January is National Child-Centered Divorce Awareness Month

CCDG’s Divorce Experts Recognize ‘Children are a Parent’s Most Precious Gift’ and Offer Services & Resources to Prioritize the Needs of Children

The month of January tends to see a spike in divorce filings, so it is no coincidence that January is recognized as National Child-Centered Divorce Awareness Month, a time dedicated to alerting parents about the effects of divorce on children – and how to prevent emotional and psychological damage to children during and after a divorce.

Children end up in the middle of many divorce cases, and when the parties are angry, that anger spills over and affects the children. In hotly contested cases, the warring parties are sometimes looking out for what is best for them and not what is best for the children. Those decisions have profound effects on children for the rest of their lives. And in some cases, people try to keep unhappy marriages together for years, expressly for the sake of the children.

“Parents often feel and express that their children are their most precious gift,” said Wendy Habelow, Ph.D., a psychologist with the Connecticut Collaborative Divorce Group (CCDG), a group of professionals that aims to keep divorcing couples in Connecticut and their children out of court using a method of family conflict resolution called Collaborative Divorce. “Parents can accept separating from a partner or leaving a home or town, but they often dread the thought of separating from their children and spending less time with them.  They fear how the children will cope being away from them or how they will manage living separately with the other parent and worry whether they will be sad or anxious.”

Collaborative Divorce is arguably the best approach to divorce when children are involved. With a collaborative team made up of a lawyer, a financial expert and a mental health specialist, everyone works to be on the same page to promote a peaceful situation that can breed cooperative co-parenting, and parents can create an individualized and detailed collaborative agreement that best suits their family’s needs.

“A collaborative divorce allows a couple to reach a full agreement, including a parenting plan, in a dignified manner with the assistance of a team of professionals,” added Frederick F. Ward II, an attorney with the CCDG. “The professional team consists of two non-adversarial attorneys, a psychologist and a neutral financial person. These days, all meetings of the professionals and the parties can be held in a virtual manner via Zoom.”

Unlike a litigated divorce, Collaborative Divorce gives couples more control over the outcome of their separation. Rather than having a judge decide the family’s future through litigation, Collaborative Divorce allows couples to make flexible agreements that address the financial, psychological and legal aspects of divorce. In addition to often being less expensive than a litigated divorce, Collaborative Divorce takes the entire family into account.

“Collaborative divorce puts the needs of children at the center of the process that prioritizes parents as the chief decision makers rather than attorneys or judges, because parents are the people with the most knowledge and insight regarding the needs and interests of their children,” Habelow said. “In a litigated divorce, the attorneys and courts are front and center of a process that often is adversarial, disempowering of parents and characterized by fighting to win. The collaborative process, by contrast, puts the children and parents at the center of the process by teaching parents how to work together to resolve disagreements, with trained professionals who use a team approach to help guide parents as they need to a divorce plan that is civil, respectful, and sustainable.”