Page 59 - Meeting with Children Manual

Section 4

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 Parents are allowed to disagree with the feedback from the child consultant.
Arguing back is seem to be very productive and can lead the parents to hold
their views even more strongly
 Disrespect by parents towards the child consultant or the mediator can and
should be named, and dealt with in an adult|adult manner
 It is expectable that parents will want to hear more about what happened in
the child consultation than the practitioner or the child want said. It is
appropriate to acknowledge the frustration and respectfully decline to give
more details

PARENTING PLANS AND PARENTING

AGREEMENTS

In this section we look at how we can most effectively maximize the child focus of the
one tangible product of a mediation, the Memorandum of Agreement or Parenting
Plan. While these documents are designed to serve as instructions to parents and or
lawyers with respect to the future parenting arrangements, they can also assist
parents to maintain their child focus beyond the family mediation process.

This can be achieved by embedding the headings from the Child and Youth Concerns
Scale into the content of the Mediation Agreement. The inclusion of these headings
allows for the agreement to not just focus on the problems that need to be solved,
but also on the resilience factors that need to be maintained. Care should be take NOT
to provide parents with written materials that represent the voice of their child as this
may end up being used in processes such as court proceedings; something that the
child may never have intended or known about at their meeting with you.

The following example is the outline of the feedback from the Child Consultant. It is
followed by the agreement reached between the parents following the feedback.

Time

The children commented that they had no concerns about the current living
arrangements. They enjoyed the times they spent in each home. Lilly reported
some concern about the rules at her mother’s house, that she was not allowed to
get up each weekend morning before 8am.
Physical Space
The children stated that they liked that they have their own bedrooms at each
house
Psychological Space
The children raised some concerns about the impact of the separation on their
parents. Kyle described a concern for his mother that she would miss him during
the 3-weeks summer vacation

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