Any court action for child custody, including initial actions, modifications of custody, and motions in the cause, requires that the parties attend court ordered mediation. Mediation is your opportunity to settle matters without the financial, time, or emotional cost of a trial of your matter. Mediation is most effective if you take some time to think about what is best for your child or children and how you can help reach that goal. Please review the following guidelines and use them to help you prepare for your mediation.

1. Do not rehash what went wrong in your marriage; this is not a counseling session.
2. Bring two things with you to the mediation: your best case scenario, and your bottom line. Settle for anything in between those two places.
3. Do not forget what your concerns are. If it is alcohol, stay firm on your requirement that there be no drinking around the children, if it is making decisions about religion, put in that you will be the decision maker on that issue, whatever is important to you, this is the time to make sure it is in there because once it becomes an order, you cannot add terms. If you are the party against whom the restriction is sought, consider if the rule is justified or if you can live with it, if appropriate, make it mutual.
4. Remember you do not have to agree. If the other side will not move from his or her position, you do not have to agree with it.
5. Remember you can compromise, even if the other parent never gave a bath or changed a diaper, that doesn’t mean he or she can’t do it. If the inactive parent turns into Super Parent, it may be a better situation for the child than when you were together.
6. Regardless of what they say at mediation, it is not that easy to change the parenting agreement once it is entered. Do not agree to something that you can’t live with.
7. Even if you and your child’s other parent are getting along really well and hope to get back together, enter into the mediation as if that is not going to happen. You need to craft an agreement that you can use if/when you are not getting along.
8. Be mindful to the time asked for. If the days requested by the other parent miraculously total 123, or, on the other hand refuse to budge past 121, it is probable that money is guiding the desire for time. Don’t deny time based solely on money considerations, but be mindful of these issues.
9. Child Custody mediation does not include settlement of child support, nor is the right to visitation conditioned on payment of support.
10. Visitation is not your child’s choice. It isn’t fair to anyone, parents or child, to place such an important decision in the hands of a child. You wouldn’t let your child decide not to go to school, or not to wear his seatbelt, this decision isn’t his to make either. But be mindful that your child has emotions, too. It may be that your child needs to heal from the separation, or from the alienating behaviors of a party. Try to set up a plan that will work, building towards more, not less time with each party.