 |
| Break the [wounds +
unawareness] cycle and guard your descendents |
|
|
How
Professional Judges
Can Help Prevent
Family Stress and Divorce
By
Peter K. Gerlach, MSW |
 The Web address of this
two-pagearticle is
http://sfhelp.org/prevent/judges.htm
This article is
under construction
Another impactful way to help litigants and
society reduce stress and divorce is to...
3) Alert Your Professional
Colleagues
Again - my professional experience since 1981 is that typical novice and
veteran human-service professionals (including clergy) are largely unaware of
these vital
So are their peers, trainers, employers, certifiers, professional
associations. Implication: if
you don't alert your colleagues to these topics and what they mean to
the litigants you're working with together, probably no one will.
This raises the odds of the toxic
of inherited
wounds and parental and societal ignorance will spread in the descendants of
the professionals and litigants you work with.
If you pass on copies of the articles above with little explanation or
enthusiasm, your
busy colleagues are less likely to
absorb and apply their ideas. For more perspective on this, please
(re)read these two Web-pages.
+ + +
What percentage of your adult and juvenile cases involve
divorced parents and stepfamily adults
and kids? They are specially vulnerable to complex surface
and relationship
without knowing the underlying causes.
Without relevant Census data, many sociologists and stepfamily researchers
estimate that average American stepfamily mates
re/divorce
more frequently (~60% - 70%) than typical first-marriage
partners (~50%). You're in a prime position to alert such troubled adults to
critical knowledge they don't know
they need to avoid domestic
litigation and family stress and potential re/divorce.
 Stress-prevention Options with Divorced and Stepfamily Litigants
Invest 10" in taking this stepfamily quiz.
Then take another 10" to read this true example
of a multi-home stepfamily. Then take several more minutes to
scan this
summary of key Web articles for
divorced-family and stepfamily adults and their supporters. Finally, scan
these selected resources for stepfamily
adults and their supporters. Note your option to copy and hand out any
of these interlinked linked articles. You can also providing litigants and
colleagues with these Web addresses:
Typical troubled litigants and over-busy, unaware professionals may ignore or skim
these re/divorce-prevention articles. As you hand out copies, stress that the
articles aim to reduce long-term (future) family and
relationship stress, rather than providing quick fixes for current surface
problems and
Watch for
chances to alert divorcing or divorced litigants to the long-term value of their learning
about stepfamily
and
after their current disputes fade. This can sound like...
"if and when either of you
parents commits to another partner, you will form a
stepfamily.
Do you know that most American stepfamilies re/divorce
psychologically or legally, after
years of disillusionment and major distress? Find out why, and how you can
protect you and your kids from that, by reading (items on a referral
list)"
Option: for cases involving a re/divorce - specially if stepkids are involved -
ask the litigants whether they've tried all relevant
options. Imagine saying
something like this to each partner...
"When you're
an old wo/man thinking back
on this re/divorce decision and all its impacts, you'll want the
peace that comes from believing "I (or we) tried everything
possible before breaking up."
Note that
mates initiating (re)divorce are
usually unaware of being dominated by a protective
- i.e. reactive subselves which stubbornly seek immediate relief, and have
little patience for "common sense" or "doing everything possible." In such
cases, compassionately expect your advice to be ignored for a variety of
(surface) reasons.
More Prevention Options...
-
Acquire reference copies of these
guidebooks
to show and recommend to the lay and professional people you work with,
and/or copy and hand out that summary Web page. You may also...
-
Hand
out copies of this broader reading list
- but first, please read this for
perspective. My clinical experience since 1979 is that most Web
sites and published materials for stepfamily adults are superficial and
anecdotal, and don't provide what co-parents (don't know they) need.
-
Evolve
and hand out a referral list of local human-service professionals, classes, and
support groups offering qualified
help with...
-
single-parenting and parenting troubled
kids, like Parents without Partners, Young Single Parents, Tough Love, and
Mothers Without Custody (MWoC) chapters, and...
-
local 12-step
addiction-management in-patient and recovery groups, or related
information phone numbers
-
lay and professionally-led trauma-recovery
(inner-wound healing) groups - e.g. Children of Toxic Parents, and Adult
Children of Alcoholics (ACoAs).
-
divorce-recovery and support programs and
groups;
-
healthy grief-support, like
Rainbows
and Compassionate Friends, and
peer-support grief-groups for students;
-
effective
parenting
(e.g.
S.T.E.P.), and relationship skills;
-
informed classes for divorced and stepfamily
co-parents, and...
-
stepfamily co-parenting
support groups.
Your colleagues, local mental health
centers, churches, and hospital outpatient departments may have such a
list, or be willing to help compose one.
-
Note
that the defendants in any criminal cases you rule on have the same
basic problems as your domestic and juvenile litigants: (a)
psychological wounds, (b) ignorance of effective communication basics
and skills, and (c) unawareness of surface vs. primary problems
(unfilled needs).
-
To
raise your awareness and motivation, watch for chances to reality-check the
ideas in these articles. Listen for litigants and colleagues' stories about
divorced-family and stepfamily
life, and note...
-
how
and
typical adults and many kids are;
-
how focused they are on reducing current
symptoms, rather than
and filling their current and
future
and...
-
how typical co--parents and supporters
react to what you're trying to alert them to.
A
final major re/divorce-prevention
option you have is to...
-
work with your state and local family-law
system to set up an affordable,
accessible, voluntary or mandatory
seminar or course for average co-parents on the (a) causes
and (b) impacts of divorce on
families - not just kids. Promote an agenda that includes
sections on...
Note
this free 8-module course outline
on most of these topics, based on the premises in this nonprofit
Web site. It's designed for stepfamily co-parents, but most modules
apply to all family adults.
As
you see, there are many things you
can do to help people in and outside your courtroom reduce or prevent future
family-relationship stress, and avoid psychological and legal divorce. Your unique life
circumstances, wisdom, and imagination can generate related ways to help.
Whether you act on these stress prevention options or not, I urge you to
take these three
self assessment steps for the future welfare of you, your
descendents, and your litigants' and colleagues' families.
 Recap
This
is the last of three articles that outline ways
typical human-service professionals like you can
help reduce and prevent
future family conflict, stress, and possible divorce. This article
tailors and extends the ways to fit your role and responsibility as a
domestic-court judge. The ways are...
-
Learn about, and then assess (a) yourself for
psychological
and (b) the nurturance level of your
workplace. Then (c) act
responsibly on your results.
-
Learn about these
and then choose to proactively educate litigants, attorneys, mediators, and
other colleagues on the topics, and weave them into your work; and...
-
Alert legislators, professional review boards, and family-law educators,
committees, and associations on the great need for greater public and
professional awareness on these topics - specially the implications of (a)
widespread psychological wounding, (b) ignorance of effective-communication
skills, (c) improving family nurturance-levels,
and (d) common stepfamily
and
A
key prevention attitude you can choose is to see each court case as
affecting the litigants' whole nuclear family and their descendents, not just
the plaintiff and respondent. Restated: you can limit your moral and legal
responsibility to resolving the current surface charges, or you can
use your authority and knowledge to help people see and reduce the primary
problems that cause the charges. You can choose to educate the people
you work with, as you use the law to force solutions to their current
surface conflicts.
Resources -
consider handing out (a) copies of this article
to your fellow judges on all court levels, and (b) copies of these
prevention articles to the attorneys,
professional mediators,
educators, mental-health pros,
case workers,
police, clergy, and family-law
legislators you work with. Alternatively,
alert them to the Web address of this prevention series of articles:
http://sfhelp.org/prevent/intro.htm.
Reflect - why did you read this article? Did you get what you needed? If
not, what
you need now?
 For
more perspective, read this related prevention article written
to professional motivators.
<<
Prior page
/
Add to favorites
/
Print page
/
Email this article's address
>>
home
/ site overview
/
directory /
site map
/
Q&A /
/
solutions
/
site search
/
glossary
research /
free course /
guidebooks
/
NEW
forums /
resources / feedback
and/or subscribe / *
Created
October 17, 2008
|