their grief about the separation. The study then followed the families for 12 years and looked at both short and long term outcomes.
I have given the study to mediation clients to help them focus on their long term hopes and fears for their children – not just the short term. It encourages them to consider the needs of their children (and themselves) in 2 years, 5 years and beyond into adulthood.
The findings of the study include:
Short term outcomes of mediation
- 75% of the families who were selected to remain in the court process could not reach a negotiated agreement and proceeded to a final court hearing, with the other 25% reaching negotiated agreements before hearing. In contrast, only 20% of families directed to mediation could not reach a negotiated agreement and proceeded to a hearing.
Long term outcomes
- In the mediating families, 28% of children after 12 years (who had become either teenagers or young adults) were still seeing the non-resident parent at least weekly. However, only 9% of the children in the litigating families were still seeing the non-resident parent at least weekly after 12 years. The mediating families also did better in maintaining childrens’ relationships with both parents compared to the (American) average of all separated families, including those who never commence court proceedings, in which only 11% of children continued seeing both parents at least weekly after 12 years.
- Conversely, 35% of the litigating non-resident parents had not seen their children for over a year after 12 years, compared to 11% of the mediating parents.
- 52% of mediating non-resident parents spoke with their children by telephone weekly after 12 years. Remember that some of these children may have been working or studying at tertiary level and living independently of either parent. Only 14% of the litigating parents still spoke with the children by telephone weekly.
The study shows that mediating parenting arrangements – rather than litigating – is a good way for separating parents to avoid becoming lonely old men or women. Here is a link to a summary of the study.
Here is a link to pages on our website about mediation and family dispute resolution.