When the country’s highest court stopped to listen to a fourteen year old, it reminded the rest of us of something that is easy to forget in the middle of a separation.
On 17 September the Supreme Court handed down its judgment in the Petition of DM, a case about two brothers who travelled from Florida to Scotland for a summer holiday and did not go home. The legal question was technical. The human one was not. The older boy, aged fourteen, had a view about where he wanted to live, and the court below had set that view aside entirely.
The Supreme Court said that was wrong. Where a child is old enough and mature enough to form a view, that view belongs in the analysis. It does not decide the outcome, and the court was careful about that distinction, but it can no longer be left out of the room.
Most families we work with in Saffron Walden will never find themselves in an international abduction case. Even so, this judgment lands squarely on something that comes up in almost every mediation we hold: how do we make decisions about children without talking past them?
What the ruling actually says
The case turned on Article 13(b) of the Hague Convention, the provision that allows a court to refuse to return a child where doing so would expose them to grave harm. The mother argued that her own mental health made a return unsafe for the boys. The father asked for their return.
The Inner House in Scotland had excluded the teenager’s views from that assessment altogether. The Supreme Court unanimously disagreed, holding that a child’s perspective forms part of the picture that must be weighed. One of the solicitors commenting on the case put it well, warning of the danger that proceedings about children become arguments conducted entirely through the evidence of parents.
That warning is worth sitting with, because it describes a great many separations that never get near a court at all.
Being heard is not the same as being in charge
Parents often hesitate at this point, and the hesitation is a fair one. Nobody wants to hand a ten year old the weight of choosing between their mother and their father. That is not a decision a child should carry, and any mediator who suggested otherwise would be doing real harm.
The distinction the Supreme Court drew is the same one we draw at the kitchen table. A child can tell you that Wednesday handovers at the school gate make them anxious, that they are tired of never having their football boots in the right house, that they would rather see Dad on a Saturday than a Sunday because of training. None of that asks them to choose a parent. All of it makes the arrangement work better.
Children usually know a great deal about what is and is not working. They are simply rarely asked in a way that feels safe to answer.
What child inclusive mediation looks like in practice
Child inclusive mediation is a structured way of doing exactly that. A specially trained mediator meets the child on their own, usually for a single session of around forty five minutes. A few things make it work:
- It is voluntary. The child is invited and can decline, and declining is a perfectly good answer.
- It is confidential by default. The child decides what, if anything, is passed back to their parents, and the mediator agrees that with them before a word is said.
- It is not an assessment. Nobody is scoring the parents or building a case, and no report goes to a court.
- It works best once parents have already started talking. It improves a developing plan far more reliably than it breaks a deadlock between two entrenched positions.
What comes back to parents is often quieter than they expect. Not a verdict, but one piece of information that unlocks something: the reason a child goes silent on Sunday evenings, or the fact that they have been carefully managing both parents’ feelings for months and are worn out by it.
Why this matters more when money is tight
There is a practical dimension too. Court timetables remain long, and the cost of a contested children matter can be considerable. Families under financial pressure often settle arrangements quickly and informally, which works well enough until the arrangement stops fitting and nobody has a way to revisit it.
Mediation gives you that mechanism. It is quicker, it costs a fraction of contested proceedings, and the arrangement stays yours rather than being imposed by someone who has met your family for an hour. You can see what we charge on our prices page, and there is no obligation in simply finding out whether your situation is suitable.
Where to start
If you are separating and your children are old enough to hold opinions, which is younger than most of us assume, it is worth asking whether their voice has actually reached your planning, or whether you and your former partner have been speaking on their behalf throughout.
- Our mediation page explains how the process works and what to expect from a first meeting.
- We keep a page written directly for young people whose parents have separated, which some parents prefer to share with their teenagers rather than explain themselves.
- If you are unsure whether this is the right moment, a MIAM is a low pressure way to ask the question.
The Supreme Court spent a good deal of time this month deciding that a fourteen year old boy’s opinion deserved a place in a serious conversation about his own life. Most of us can reach the same conclusion rather more quickly, and without the legal fees.
If you would like to talk about whether child inclusive mediation would suit your family, we are always happy to have that conversation first.
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