Transcript:

Episode 06 – A safe space to speak: Demystifying Child Inclusive Mediation

So hello. Welcome to another episode of the Ebb and Co Mediation podcast. Unbelievably, we said last week or we were talking a bit about child arrangements last week and we touched on child inclusive mediation. Yeah. Also known as CIM. And we thought we’d talk a bit more about that didn’t we. We did. This is episode six I think. Blimey. Yeah. I can’t believe we’ve managed to talk about all these important things in six episodes. Yeah, important to us anyway.

So, yes. Child inclusive mediation. I remember when I was first told about it, because we have to have training so that we know what the process is and things like that. Yeah, there’s probably quite a lot of points to cover on that. Yeah, that’s true. But just an overview of that was when somebody said to me, “child inclusive mediation” or involving the children in mediation, my immediate response to it was absolutely no way. This is a decision for the grown-ups to make. You don’t bring them into this dispute or conflict. And I was really absolutely closed to the idea of it until I went onto the awareness course. And within that short session, I came out a complete convert. It is an amazing, so interesting process, isn’t it?

The Specialist Role of the Child Inclusive Mediator

So we as mediators, well we’re trained in all sorts of things, but we are also required to do this awareness course that you and I have both done, that outlines how and when child inclusive mediation might be appropriate. And all the pros and cons of it. And to raise awareness within family mediation as a whole. And just to look at it and then if, as an individual, you decide this is really something, you can then go on and train to become specifically a child inclusive mediator. Now you or I haven’t done that. No, no it’s a specialism. Yes. So a lot of mediators will be mediating with the couple, for example. And then they will put their child inclusive mediator hat on and then meet the children. Yeah. Other people like us (because we don’t do child inclusive mediation ourselves) we mediate with the couple, and we bring in the specialist to talk with the children.

And actually, I think even if we were child inclusive trained, I would still want to bring somebody in. I would. If it was just you and me, I would come into your case as that couple’s child inclusive mediator. I think that distinction or separation for the parents is really important.

Who is CIM For and the Importance of Consent

But we should come back to how and when you introduce it. General rule is, any family with children of sort of 8 or 10 and above up to 16, 18 years old are able to have child inclusive mediation. I want to say “able to”, it is open to them.

The general route is that the parents will be in mediation, for example, with you and me. And they’ve probably had at least one and possibly two, what we would call usual normal mediation sessions, one of which will have been focused on the children and child arrangements more broadly. And there isn’t a specific criteria where we tick these boxes and therefore this is a natural fit for them. It’s something we will have talked about in their original meetings. Quite often we say, “Okay, there is this option,” and we tell them about it. I suppose the main criteria you’ve already said is about the age of the children. But the other thing that has to get ticked is that both parents agree.

Yes, and this is really the heart of it for parents to understand how it is different, or how it fits in with their whole conversation. And it sort of touches on the point you said earlier where you were so adamant against it, because the thing to remember is the parents are still parents, will always be the parents, and will still always make the decisions about where the kids are going to live and how they’re going to share their time. However, all children have the right to be heard. Yeah, and that, without being too technical, is enshrined in law. To recognise the voice of the child is recognised in various parts of family separation, and mediation’s way of listening to the child or children is giving the parents and children the option to have child inclusive mediation, if it’s right for that family, if they choose to.

If both of them agree that they would like to give their children the opportunity to meet with a specialist mediator in a confidential meeting, where we observe. As long as the parents both agree, then we contact the children. Now, if it’s a nine-year-old, perhaps we shouldn’t contact the child directly. But if they’re a little bit older, quite often we’ll send an email to the children only if parents give their email addresses. We ask the parents to let them know that this is what they’ve asked to happen. There’s quite a lot of preparation, I think even around getting parents’ consent.

Overcoming Parental Nervousness

Yes. I think for a lot of parents their instinctive response is, “The children are fine,” and they don’t want to include them, and they don’t want to ask their opinion. And the other instinctive response, I think, as a parent, I’d be like, “What are my kids going to say about me?” I think there’s a nervousness. And so that instinctive response to not give the children the opportunity to be heard is normal and probably the most common response, at least by one parent. And then I think the other common response is the idea that one or other parent is going to influence the children in advance. So those two areas will need to be thought about and talked about and touched on with the parents. Yes, because the key to remember is that it is for the children. It’s just their chance to talk to somebody about how they feel, how they feel about what’s going on for them in their lives.

Separation is happening to them too. And it can be just with one child. It can be three children seen individually. It could be all three children seen at the same time, or two out of the three children. Yeah, it can be quite flexible. But yes, you’re absolutely right. It’s not taken up that often. No. Despite the mediation world encouraging parents, I mean, there are mediation practices who, as part of their mediation, that’s what they get. It’s very much like “this is how we do things”. So, I mean, before we even get into how it works or what they do, is that actually the power of telling your children, “We really care about what you feel about this, we would like you to be able to speak to someone.” Even if the children say, “No, I don’t want to,” or they say yes, just the fact that their parents care enough about how this is affecting them is already powerful.

I always say that just saying to them, “How would you feel about doing this? We’d be okay if you wanted to do it,” is so powerful. Because the children are taking on all sorts of feelings and responsibilities that aren’t theirs, but they just naturally do. And just to be able to share that with a completely unknown third party in a very relaxed, very friendly setting is extremely powerful. Showing them there’s a window of opportunity for them to lift some of that off is really important.

The Confidentiality of the Process

And so when I was saying earlier about my original reaction being “absolutely not”, it’s understanding that it is not asking them, “How do you want this to be? Who do you want to live with? When do you want to see them?” It’s none of those things. And we do bring in a very experienced child inclusive mediator. She talks to them very, very informally. Yes, she does. And one of the main things that she says to them is that this is confidential. You have control over how much of what you say to me I then relay back to your parents. If at the end of our chat I tell you, “Look, this is what you’ve said. Is there anything that you said that you don’t want me to relay back to your parents?” The child still had all the benefit of that opportunity to talk. Exactly.

To be fair, I’ve never had a child that where I’ve been observing and at the end they go, “Actually, I don’t need you to say anything that I’ve just told you.” It’s never been that. There have been a couple of things like, “Oh, please don’t say about my dad’s girlfriend’s dog being too smelly.” Well, it’ll be something very childlike that they go, “Don’t tell dad that.” But never where they went, “Oh, I don’t want you to tell them anything.” No, no, it is the most amazing process. Like you, I was very uncertain when I thought about how it would work and people feeling that it’s a formal process. It’s absolutely none of those things.

As adults, we all know the power of talking to friends and getting things off your chest. Children don’t normally have that opportunity to experience the power of sharing something difficult and complicated with an independent professional, because they’re young and this is the first time they will come across such an opportunity. But for them to know that their parents care enough to say, “Go on, have a think about this,” and for them to feel the benefit of it is wonderful. It doesn’t happen very often. Sometimes I will probably push it a little bit if the children are of a good age, because the older the better, actually. Sometimes they already think they’re old enough to know what they need.

Quite often people say no because one will say yes and the other one won’t. But as an aside or a follow on to how powerful it can be as parents to say to your children, “We care about you and what you’re feeling, and we want your voice heard.” It’s an amazing thing to be able to, as a parent, stop in the middle of the heat of your own situation, to give your child that chance to say, “We’re here for you.”

Inside the Meeting and Delivering Feedback

So what would happen? The actual process is this. We would meet for at least one session. Then if in agreement they say they feel that this is the right time, we would then invite the child. We do ask the parents to sign off that we can. We basically organise the meeting. It’s online and we bring in our child inclusive mediator and we observe. It’s about a 45-minute meeting on average. It’s not long. And so she would talk with them, and I always use this as an example: she says things like, “What do you love about being at dad’s? What don’t you like? Is there anything that keeps you awake? Anything troubling you?” She uses really good words that the children respond to.

And then at the end of that session, she’ll say, “I’m going to tell you now what you’ve told me, so you can decide if and what you want me to relay to your parents.” And she reads them off. They go away, and then she will meet with the parents and tell them what the children had said in a really constructive, informing way. I always think having watched her that she’s so skilled. The pace, the tone of her questions is completely appropriate to the children. She obviously pitches it differently to an eight and ten-year-old than she might to a 14-year-old. But she’s asking them in such a gentle, approachable way. She’s so used to the slightly silent teenager, she’s very good at just coaxing out some information and reassuring them that it’s their choice.

There are no notes that are kept. She often tears those notes up in front of the children, so that they can genuinely, visually see that nothing is going anywhere. And I think that’s a big point for the parents as well. When the children have left the room, we take a few minutes, and then the mediator will relay that information. She’s absolutely clear to the parents that there is nothing formal about this, nobody’s allowed to quote anything or record it. This is just telling you what your children have said. She’s so skilled. Sometimes I’m sitting there thinking, “I’m so glad I haven’t got to tell them this.” Because sometimes it’s quite brutal, probably the wrong word, but the truth is sometimes kids might say, “I really don’t like it when daddy drinks because he gets really angry.”

Hearing the Child’s Voice and Deciding How to Respond

The one I always remember was about football. The dad was a football coach, a referee helping with the clubs, and one of the children was just not interested and didn’t like spending their time hanging out watching dad playing referee. The message had come from the child, from the sibling, from the ex-partner, and it was only when it was gently delivered in a very approachable way from an independent person that he really heard it.

At the point that she leaves the meeting and we are there with the parents, they’ve heard it. They could choose to do nothing as a result of what they’ve heard, or they can choose to listen to what their children have said and act on it. But it is their choice. Yes. And that’s the point. You’ve given the power to your children to be heard. Don’t take the power away from them and not actually recognise it in some way. You might go, “No, we’re never going to go to Orlando every year.” But don’t take the power away from the children. You don’t have to action it, but at the very least, show an explanation to your children: “I’ve heard this, so we’re going to do this a little bit differently,” or “We’ve heard what you want to say, but we still think this is what’s best for you.” You’re not completely overriding their opinion. You’ve heard it. I’m still mum and dad, and I just have to make the decisions, but hopefully, the child feels they have been heard and something shifted just a little bit, and they were not ignored.

Sometimes we go straight into another mediation session, but now I think you need 24 hours to let it filter through. Selfishly, as impartial mediators, if the feedback from the children has been absolutely one-sided, and it’s been an onslaught potentially on dad or mum, that’s actually very difficult to bring back into the mediation room right away and make sure the dynamic is on an even keel. It’s quite heavy. So I tend to say, “Right, we’re going to come back to this next week or tomorrow,” because otherwise it’s very difficult.

And that circles back around to the preparation in advance for the parents. Nine times out of ten, there’s nothing actively negative, but I have heard them say things that you really would hope that one parent would hear. It’s an “I am saying this, this is my message to you, parent. Please listen.” Because the parents naturally are in their own state of instinctive defence, it requires preparation for what your child may say, and how you are individually and as a couple going to respond to it.

The Unseen Cartwheel: Real Stories of CIM in Action

Bringing this to a close, I just wanted to share the first child inclusive mediation I observed. It was a young girl, she was ten. And when she was talking to the mediator, she said, “I just don’t think they see me and hear me anymore. They’re at the doorstep arguing, and I’ve done my first cartwheel. I’ve been practising it for ages, and I did it, and I fell in a bush.” And it’s a great learning moment that to a ten-year-old, what was important was that they didn’t notice her doing her cartwheel that she’d been practising. They didn’t know. And it is powerful. It is positive. In the right hands and in the right situation, it’s a really positive, powerful thing for both the child and the parents.

The last one I did, one parent went away and we met a week later. I wasn’t sure how that was going to go. But do you know what? That parent had listened when they came to the table. They had a completely different outlook and were far more open to a different arrangement for the children. That’s really powerful and impressive on that parent’s part to have heard it and acted like the grown-up. That is the power of child inclusive mediation if done right.

I think that’s probably it. We’ll have to decide what we can talk about next time. Thank you for listening to the EB & Co. Mediation Podcast. We hope to inform, support and occasionally challenge your thinking when it comes to separation and divorce. We’ll also be joined by guests along the way, bringing fresh insights and perspectives to the conversation. Whether you’re going through a separation, supporting someone who is, or simply curious about how mediation works, we’re really glad you’re here.