Many Kentucky parents want their children to be affected by their divorces as little as possible. For this reason, they may try mediation in order to resolve their child custody issues since it is less adversarial than going to court. However, not every couple benefits from this process. How do they know when it just isn’t working?
Parents who cannot stay on track because they keep diverting their attention to other topics may not be fully invested in the mediation process. On the other hand, some of them go over and over the same topics without every actually finding a resolution to the topic. In either case, the process usually does not work.
Other things can also make mediation efforts fruitless. For instance, when the parents are unable to stop arguing or taking jabs at each other, this particular venue may not be the right one to resolve custody issues. Mediation relies on compromise and cooperation, which do not often happen under these circumstances. Most likely, mediation is also taking far longer than it should due to the above issues.
It may be possible to save the situation, but if not, it may be necessary to prepare for a court hearing. Of course, Kentucky parents facing similar circumstances do not necessarily need to start from scratch. Any issues that were resolved through mediation can carry over into court. Only those issues the parties were not able to resolve on their own need attention from the judge. The other thing parents may want to remember is that just because they could not resolve all their child custody issues through mediation does not mean they will not be able to work together to continue raising their children post-divorce, so any progress is good progress.