Chicago Divorce Attorney Blog

As divorce attorneys in DuPage County and Cook County, IL, we are regularly involved in child custody, visitation, and other parenting disputes. This often makes us privy to some of the special parenting recommendations that child experts bring to the attention of judges and parents. Among these are:

When you are with the children, do not refer to the other parent as "Your mother" or "Your father." Instead, say, "Did mom enjoy the card you gave her?" It is critical that you always refer to the other parent as mom or dad.

Remember that one of the best ways to make divorce less painful for your children is to act pleasantly toward the other parent. The two of you are the center of each child's world and he or she needs to know that you like one another.

Be sure each child has advance notice of where he or she will be staying each night. Children need the security of knowing what they will be doing and where they will be doing it.

You cannot tell your children too frequently, how much you love them and how lucky they are to have so many other people also loving them.

TMZ has just reported Heidi Montag has just retained an attorney to begin divorce proceedings against her husband, Spencer Pratt.

The couple plans to begin mediation sessions within the next two weeks and they are shooting to get the entire divorce concluded in six months. TMZ did not mention if the couple had an ante nuptial or pre-nuptial agreement.

Mediation is a non-court settlement oriented process that helps disputing parties resolve their differences sensibly and without unnecessary legal complications or expense.
Mediation helps the parties negotiate the settlement themselves.The mediator, a neutral and impartial third person, merely guides the parties' one-on-one negotiations with one another. The mediator directs the flow of conversation in a manner that allows each spouse to present his or her concerns and settlement terms in the best possible light.

We all hope to avoid divorce court and mediation is intended to help us accomplish this. It creates a setting where settlement becomes possible. The mediator's training enables him or her to pose questions to the parties in a manner that helps them to listen better and to express their thoughts in a constructive manner, instead of a destructive one.

Mediation works. It tames anger and stubbornness and helps disputants to get their point across without aggravating one another.

This post is part of the divorce information insights that divorce law firms have access to, and are not easily available to the public.

Divorcing parents should strive to build a firewall between their marital problems and the children. They should not discuss child support, joint custody, sole custody, visitation rights, or other parenting issues with the children. Children suffer the least when their parents remove them from the conflict. And, be sure you do not bring your children to court or to your lawyer's office.

Never pump the children for information about the other parent or use them to carry angry messages back and forth. Never ask your children with whom they want to live or use them to deliver support payments or bills.

Avoid speaking derogatorily about the other parent or arguing in front of them. Above all, never ask a child to keep a secret from the other parent.

Do not look sad when your child leaves to see the other parent. Greet your ex and your children with a smile upon their return (more about this in the next post). Be supportive and positive about their relationship with the other parent and reassure them that they can still count on both of you for love and support.

Significant divorce information is now available to help parents ease the pain that their children are likely to face.

Children may have feelings of guilt about their parents divorce. Be sure to actually tell each child individually that he or she is not the cause of the divorce, and will always be loved by each of you. It helps if both parents are present when making this all-important point to the children that they did not cause the divorce.

To make their blamelessness more credible, children need to see their parents as reasonable and rational people who have made the decision to end their relationship in a careful and thoughtful way. Never make your kids feel awkward or uncomfortable about loving the other parent.

Divorced parents who share parenting time with the children need to set up in advance and follow a routine schedule for visitation. Always let the child know when he or she will see the absent parent. The custodial parent should have children ready in time for visitation and should be home in time to receive the children. The visiting parent should be prompt for pickup and drop-off.

Both parents should try to avoid canceling plans with the children. The visiting parent should establish a space in his or her home for the children and provide a private space for their belongings.

Children need their parents to tell them, in an age-appropriate way, why the parents are divorcing, and how the divorce will affect them. They do not need to have the details.

Keep your statements simple when talking to the children. For example: "I still love your daddy, but in a different way." Or, "Divorce is something only adults understand." Or, "We tried to make things work out but it just wasn't meant to be." Or, "You will understand when you are older."

They must be given a commitment as to when they will see the absent parent again. The visiting parent should bring the child to his or her new home as soon as possible so that the child can inspect it and become comfortable there.

Both parents must transmit a positive feeling that everything is going to be OK. Children have no way of controlling the situation, so they must count on you to make things OK. Divorce is about your children, it is not about you.

Your children's futures are in your hands. No matter how your partner behaves toward the children, it only takes you to make a difference.

As Illinois divorce attorneys we see our share of child custody and child support disputes that have the effect of hurting the children. However, children can also be negatively affected even in easy divorces where the parents mean well, but innocently say or do something that is harmful to their children.

Some of this unnecessary harm can be avoided when the parents know what the children are thinking.

Children of divorce often worry about their futures as much as their parents do. The troublesome thoughts begin when they become aware of their parentaves' situation.

Younger children worry about whether they will have a roof over their heads; older children worry about whether they will have to move, change schools, and lose friends.

They worry about whether the absent parent is lonely and how and where he (or she) eats and sleeps. They want to know where that parent has gone because they feel that he or she has vanished. Children also worry about whether the parent remaining in the family home will be able to manage.

Children who worry about an impending divorce pose new challenges to their mom and dad's parenting skills. Special times require special insights, and knowing how to parent through a divorce is not something that any of us are prepared for.

Our listing of specific parenting tips begins in the next post.

Getting Your Child to Open Up

An impending divorce presents new challenges to our parenting skills. Sadly, society does not adequately prepare us for the enormity of what we are facing.

As partners in a divorce law firm that handles child custody and parenting issues in both DuPage and Cook Counties, we have access to some of the finest child psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and other specialists that the Chicago metropolitan area has to offer.

This gives us a unique opportunity to become familiar with many valuable professional parenting tips and insights that are not normally or readily available to the public. This blog will share them with you.

A good place to start is by realizing that children of divorce will experience new thoughts and feelings that they cannot share with their parents. They simply do not have the tools to open up and tell us what is bothering them.

However, they will talk to a trained professional and this is why divorce lawyers recommend this avenue as often as they do.

There are also several little-known, but extremely valuable, things that parents can say and do to ease their children's distress.

We intend to cover every one of these in the posts that follow.

Most friendly divorces are more than luck and usually require some restraint and diplomacy.

Anticipate that the two of you will not see eye-to-eye on many issues and prepare yourself to be patient. Settlements rarely happen on the first try.

When the settlement conversations begin, explain to your spouse that you will make every attempt to hear them out, even if you are in total disagreement with what they are saying.

Acknowledge that you will naturally favor what is best for you and promise that you will try to overcome this bias. Ask your spouse if he or she might be willing to do the same.

Give your partner many opportunities to explain how they see things and never brush off anything they say. What they are trying to get across is important to them, so it is essential that you act as if it is also important to you.

It is particularly important that you do not appear to have generalized their position to be only what you expected it to be.

Try to avoid any discussion of fairness. What you think is "fair" is meaningless to the person you are trying to persuade.

One-on-one divorce settlement conversations with your spouse are doomed if either of you fails to demonstrate good listening skills.

You have the right to plead your case, but you do not have the right to make your partner listen.

Listening and hearing are not the same. Hearing without listening runs rampant in divorce and it causes wars.

Getting your partner to hear your side is not enough to influence their settlement wishes, you must make it appealing for them to listen to why you believe your position is righteous.

You do not do this by talking about yourself, or about what you want until you first ask to hear their viewpoint--and you listen to it fully and with compassion.

Since you cannot count on your partner to take the initiative, the job of being the first to do the serious listening is up to you. Only you can break the downward spiral of resistance, stubbornness, and obstinacy.

Careful listening shows your willingness to consider their point of view, and makes it easier for them to consider your point of view.

If you do not listen to their concerns first, they will never listen to yours, and you both lose.

You will never have any control over the fury and cost of your divorce if you cannot communicate properly with your spouse. Some suggestions for keeping your divorce cooperative are:

Try not to impose your values or biases on your spouse with emotion-laden statements such as, "A decent person wouldn't do what you did." Monitor your body language or facial expressions to avoid registering obvious disapproval of something your spouse says.

If you disagree strongly with your spouse's offer, do not put them down for suggesting it. Validate their suggestion as a possibility, politely explain why you disagree, and then ask for their help in coming up with "something we both might like."

If your spouse's answer is "no," keep in mind that a no is rarely final. Interpret their no as more of a starting point than as an ending point.

Always allow for a three-second delay before responding to something your partner says. This short delay indicates that you were listening to their words and that you took the time to let them sink in.

Be sure your spouse speaks more than you do. You can't negotiate with anyone until you know what they're thinking, and you can't know what they are thinking if they do not have ample opportunity to speak.

Divorce settlements fail when our biased view of things allows us to see only our own "truth." We focus so intently on the truth we are trying to explain, that we block ourselves from hearing what the other side has to say. Here's the real truth: We will persuade our spouse to be cooperative by listening to what they need to say, not by saying what we think needs to be said.

All too often there is a tendency to become hard of hearing during divorce settlement talks. We think we know what our spouse is going to say, we know it supports their view, not ours, and we know they are wrong. We do so much of our "listening" only to give us ammo for a "Yes, but..." response or to find something to attack. We don't give two hoots about what they think or why they think it and can't stand listening to a view contrary to our own.

Our soon-to-be-ex does not care about what we feel or think. They only care about what they feel and think. But we don't win arguments by talking, we do it by listening. No one ever changes their mind until they know they have been heard.

Effectively maintaining a line of communication during your divorce can be as simple as using the proper tone of voice. Concern and sincerity can be reflected through inflection and pitch--as can lack of concern and insincerity. Tone of voice can move you in the right direction or back you into a corner.

Tones of voice can be contagious. Adopt the same pace of speech that your spouse uses--not faster or slower, not louder or softer. Keep in mind that how you ask for something is often just as important as what you are asking for.

Even the least antagonistic remarks will hurt you if you use the wrong tone when stating them. Never sound like you are challenging or confronting your spouse.

Rather, speak in a tone of voice that demonstrates that you wish to know more about where your partner is coming from. Let your pitch and inflection demonstrate that you are genuinely interested in getting a clear understanding of their settlement position and of the thought that went into it.

Finally, keep your volume in check. A loud voice never convinces anyone of anything; it does just the opposite and virtually insures that your spouse will tune you out.

It is important for divorcing couples to be able to communicate with one another. However, this is often difficult to accomplish, considering the emotional turmoil of the dissolution process.

The best way to keep the lines of communication open is to ask questions in response to your spouse's oppositional statements, instead of differing with them. Pose questions that delve into the reasons behind your partner's thinking.

Here are some questions that can help you maintain a meaningful dialogue:

What is your number one concern?

Can you name one or two things that I can do to tempt you to say yes?

Asking questions helps to avoid negativity and softens opposition. Questions suggest that you are open to considering more than just your own wishes, and this is significant because the best way to persuade is to show that you can be persuaded.

The pain that divorcing spouses experience is impossible to suppress for very long. We wear it on our sleeves and express it through our language. It hinders our ability to think and interact constructively. How we communicate with our spouse has a direct effect on the outcome of our divorce. The language we use--wording, tone of voice and body language--is extremely important.

One of the worst offenders in the lexicon of divorcing couples is "you're." This nasty contraction too often shows up in such sentences as:

"You're being stubborn."
"You're impossible to talk to"
"You're always belittling me."
"You're a neat freak."

A less antagonistic way to express your disapproval is by using I statements, e.g., "When I hear you say things like this, I feel as though you have already made up your mind," or, "I really feel hurt when you talk about my not being as neat as you."

I statements allow you to get your point across safely because you are merely reporting how you feel about something you don't like. You statements simply criticize your spouse and serve no useful purpose whatsoever.

Sometimes it only takes a few well-chosen words to change the tone and direction of your spousal divorce settlement conversations.

No one ever told us how important it is to do what we can to reduce our soon-to-be ex spouse's anxiety during the divorce. It gives us our best chance of getting our point across when we are discussing settlement terms with them.

In Part I of this post, we touched upon the importance of communicating without arguing and showing our partner that we do not dismiss their feelings and concerns. I cannot imagine how many of us have unwittingly derailed our own divorce settlement negotiations by not showing respect for our partner's position.

Instead, we did what society programmed us to do. We told them that their viewpoint was wrong and we tried to convince them that ours was righteous and just.This approach does not make many friends and it does not keep divorces out of court. It represents exactly what not to do because it is confrontational and it breeds anxiety.

Anxiety prevents our spouse from understanding what they need to understand if we hope to get them to understand where we are coming from. Reduce their anxiety and reduce the frustration and cost of your divorce.