Power Imbalance or Empowerment Shift?
What is mediation supposed to achieve anyway?
For people who negotiate during mediation, this is an interesting question. First off Sossi, what are you talking about?
For many professionals, mediation is all about a negotiation, it is about both parties evaluating their client's apparent strengths and weaknesses. If 50/50 shared custody is being requested by the opposing side the attorneys will be positioning at mediation with offers and counteroffers looking straight to the facts before us and the legal basis behind the claim. Attorneys might assess their position from the cash flow that their client may have or not have, their clients wish to maintain or abandon the conflict they are faced with.
From our power position, the attorneys conduct the mediation. This works perfectly for parties who do not have to relate to one another. Framing orders to control how the parties will interact may be a fantastic way to control bad behavior.
Did you achieve the best result at mediation? Did the mediation outcome result in one that the parties can live with but don't necessarily agree wholeheartedly to?
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Before attending mediation can you start to look at the mediation with a different view? These people aren't just parties, they're like you know people! What are the party's goals? What if the party's wish was to co-parent? I mean like really co-parent? What if the parties wish is to listen understand and respond to the other party?
So mediation can be about facilitating dialogue between the parties where they are at the moment. Getting the parents to listen understand and respond gives them the best chance to make decisions when they are calm and collective thought and not from anger, fear, or self-absorption. Was the conflict actual or based simply on a misunderstanding? Moving these parents from warring exes to effective co-parents is all about the empowerment shift that happens at mediation.
Mediation at this point means change and has the effect of moving these parties toward a more stable situation. Benefits of relational mediation. parents are more flexible, collaborative, and creative. Heck, there must be some kind of benefit I keep talking about it!