NCJ Number
98784
Journal
Mediation Quarterly Issue: 2 Dated: (December 1983) Pages: 29-54
Date Published
1983
Length
26 pages
Annotation
Based upon a family systems perspective, this article identifies children's and spouses' strategies in dealing with divorce as well as mediators' strategies for faciliatating cooperation, reducing conflict, diverting conflict, and breaking impasses in child custody disputes.
Abstract
The family systems perspective is recommended for interpreting and resolving child custody disuptes through mediation. This perspective views family members as engaging in interactional maneuvers to influence one another in ways that satisfy each family member's own needs. During times of family crisis, such as divorce, family members initiate more potent interactional maneuvers (strategies) to meet their needs. Children's strategies during a divorce include attempts to reunite their parents, divert interspousal hostility to themselves by engaging in problem behavior, and reduce separation distress. Spouses' strategies for dealing with divorce include (1) resistance of spouse's attempts to reconcile: (2)attempts to disengage emotionally from one another; and (3) efforts at achieving emotional survival, financial survival, power over the other spouse, and proof of being a caring parent. Mediator strategies for dealing with child custody disputes encompass designing a context for cooperative negotiations, reducing and diverting conflict, motivating efforts at constructive problemsolving, and guiding the couple through child and spousal strategies to achieve workable solutions. A total of 20 references are listed.