Communicating With Kids About Divorce
When you and your spouse decide to divorce, you are not only making this big decision for you, but you are also making it for your entire family – including your kids. Kids do not have much (if any) say in this decision but are affected significantly. Deciding how to communicate with them about the upcoming change related to divorce is a critical step in the process of helping them cope. Below are some tips for communicating calmly and effectively with your children of all ages about divorce:
Once you make the decision to divorce, you have another significant decision to make – what process to follow to settle and finalize your divorce. As you weigh your three main options: doing it yourself, using divorce mediation, or going through the traditional court system (litigation). Below we have outlined the pros and cons of divorce mediation so you can decide if it is right for you.
When you get married, you share your life and that includes many shared possessions. You may come into the marriage with a few things, but between wedding gifts and things that you accumulate together over time, you build quite a collection of furniture, appliances, jewelry, exercise equipment, photos, and more. But, in addition, if you own your home, a vehicle or other property, this must also be split if you decide to divorce. You must also split assets that you share (think retirement, savings, investments, etc.). This can be an overwhelming process even in the best of circumstances. Fairly dividing your assets
Fortunately, divorce is not something that you generally go through very often in your life. A divorce is never exactly expected or planned for so when you decide you are ready to move forward, you likely have a lot of questions about the process. Most individuals assume that the only way to settle a divorce is to go through the court system. However, divorce mediation has become a very viable option for settling all terms of a divorce, without having to set foot in a courtroom. If you are not familiar with how divorce mediation works, here are five important facts that can provide some information to help you decide
Over the last several years, more and more couples have looked for alternative ways to settle the terms of a divorce. Litigation has been the default process for many years, forcing couples to hire individual lawyers to represent them in court and spending a lot of time and money in the process. The most popular and effective alternative to litigation is divorce mediation, which allows couples to work with a neutral mediator to settle the terms of a divorce including division of property, child custody and spousal/child support. Rather than leave these major decisions in the hands of a judge, who can only learn so much
You may already know that the Minnesota court system recommends that all couples try mediation to resolve the terms of a divorce before attempting litigation. You may wonder why that is the recommendation. Mediation is less expensive and takes less time than litigation and that is certainly part of the reason. What you might not be aware of is just how successful mediation is. Mediation can be more than 85% effective in divorce cases, even when child custody is a factor. Both parties are often more satisfied with the outcome and the results are more long lasting. That is a very high success rate, especially given that many couples enter the divorce process with…
