From attorney's outside view....fixing most cases is possible. It may not be fast. But it is likely doable over time. Also attorney finds that clients must sometimes modify their own actions and that of the kids as well.
There is no point to keep doing the same mistakes over
and over and expecting a different result?
Therefore if the thing that needs changing just happens to be under your authority, then that's likely where the change needs to be made. Judges get tried of hearing the same old stuff every day in court. Pretty soon they are on auto pilot and send everyone to mediation. But mediation doesn't change people.
Change cannot take place unless someone or something makes a change--it likely won't happen by itself. So in mediation, judges just read what the mediators have written down. When and if the clients don't follow what they are to do, we see repeated issues over and over and over. Clearly the parties MUST implement some change somewhere.
So the biggest problems are usually that all of the parties:
1. Don't want to change their behavior
2. Don't want to jump through hoops
3. Don't want to have to do anything that is inconvenient
4. Don't want anyone telling them what to do.
It's pretty simple that if your other spouse or live in, is a difficult personality, takes meds for behavioral issues, or has been diagnosed with A B or C, your case will take more work. Not every child should be raised primarily with a parent that has NO parenting skills at all.
But sometimes we have to make the best out of a bad situation. And sometimes that may mean we will be required to jump through a few hoops also. For most parents, this is doable. For some parents that have mental issues/or blocks, they will refuse to do whatever it is. In those cases, the parent that won't comply will inevitably suffer in the long run. Because it isn't about you so much, as whether your behavior will or will not affect the kid or kids to a large degree.
As an example, a couple with kids where one parent has serious issues and is not suitable as the
primary parent, will continue to battle the other parent for years in trying to keep his/her domain over the kids. Obviously this person should not be primary custodial nor should he/she even have the kids overnight--that's when we start to have some really large damage with the kids. and to prevent that from being a vicious circle, someone has to step in. Minor's counsel is NOT always the answer, and attorney has seen that minor's counsel is often given cases that will not change. Reason being, not all parents should be using "co-parenting". Attorney has seen some pretty bad cases and co-parenting simply doesn't work well in really bad cases. If you have that situation, call attorney--she may be able to restructure your case.
