Let's All Sit In A Circle, Hold Hands, and Sing Kumbaya . . . What? Really? The Problem With Mediation, Collaboration and Parental Alienation

We lawyers (and judges too) do not like to admit that we cannot control human behavior.  It's a fact.  We adopt all kinds of crazy ideas to try to manage it, but most of us fail to recognize the basic idea that the law is designed for one thing, and only one thing, to regulate, but not control the way we humans treat each other.  Nowhere is this more true than in cases involving parental alienation or, to put it in a more politically-correct frame, "high-conflict" custody cases.

The recent Michigan case involving a judge who sent three children to juvenile detention for refusing to have lunch with their father is a case in point.  One commentator (by the way, a family law attorney in the jurisdiction where the case was heard) opined  that the local parent education class which consists of a single, hour-long session where parents are encouraged to be nice to each other might be more effective if parents only got to it sooner, or perhaps avoided court altogether.  

Nonsense.  

The fact is, there are simply no good solutions the law has to offer when alienation is occurring.  And it is occurring more and more often.  Not because of lawyers.  Not because of divorce.  And not because of family violence.  It is occurring because of plain, old-fashioned selfishness.  A parent who sees a child as his or her property will do whatever he or she needs to do to punish the other parent, including taking the child as an emotional, and often physical, hostage.  And the law is not equipped to handle these situations as long as the law is not willing to be the grownup.

I disagree with throwing kids in detention, but in the Michigan case it wouldn't have hurt to have thrown mom in jail.  In fact, when courts are willing to step up and make the hard choices, to call this kind of behavior by what it is --- child abuse --- and to hold alienating parents accountable by whatever means appears most likely to be effective --- jail, no-contact with the children (for the alienating party), or even termination of parental rights --- instead of sending them to parenting classes, mediation, therapy or kumbaya sessions with the non-alienating parent --- then, and only then, will this problem begin to subside.

The law cannot make folks be nice to each other.  What it can do is make a decision.  Say "No!" to this form of child abuse.