What to Expect in Family Mediation

So you're cruising through life, everything's going well, when suddenly, the unthinkable happens. A vital relationship begins to suffer strain, and even though you've tried your hardest to prevent it, it's time to admit that the relationship is at the breaking point. Maybe it's your relationship with your parents, your spouse, your children... anybody. But whoever it is, you've hit the point where somebody has said, "If you want to save the relationship, you need to try mediation."

Mediation. The mere word sounds intimidating, doesn't it? Like some kind of psychology-speak for talking and talking until everybody is faking happiness, and you can't imagine how that could be beneficial. But, people are suggesting you try mediation, and the relationship really matters to you, so you've got to try, right? But the question still lingers: exactly what is mediation, anyway?

Well, first, let's talk about what it's not.

Mediation is not arbitration. Arbitration is when two people, or two groups of people, each have time to share their complaints with an unbiased third party. This person probably will ask questions, and encourage dialog between the two sides, but his main purpose for being involved is to render a verdict at the end of the discussions. The third party decides who is right, who is wrong, and what should be done about it. It can be a final, legally-binding decision, but it doesn't have to be. It depends on what the people need to get out of the situation.

Mediation is not family counseling. Counseling involves both sides airing their complaints, in an orderly fashion, with an unbiased person acting as a counselor, to listen. The counselor's job is to intervene when people get off-track or when the discussion ceases to be productive. His job is also to make suggestions to help address problems when people aren't meeting eye to eye. He analyzes what each side has to say, and makes sure that communication is effective. He also suggests homework and activities for the two sides to participate in, between counseling sessions, in order to first save, and then improve the strained relationships.

Well, what's left then? Glad you asked! Mediation is, quite simply, communication, but with a lifeguard present. A mediator, who is often a trained mental health professional, simply helps two sides create some guidelines about communication, to stop or at least slow the degeneration of the relationship. A mediator asks each side what they are willing to do, to communicate. A mediator also tries to find the common ground, the part of life that the two sides agree upon, which is often a lot bigger than the part they can't come to an agreement on. A mediator's goal, and the goal of mediation overall, is to create a framework in which the two sides can communicate without coming to blows, so that, if needed, a family counselor can step in and begin to help heal the damage that's been created, often through simple poor communication. A person who mediates may also counsel or arbitrate, depending on the role he's chosen to take, but the goal of the person, while he is wearing the mediator hat, is simply to create communication, and be sure all sides are able to handle that communication, even when it comes to the hot-button issues.

Okay, so that's all well and good, and it doesn't sound all that intimidating anymore, but what's it really like to go through mediation? Allow me to share a personal story, to demonstrate. Our son is currently in mediation with his birthparents. This comes after years of very difficult communication, including their choice to spread some interesting rumors that destroyed family and social relationships for our family. It would have been very easy for us to simply cut all contact. However, our son asked to pursue mediation. We wanted to say no, but he has already lost his innate rights to be safe, loved, and nurtured within his birthfamily. It was not in his best interest to lose all contact with them as well. So, we agreed to try this mediation thing. We did not expect anything good to come of it. We had very low hopes, and we were very jaded about the whole mess. Many families come into mediation with similar expectations. His birthparents chose a psychologist, a long-time family friend of theirs, to mediate, and we had no say in this. Our son was so afraid of the psychologist that our first meeting with our supposedly-neutral mediator was in a fast-food restaurant over an hour away from our home!

In this first meeting with our mediator, he introduced himself, and took some time to chat with us about our life as a family, and his professional knowledge of the issues our son faces due to older-child adoption, and due to needing to be adopted in the first place. We found that we had some common interests with the mediator. We share the same religious faith, both with the mediator and with the birthparents, and this was something that we didn't think mattered so much, but it turned out to be really helpful for everybody involved. The mediator was able to speak to our faith-based perspectives on raising this child who belongs to two families, and he was able to understand where we were coming from. In our case, the mediator, Paul, knew that we and our son were apprehensive about mediation, so he followed up twice by phone in the following weeks, in order that we could continue to build trust and a healthy working partnership with him. This was vital to us, because the other "side" had chosen Paul, and knew him well. Through this time, we came to learn that we could trust this person to be unbiased and genuine, with everybody involved. So, we scheduled a mediation session.

It's tougher than it sounds, to schedule a mediation session! Before we could do this, we had to agree upon a time, date, and place. These things were fairly easy. Paul's office made perfect neutral ground. But, we also had to decide who would be present at the session. The birthparents didn't want to pursue mediation with us there, because they believe we caused the communication problem. Our son didn't want to pursue mediation without us there, because things were so bad that he feared being hurt, emotionally and physically. Paul, our mediator, was able to explain to his birthparents, his need to have us present. He was able to negotiate a plan in which we would sit silently, and simply be there. We could speak up if needed, but for the most part, our role would be to act as statues. This really didn't address the issue of our needing to communicate with our son's birthparents to help them to understand the emotional issues our son faced, but at least they were talking! Once the terms of meeting were agreed upon, we were able to set a date for our first mediation session.

In the first session, Paul explained again what his role would be, as a mediator and little else. He took our son first into his office alone, to discuss and make notes on the problems in the relationship, and then he took our son's birthparents in and repeated the exercise. During the session, the two sides were able to discuss concerns that they had. Our son accused his birthparents of lying and manipulating him. The mediator was able to get him to explain that he felt lied to because he was told his grandfather had congestive heart failure, but when he visited the man, everything seemed fine. His birthparents were able to explain the nature of congestive heart failure, and the way that it doesn't bring a quick death. We were able to interject that the reason our son expected his grandfather to look terrible, was that his grandfather in our family had died of congestive heart failure just a few weeks prior, and our family had been with him in his final hours. Our mediator used this information to help our son and his birthparents understand one another. They had not lied to our son, nor manipulated him to get him to visit them, to see a dying grandparent. They simply didn't realize what he was hearing in their words. Once this was addressed, our mediator was able to get on to the next issue. Our son's birthparents accused him of not wanting anything to do with them. The mediator was able to get them to explain that they felt this way because he asked them not to contact him anymore. He was able to explain to them that the reason he had done that was that in a year's time, they had only called twice, and that every time he called them, the call ended in an argument, and much pain. They disagreed on this, even though we have telephone records to verify it. But, now they understood why he asked for no contact. They could understand that, from his perspective, contact was very painful and something to avoid at all costs, even though they did not agree with our reckoning of the actual call data. By the end of the meeting, both sides had agreed to weekly phone calls, and weekly emails. In the emails, they were to address matters of a tougher, hot-button nature. The calls would be safe territory, free of the arguments and pain of the past. We were to try this plan for one month, and then meet again in a second mediation session.

After a month had passed, we met again to give feedback on how it had gone. Some more issues were discussed, and some changes to the basic communication plan were made. Both sides had great difficulty following through with the plan, because both sides had been hurt badly, and were trying to protect themselves from further pain. However, over the ensuing months, this self-preservation became a hindrance in that our son has made great strides in healing his emotional issues, but they view this healing as steps backwards. They see a child who was once isolated, independent, unable to allow others near him, who grew into a young man who desires the input from others, who loves close relationships and nurturing affection. They see a child who regressed, instead of maturing. The wariness and avoidance that each side used to keep safe, began to cause whole new communication problems.

So, our mediator put on his counseling hat, and educated us all about appropriate child development, and how to fix it when it's gone wrong. He described it like building a house, and being almost finished when the builders realize they forgot some very important parts in the framing. It may appear to others that they are needlessly taking the house apart, when it was almost finished, but the builders know that they must do this, or the house will not stand for long. With this knack for drawing a picture for our son's birthparents, our mediator was able to explain to them what we had failed to convey, in over a year of explaining and providing research resources. He then explained the need for all the adults to discuss our son, and at least try for understanding, if not agreement, rather than offense and destructive reactions to our attempts at communication. Once this was said, we were able to share with our son's birthparents some information about our home life that would affect our son, and therefore affect their attempts at following the mediation communication plan in the next month. And, once this happened, suddenly there was hope for the relationships to continue to build.

Mediation is not finished. After three meetings with our mediator, we have only begun to see consistent good communication habits, rather than destructive ones. After another meeting or two, we must re-evaluate our son's ability to continue working on the relationships, and decide whether to shift gears away from mediation and towards family counseling, or to simply give up and allow communication to continue in strained fashion until a time when our son might be interested in trying again.

But, we have guarded hope that things may improve in the next few weeks, as the good communication has become something of a habit. And, we have a son who has a much, much better ability to listen to what people are trying to say, rather than what they are saying, in their imperfection and humanness. That's what mediation can do for a family.