Divorce Mediation For Kids

Those of us lucky enough to stay home with our kids this summer know the one thing brothers and sisters like to do best when locked up for hours alone with each other: They fight.

As I mentioned in my last column: Kids Fighting? Take 'em to Court, when my kids were younger, I used to attempt to adjudicate disagreements with a fun little Judge Julie game I made up.

But now that they're older – 9 and 11 – a more sophisticated system needed to be developed. A recent he-said, she-said skirmish brought us back to the kitchen table courtroom once again for swearing in.

Up until now, working out agreements for my kids tended to mean my son would give up and let his sister have her way. Or, I found out, my daughter was even willing to pay my son for what she wanted. "I'll give you a dollar if you play ping pong with me."

Clearly, more ground rules and guidance was in order. Having gone through divorce mediation, I learned a few things from our wonderful mediator Larry Rosen of Through Understanding in Berkeley.

Larry was as much a counselor as an attorney for us and helped guide us through the worst of times: Our financial and child custody agreements. My ex-husband and I would meet at his office and each given our time on the "couch," so to speak.

Larry taught us "active listening," where he heard what each of us had to say then mirrored back what he thought we were feeling. Only he did it in a magical, positive way.

When I'd say something negative like, "I'm mad that my husband takes the kids in the car without car seats," he'd act as translator.

He'd turn to my almost-ex-husband and say, "What I hear is that Julie still cares about you and wants to maintain a healthy relationship with you even after the divorce, but that will be hard to do if she's continually worried about the children's safety."

Facing my two warring kids, I wasn't sure I could be as adept at this sort of thing as Larry was but thought I'd give it a try. I told them that I need to have peace in the household and wanted them to help me come up with some agreements so that can happen.

I started by saying, "So first, let's talk about what your biggest concerns are."

My daughter raised her hand. "Me first! He's always coming into my room without knocking."

"Objection," my son interrupted, raising his hand. "She comes in my room all the time without knocking and steals my stuff."

Something of a melee ensued with both parties pointing to one another with the excitement of picking out a Cruella Deville from a lineup.

I banged a spoon on the table. "Order in the court!" I whipped out a few sheets of binder paper and took notes as they each shared their stories one at a time.

Trying the active listening thing, I told my daughter, "Sounds like you feel angry that he comes in without knocking because you could be changing or sleeping."

"Exactly!"

I told my son, "Sounds like you feel upset when she comes in your room and takes something without your permission."

"Yeah!" he said, "plus a lot of times she'll knock, and I'll say don't come in, but she does anyway or just keeps knocking."

"So you feel frustrated that she doesn't listen to you after the first knock."

I could see by the look on their faces how much they both appreciated being "heard" like this and decided to get their agreements in writing.

I asked my daughter, "If he agrees not to go into your room without your permission, do you agree to do the same and not keep knocking after he says no?"

She did, so I tore out some lined paper from a spiral notebook and started writing. On the top of the page I wrote: Jenna's Agreement. Underneath, I wrote out all of the agreements they negotiated.

For example, one of my daughter's agreements says:

If I need something in his room, I will knock and ask permission to come in first. If he's not home, I will ask Mom for permission.

Her agreement also states: I promise not to keep asking to go into his room after the first time he says no.

We made separate agreements for each child, which they both signed to be official and ended up with about four agreements each for door knocking, tv remote control issues, hitting and hurting, and listening.

We had a short vacation coming up, driving to Los Angeles to visit relatives. I told them they would have three strikes in the two weeks leading up to that vacation. If they didn't work out agreements peacefully, after three strikes, there would be no vacation.

My daughter raised her hand excitedly like Horshack in the old Welcome Back Kotter series. "Can we get out of a strike if we work out an agreement?"

"Yes!" I said, my voice matching her excitement. I was thrilled that they were now motivated to start making agreements and felt that now they had a better idea how to do that.

Sure enough, a few hours later, a heated debate ensued over whose turn it was to walk the dog, Murphy McBolt. Only this time, a settlement was made ... and out of court even.