Concerns About the Children?

I would say that, more often than not, the main concern that couples have are the children.

What is going to happen to the kids when the couple are separating? What we discuss in mediation are a lot of the issues, all of the issues, in fact, around the children. We not only discuss the different types of custody arrangements there are, but we discuss child support. Then we talk about a parenting plan, a very detailed parenting plan, so that not only the children, but the parents know when they are going to have access to the children.

We also talk about unreimbursed medical expenses for the kids and how that would be paid for. That would include the co-pays, for example, or if a doctor that the children might be seeing is out of the health insurance plan. We also talk about extracurricular activities for the children and how that would be paid for. We also talk about college education and how they plan to pay for the children’s college education. In other words, all of the decisions that the couple generally make kind of unwittingly, living under one roof, now we have to unbundle those decisions and help the couple figure out how they’re going to co-parent their children going into the future.