New divorce laws focus on children?s needs

Emphasizinga child?s welfare helps parents transcend their bitterness toward each other.

By Bridget Murray
Monitor staff

New divorce laws in Canada and Australia that emphasize children ?s needs above all else are models that professionals and parents worldwide can learn from and emulate, agreed speakers and audience members at an International Congress session on divorce. The session was sponsored by APA?s Committee on International Relations in Psychology.

Australia?s divorce laws are perhaps the most child-friendly of all?basing divorce settlements solely on what best suits children, according to audience members at the session.

People around the world handle divorce differently, depending on their culture, legal system and social and economic situation, said Florence Kaslow, PhD, the session?s chair and director of the Florida Couples and Family Institute in Palm Beach.

'But the one commonality in every country is that therapists, mediators, lawyers and judges should always be primarily concerned with the best interests of the children,' said Kaslow, who is president of the International Academy of Family Psychology.

No matter where it occurs, a parental split shatters the constancy in children?s lives, Kaslow said. That?s why, the panelists concurred, divorce settlements should start by providing children with a regular schedule and sense of stability, as they do in Australia and Canada.

'If we focus in on the child?s needs?what will best structure their lives, promote healthy growth and keep them from having to choose between parents?we?ll help take away some of that awful noxious anger between divorcing parents,' said Lilli Friedland, PhD, a family systems psychologist in Los Angeles, who delivered a paper written by psychologist Barbara Wainrib, EdD, of McGill University in Montreal.

Severing the marital ties

Before planning for their children?s needs, however, a divorcing couple must often negotiate the secular, religious and cultural issues entailed in divorce, said the panelists. This requires sensitivity from therapists, particularly those working outside their own country or in a country of multiple cultures and nationalities, speakers said. 'Divorce requires couples to make rational decisions at a time when their feelings are really quite irrational,' said Kaslow.

In every country divorce is a religious and civil matter. And in some countries, religious laws can intensify a couple?s distress, said Kaslow. In Catholic countries such as Poland and Italy, for example, the church stigmatizes divorce as 'the end of a marriage in the eyes of God.' To remarry in those countries, people must annul their first marriage, which requires that they claim they lied about certain aspects of that marriage.

'How do you explain to a child that the marriage didn?t really happen because one of your parents lied, but it really did happen so that you?re not illegitimate?' said Kaslow. 'That really is upsetting to children who are already being exposed to their family coming apart at the seams.'

Another country where divorce rules can pose difficulty is Israel, where the rabbinical courts require that husbands consent to the final divorce. That?s why Israeli helping professionals recommend that couples in disagreement seek arbitration aid from professionals before filing for divorce, said speaker Esther Halpern, PhD, of Tel Aviv University. Arbitration helps them agree on their need for a divorce.

Planning for postdivorce life

Psychologists and other divorce therapists can help couples clear the cultural and religious hurdles of divorce and aid them with their postdivorce financial and family plans as well, said panelists at the session.

To secure a divorce under some countries? religious and secular laws, one spouse must prove that the other is at fault for problems such as physical or sexual abuse or alcoholism. In those countries, men typically pay alimony to their former wives after the divorce, as is still true in many divorce cases in the United States.

But, increasingly, the United States, Canada and other Western countries embrace a more 'egalitarian' divorce model, said Kaslow. Canadian and U.S. courts hold both spouses responsible for choosing divorce and ending the marriage, instead of blaming one or the other. Many American states use a salary-based formula to determine how much each spouse will pay in child support, panelists noted. And Canada?s laws also require spouses to share the task of financially supporting the children instead of holding only the father responsible, according to Wainrib?s paper.

Canadian law also goes a step beyond U.S. divorce law by calling for the financial self-sufficiency of each spouse. Though well-meaning, this clause has 'created more difficulty than help for some divorcing women,' particularly those with small children, said Wainrib.

The mores of parental custody also differ across nations. In Arab countries, for example, authorities place the children with their father, who is considered their rightful owner. Israeli courts favor granting the mother custody, although the rabbinical courts tend to place boys older than 8 with their father when there is disagreement between the parents. Both courts prefer that parents decide about custody, keeping the welfare of the child in mind. And U.S. courts tend to favor shared parental custody of children. Children shuttle between each of their parents? homes, according to a pre-determined schedule.

No matter what the custodial arrangement, Friedland recommended that it put children?s happiness first?a priority countries increasingly emphasize, with Australia and Canada in the lead. Focusing on the child?s welfare, and not their own, helps parents transcend their bitterness toward one another, she said.