Accepted and appropriately grieved for the end of their marriage.

Re-negotiated their relationship so that they are disentangling their continuing roles as father and mother from their concluding roles as husband and wife.

Begun putting their legitimate hurt, anger, and sorrow about the end of their marriage to the side long enough to communicate about and cooperate in the co-parenting of their children.

Displayed on-going evidence of their capacity to function effectively as a single-parent for significant periods of time

Dr. Dvoskin:  Please understand that each family must be judged individually and that there are always exceptions to every rule. Given this caveat, I see shared custody as a positive arrangement giving children optimal access to each parent. Ideally, the parents in a shared arrangement should live within the same community so that the child can maintain peer and school relationships. In order for shared custody to work, the parents should be able to communicate in an effective manner with regard to child rearing decisions. There are some times when it may be useful to have a parenting coordinator in place to assist in the process.

Based on your experience, under what circumstances is joint legal custody an appropriate recommendation?

Dr. Dvoskin:  Joint legal custody truly requires that parents be able to communicate frequently in decision making and have, in place, a dispute resolution plan, should conflicts arise. Basic issues related to religion, child rearing techniques, education and medical care should be uncontested.

Dr. Sachs:  (Assuming that “joint legal custody” means legal guardianship and decision-making are shared, even though the child may spend significantly more time with one parent than the other), joint legal custody is an appropriate recommendation when my first three criteria noted above (Answer #2) have been met, but when one partner is significantly more motivated and equipped (from a time, energy, and financial standpoint) to handle single-parenting than is the other partner.

Dr. Donahue:  Joint legal custody is a hot topic.

1. Certainly if the parents have the same value system and are in agreement with regard to activities joint legal decision making is preferable. The children have the advantage of input from both of their parents.
2. If one is unclear as to whether or not the parent's may work well together post judgment, given the history, they should be provided with the opportunity to work together with regard to the major areas in need of decision making. Sometimes once the stress of litigation is past the parties regroup and are able to co-parent effectively which they were unable to do while in the throes of the litigation.  It is also a good idea to provide one parent with an opportunity to be heard with the assistance of a Parent Coordinator in those cases where one parent has tended to dominate the decision making. Sometimes parents have a hard time realizing that now that they are no longer married the same standards do not apply and decisions need to be jointly discussed instead of being made unilaterally.  Use of a Parent Coordinator may also help the parties develop more effective communication skills.

Based on your experience, under what circumstances would a child’s request or desires be influential in your recommendation?

Dr. Sachs:  A child’s request or desire regarding a custody or visitation arrangement always influence my recommendation, but it is important to parse these requests or desires and understand that they are rarely conceptualized and articulated in a vacuum—instead, they are often the result of a desire to please, protect and/or avoid hurting one of their parents.  No child, of any age, speaks with complete autonomy and authority about visitation/custody fears, doubts, wishes and preferences, and every child of divorce struggles to find a way to maintain a loving relationship with the two parents who are no longer able to love each other.

Dr. Dvoskin:  In an evaluation, I never directly ask the child where they want to live or what access schedule they prefer. Nevertheless, many children come in to the interview ready to tell me and then I know that their parents have likely discussed the issues with them. This, of course, is fodder for my parenting assessment. I do gather information, however, from the child as to where friends are located, school and after school activities, descriptions of parents' homes, etc., from which I may indirectly determine with which parent/home the child is most identified. In the case of adolescents, who are intelligent and socially mature, I may give greater weight to their stated preference.

Dr. Donahue:  A child's request should always be considered based on all of the factors operative relative to the expressed request. The child however, needs to know that he or she is not responsible for the ultimate decision. The age of the child is of course important. If you have a teenager that has strong feelings about living with one parent or the other the desire should probably be honored. One cannot forge a relationship during these years if one has not been formed prior to this time.

The reason for the stated request also needs to be evaluated. A child that stresses the need to be with one parent based on the child's perception that the parent needs the child to take care of the parent is usually not a good reason to go along with a child's stated request. It is not healthy for a child to be "parentified."   In other words the child feels the need to parent the parent.

It is also not healthy for any child to feel or reflect back in later life that they selected one parent over the other. It is desirable to remove that burden from the child by again stressing that the child does not have to make that decision.  Such decisions are the province of the adults involved with the family and the child needs to know that.

If you could make one suggestion for our legal system relating to children, what would that suggestion be?

Dr. Donahue:  For the finder of fact to truly focus on the needs of the child or children rather than the due process rights of the parents. Often the children are lost in the legal struggle between the parents so that support people upon whom they rely are removed because one of the parents is not happy with that person. Children are the victims of their parents’ problems and the Court should try to be more protective of them.

Dr. Dvoskin:  Resolve child access issues first and fast; i.e., within six months. Incidentally, this was the primary recommendation of the Child Custody Committee, which I chaired, for the 1992 Governor's Task Force on Family Law.

Dr. Sachs:  My biggest suggestion for our legal system when it comes to supporting children whose parents are divorcing would be more specificity and precision in divorce law.  This would result in less need for litigation and parental reliance on the courts, and amplify the relevance, appeal, and potency of alternative dispute resolution techniques, such as mediation.  The more substantial and far-reaching this shift becomes, the less psychologically vulnerable the children of divorcing parents will be.

What is the biggest mistake made by lawyers representing parents?

Dr. Donahue:  In my opinion, the biggest mistake is encouraging warring parents to remain in the same house until all access and financial matters are agreed upon. This forces the children to exist in an armed camp.

Dr. Sachs: The biggest mistake that I have seen lawyers make when representing parents in custody disputes is neglecting the reality that parents often turn to their attorney for direction, advice, and protection when they have been unable to successfully find a way to come to terms with and mourn for the end of their marriage.  In these situations, the parents’ self-serving and unavoidably distorted understanding and interpretation of their children’s emotions, needs, and overall adjustment are  a reflection of their inner conflicts, and of their residual marital conflict, conflicts which can never be effectively resolved in a court of law.

The litigation tha

As a result, the parents may, without realizing it or meaning to, act more like they are more loyal and committed to their lawyer (or their lawyer’s viewpoint) than they are to their child, and if the lawyer is not aware of this tendency, his/her efforts to conscientiously advocate for his/her client may inadvertently maintain and promote this competitive and highly dysfunctional, disadvantageous process.

Dr. Dvoskin:  Hard to say but the following does apply. Encourage the client to work toward a settlement with the estranged spouse. It is usually far better for the parties to work out an agreement with one another than leave it to any Judge that sees them for a limited amount of time.  Don't suggest to the client that they are likely to get some large settlement or get what they want via the legal system. Be realistic.

In what manner can parents in contested custody cases best assist their children in navigating the legal process?

Dr. Sachs:  It is always best to protect children as much as possible from adversarial interactions between their parents, to shield them from the details of litigation, to reassure them that they will still have a mother and a father even though their parents will no longer be wife and husband, to speak neutrally or positively about one’s ex-spouse throughout litigation, and to reassure them that their voice, their feelings, and their desires will be heard and taken into consideration at some point during whatever legal process ensues.

However, parents involved in contested custody cases ultimately can best assist their children in navigating legal contentiousness by considering the possibility that the custody “contest” itself has much more to do with their inability to end their marriage with civility, dignity and respect than it has to do with substantial, defensible concerns or differences of opinion regarding the best interests of the child.

Dr. Donahue:  Parents should make it clear to the children that they did not cause the separation or the problems between the parents. They also need to do this many, many times. Children usually feel that somehow it is their fault that the parents are not going to stay together. It doesn't matter how many times you tell them that it is not their fault they usually feel that it is.

It is also very helpful if they do not discuss their feelings about the other parent in front of the children. The better the parents get along the better the children tend to do. It is very hard for any child to hear disparaging remarks about one parent from another. The individual is after all the child's parent.

Parents should also encourage their extended family members to maintain their contact with the children and be extra supportive of the children during this difficult time. To the degree possible KEEP THE CHILDREN OUT OF THE MIDDLE.

Dr. Dvoskin:  Parents assisting their children:

1. Keep the children out of the conflict.
2. Do not share legal goings on with them except to reassure them that both parents have their best interests at heart and will work together to promote the child's best relationship with both parents and their respective extended families.
3. Assure them that, while you wish to promote their needs, the decisions are not theirs to make, but rather, up to the adults who love them.

While reading the responses there are many conclusions to be drawn, the most intriguing was how similar some of the positions were of the experts.  They did not know who else was being interviewed or saw the other experts responses, yet some of the expert’s answers mirrored one another.

Dr. Mary Donahue is a psychologist specializing in psychotherapy with children, adolescents, young adult single parents, couples, and families.  Dr. Donahue also specializes in Forensic evaluations in domestic situations where custody is at issue.  Dr. Donahue specializes in assessment and treatment of adults and young children where sex abuse and related issues are in question; evaluation and treatment of women victimized by parental of spousal psychological or physical abuse; career advisement, primarily for widows, divorcees, and women reentering the job market; psychotherapy related to grief issues and loss associated with widowhood, divorce, or separation.  Dr. Donahue is a graduate of St. John’s University, New York University, and Adelphi University.  She is the author of “On Your Own, A Widow’s Passage to Emotional and Financial Well Being” (Best Seller, 1993).

Dr. Alice G. Dvoskin has been a Maryland licensed psychologist since November 14, 1981. She graduated magna cum laude from Queens College (NY) with a Bachelors in Psychology.  She received her doctorate degree from University of Maryland, College Park.  She is a member of the American Psychological Association and Maryland Psychology Association.  Dr. Dvoskin is past chairman of the Ethics Committee of Maryland Psychological Association and was on the Governor’s Task Force on Family Law.  She has a private practice of psychotherapy in Baltimore where her practice includes educational evaluations, short and long term psychotherapy with pre-adolescents/adolescents, adult couples and families.  Dr. Dvoskin’s focus has been specifically on issues relating to separation, divorce, custody, and remarriage.  She has been qualified as an expert in several courts throughout Maryland.

Dr. Brad Sachs is a psychologist specializing in clinical work with children, adolescents, couples, and families, in Columbia, Maryland, and the Founder and Director of The Father Center, a program designed to meet the needs of new, expectant, and experienced fathers.

He is the author of several books, including THE GOOD ENOUGH CHILD: HOW TO HAVE AN IMPERFECT FAMILY AND BE PERFECTLY SATISFIED (HarperCollins), which was named as an Editor’s Choice by Amazon.com and became its best-selling parenting title that year.  It was featured on NBC’s The Today Show, and was excerpted in Family Circle Magazine.

Dr. Sachs has recently published THE GOOD ENOUGH TEEN: HOW TO RAISE ADOLESCENTS WITH LOVE AND ACCEPTANCE (DESPITE HOW IMPOSSIBLE THEY CAN BE) (HarperCollins, January 2005) and IN THE DESPERATE KINGDOM OF LOVE: POEMS 2001-2004 (Chestnut Hills Press, January 2005).

Jolie G. Weinberg and Marni B, Schwartz are partners at Weinberg & Schwartz, L.L.C. located in Columbia, MD.  They have practiced domestic law for over 16 years.

back