Bexar Family Solutions

Demand for our Cooperative Parenting and Divorce class has increased substantially in the past year. To keep up, we are moving to a new location with a much larger training room. More comfort for attendees, to be sure. Our small training room has served us well for the past 5 years helping hundreds of parents learn better ways to raise children in a bi-nuclear family. But we are now able to accommodate twice as many participants.

Effective 12/22/11, we will move our offices to:
11230 West Ave., Ste. 1203
San Antonio, TX 78213

See you there!

I recently heard a story about a NY attorney’s experience that led him to move from practicing traditional adversarial family law to collaborative law. His tale resonated with my experience working primarily with families involved in some sort of family law process. It confirmed that, while attorneys are essential to navigate the mine field of a family law suit, sometimes they create more problems than they resolve.

Imagine this scenario: a couple decide to divorce and agree to the major issues facing them–division of property, conservatorship of the children, and parenting plan. They then go to attorneys to draw up the paperwork, only to have one (or both) attorney reject the deal the parents have worked out.

This can happen for any number of reasons, and I think it often stems from the fact that attorneys are educated to “advocate zealously” for their clients’ interests. And some attorneys just really like the litigation aspect of their profession…they are competitive and they like to win, no matter the cost. The problem, of course, is that this can transform two reasonable litigants into angry enemies, creating unnecessary barriers to resolving the issues before the court, tricking parents into making very poor decisions, and leaving their children torn between the parents. What, then, have you gained if you win the battle but harm your children emotionally by the parental conflict?

It is your attorney’s job to represent your interests, not your children’s interests. Consequently, your attorney may give you advice that is great for your case, but is terrible for your children. Take, for example, clients who frequently tell me they’ve been advised to call the police whenever a co-parent is late to a scheduled exchange. From a legal perspective, this makes (dubious) sense. It’s designed to document the failure of the other parent to live up to his/her obligations, later to be used as a club against him/her at a hearing or trial. But let’s examine that advise from the child’s perspective for a moment.

• Using the police to resolve insignificant parenting problems teaches your children not to solve problems, but to escalate them, to bring in powerful others to get your way. Is that really the lesson you want to teach your children? Your children are looking to you to teach them how to handle disagreements, and this makes one a very poor role model, indeed.
• It can trigger your children’s natural fear of abandonment if they believe the police might take mommy/daddy away. Children will already be fearful about that because it has already happened to them when daddy/mommy moved away from each other and the child (typically) loses daily contact with both parents. Children don’t need more emotional stress in their lives, they need less stress. Don’t take actions that will trigger these very scary feelings.
• It risks teaching your children to resent law enforcement, to think of them as something bad. I’m sure you can imagine what consequences that could have on your children as they grow into their teen years and begin to push boundaries.

Attorneys can be a powerful force for good in family law cases, and I have met some attorneys who do, in fact, keep the impact on the children in mind when advising their clients. But it’s the “winner take all,” “we’ll get everything you’re entitled to” approach of some attorneys that harms far too many children.

My advise to you is to listen to your attorney’s counsel, but introduce some sense into the process. Object/protest when you are advised to do something that clearly will be bad for your children, even if it that action would improve your position. It’s your responsibility always to keep your children’s best interest in mind, not your attorney’s. Never lose sight of that fact.

If you have had a similar experience, tell us your story!

For our inaugural post, I thought it appropriate to write about how parental conflict hurts kids, even when it is not played out in front of the children.

When parents decide to end their relationship, it’s normal for some level of conflict to be present. Anger, bitterness, jealousy, and misguided efforts to reconcile influence parents’ behaviors. Sometimes those things can trick parents into making very poor parenting decisions that are motivated not by the children’s best interest, but the parent’s negative feelings about their co-parent. So even if the parents aren’t arguing with each other in front of the children, they can still be harmed by decisions parents make when they are angry or upset. Some common examples that I encounter include:

• Not allowing a parent to see the child;
• Revoking an agreement for off-schedule access previously made;
• Avoiding discussions with the co-parent about child-related matters/using the child as a messenger;
• Saying negative things about the co-parent to the children or within earshot of them

Of course, there are innumerable ways that angry parents find to “stick it to” the other parent when negative emotions short-circuit their reasoning skill. But the bottom line is quite simple: when parents choose to be in conflict, they are making a choice to harm their children. Parents can, instead, choose to set aside their desire to punish their co-parent and do what actually is in the child’s best interest.

How can you tell if you are making co-parenting decisions that really are in your children’s best interest? I coach parents to consider this: All parents will make mistakes–none of us are perfect (including your co-parent…and you!). One difference between a good parent and a bad parent, in my opinion, is that the good parent will observe the negative impact on their children when mistakes are made. They say to themselves, “Yikes. That didn’t work out for little Johnny. I’m not going to do that again!” Bad parents, on the other hand, observe the negative impact on their children, but continue to engage in the behavior because they have placed their own needs ahead of their children’s needs. Example? Saying negative things about the co-parent in front of the child is probably the most common.

Most folks learn to move past their differences and create some form of a working relationship with their co-parent so they can raise their children without creating unnecessary stress for them. You can get there, too. Even if your co-parent is not willing to cooperate with you, there are many things you can do to ensure you don’t add to the conflict.

Be the parent who chooses not to hurt your kids, no matter what others do.

Jack Bannin, MS, LPC, LMFT, NCC
Owner, Bexar Family Solutions