Parents need to focus on what’s best for children in divorce - Illinois

Parents need to focus on what’s best for children in divorce

Excerpts:

Divorce can affect each child differently, and parents need to learn how best to help their children through the situation.

For the last three years, Marriage and Family Counseling Service in Rock Island has offered classes on co-parenting after divorce or separation.

New rules enacted by the Illinois Supreme Court require parents in divorce proceedings to go through a class like the TransParenting class offered by Marriage and Family Counseling Service. Parents who have never married but who are going through a child custody case also will be required to take the class, said Rock Island County Circuit Judge Lori Lefstein.

The state supreme court announced the class requirement in February as part of a series of new rules to help ensure that child custody proceedings be handled expeditiously, competently and with great emphasis on the "best interest of the child."

The rules grew out of the continuing work of the special Illinois Supreme Court Committee on Child Custody Issues that was established in January 2002 to study child custody, parental termination and adoption issues.

Judge Lefstein said she often recommended the class to parents even before the requirement went into effect July 1. Even if the parents are going their separate ways, they can learn to work together for the sake of their children, she said.

"Co-parenting is a very different relationship than a spousal relationship," he said. "Even though the marriage is ending, the parenting continues."

It's important for parents to focus on the child, he said, even though they may have their own emotional issues to deal with.

Families who navigate divorce successfully are those who talk about it and continue to talk about it and allow children to have their say, he added. If a family doesn't address the issues raised during a divorce right away, it can cause problems down the road.

Tips for divorcing parents

1. Don't badmouth the other parent. "Kids have loyalty to both parents regardless of how great or lousy the person is," said Derek Ball, a licensed marriage and family therapist.

2. Don't make your kid the messenger. Your child will be very interested in what's going on and will want to get the inside scoop, but as a parent, do your own communicating with the other parent as much as possible.

3. Be a good listener. Mr. Ball said parents are quick to use opportunities to lecture or teach their child, but in this situation, your child just wants to be heard. Give them feedback to make sure you understand what they are saying.

4. Don't make your kid into your confidante. Your child needs to be allowed to be a child. Go to your friends, parent, pastor or therapist for emotional support, not your child, Mr. Balls aid.

Upcoming Dates
5:30-9:30 p.m. July 13
5:30-9:30 p.m. July 25
9 a.m.-1 p.m. Sept. 9
5:30-9:30 p.m. Oct. 24
5:30-9:30 p.m. Dec. 5

Cost: $50 per person

Location: Marriage and Family Counseling Service, 1800 3rd Ave., Suite 512 Rock Island
For more information, call (309) 786-4491.

Chicago Town Hall Forum on Family Law

*This is from an ACFC email*

Dialogue on Sustainable Community will be hosting a Town Hall Forum at the University of Chicago this Saturday afternoon, January 14, 2006 on the issue of family law and its impact on the community. Link to the ACFC for additional details and make plans now to attend this important event.

Group getting its wish: Custody issue out in the open - Illinois

Group getting its wish: Custody issue out in the open

Excerpts:

About 40 people turned out at a meeting Dec. 6 in Urbana to hear the executive director of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children talk about ways to get the Illinois legislature and the Champaign County judiciary to consider shared parenting.

"Courts regularly separate fit parents from children," Michael Mc-Cormick said. "We think the starting point should be equal time."

In late October, the group launched a billboard campaign in Urbana, calling upon Champaign County family court Judge Arnold Blockman to consider that concept. The billboards and radio ads have sparked a lot of discussion among users of the system and prompted the Dec. 6 meeting.

"During marriage, both parents are typically active in raising their children," McCormick said. "After divorce, children deserve equal access to both parents. But in Champaign County Circuit Court, kids rarely get that. They're caged; stuck in the old every-other-weekend-with-Dad schedule."

A Democrat elected in 1996, Blockman said he's human and can't help but be bothered by the billboards on Cunningham and East University avenues, which feature a crying child and the words: "Is four days a month with Dad really in a child's best interest?"

He's upset not because he thinks the billboard backers are right but because they don't recognize the reforms he's instituted to improve the system since he took over administration of family court.

For those unhappy about his custody rulings, Blockman said the appellate court is probably the best indicator of if his actions are appropriate.

Since taking the bench, Blockman said, 105 of his rulings have been appealed; 91 were affirmed outright; seven were partially affirmed. That means seven cases, or less than 7 percent, were overturned. Those numbers involve all kinds of cases, but for the last five years, he's done essentially nothing but family cases.

McCormick, a father of six who lives in northern Virginia and runs the coalition office out of Washington D.C., said this isn't a personal attack on Blockman but part of a nationwide campaign to get judges to do the right thing.

"I don't see Blockman as the problem. He is the solution," McCormick said. "This is not a campaign directed at him. There are a number of people heartbroken at what's left of their relationship with their children."

Blockman said it's true he doesn't grant joint custody when only one parent wants it. But it's because the law precludes him, not because he has a prejudice against a particular parent.

"Look at the criteria (outlined in the statute)," Blockman said.

He referred to the section stating a judge may enter an order of joint custody, taking into account "the ability of the parents to cooperate effectively and consistently in matters that directly affect the joint parenting of the child. 'Ability of the parents to cooperate' means the parents' capacity to substantially comply with a Joint Parenting Order."

Those who met with McCormick were asked to complete surveys asking if they'd help with cash, write to legislators, talk to reporters, monitor judges or recruit members, for example.

The group decided it wanted a town hall meeting on shared parenting in Champaign or Urbana and tentatively scheduled one for Jan. 26. McCormick also discussed the possibility of a march to the courthouse with 150 or 200 people, suggesting it could generate national TV coverage.

"I want wholesale legislative changes," he said, adding that disgruntled noncustodial parents have to work together to have their voices heard. "Judges are not hearing en masse that this doesn't work."

Read the entire article by clicking on the title - link to the American Coalition for Fathers and Children here.

Case Study: Deadbeat Politics in Galesburg, Illinois

MensNewsDaily.com?

This is an extremely lengthy, resource filled article. I advise, if these issues are pertinent to you, to visit the site and read the article in full.

Excerpts below:

Politicians in Galesburg, Illinois think they have a plan to be a “demonstration county” for Illinois child support enforcement. Knox County State's Attorney Paul Mangieri and Judge Harry Bulkeley plan to lock up poor men behind on child support payments from Friday evening until Monday morning.

What a marvelous idea. Make it impossible for poor men to be fathers (so they cannot parent their children), and turn them into workaholics for the state. This is in addition to seizing any and all assets, taking away driver’s, business, and professional licenses so men cannot work or get to work, and inventing child support tables that pretend the father has no living expenses of his own.

Galesburg is a small town of 33,000, surrounded by expanses of cornfields.. Maytag, the largest union employer in the entire area, closed its plant in October, 2002 leaving over 1600 workers unemployed. The jobs were relocated to a Maytag plant in Reynosa, Mexico. The total ripple-through job loss is approximately 4,166 jobs. The impact on the area is devastating, especially because there is no other major employer in the area.

Every divorced father who lost his job in Galesburg as a result of the Maytag closure, but has been unable to find equivalent employment, or has been unable to get his child support modified downward immediately, has become a slave and guarantor to the welfare state and the global economy.

The Galesburg Register-Mail’s recent article “Lack of support” makes my major points for me (as quoted from their article in italics below). Bureaucrats know exactly what they are doing to insulate the state from the welfare problem it created via no-fault divorce, poor economic policy, and trying to end poverty by forcing chain-gang policies on the poor:

Illinois uses a private contractor to enforce child support, but does not provide any equivalent, easily accessible services to the non-custodial parent.

There also is a reluctance to reduce child support orders on the assumption that incomes will eventually improve. But in the meantime arrearages accumulate. According to U.S. census data. only 4 percent of noncustodial fathers who were paying child support under an order received downward adjustment when their earnings felt by more than 15 percent between one year and the next.

Now here is the clincher: Phyllis Schlafly recently pointed out that even our military reservists called into active duty in Iraq are being turned into deadbeat dads. Even they cannot get their child support modified! Missouri is the only state protecting reservists, in a law I conceived and got passed in 1991 when we initiated the first war in Iraq.

Groups finding ways to take fight out of custody battles - Illinois

Daily Herald Search

Excerpts below:

Several state lawmakers and legal groups aim to give children more time with both parents and prod parents to work out agreements before they ever set foot in court.

“Contested divorce and child custody proceedings in this state can be torturous, heart-wrenching experiences to parents and children, that in turn create an undue burden on the community,” said Michael Burns, executive director of the Chicago think tank Dialogue on Sustainable Community.

State Rep. Richard Myers, a Macomb Republican, offers a different system. Under his plan, people would go to court under the notion that joint custody is best. Currently, there’s no presumption on what’s best; it’s up to the two sides to fight it out.

“We talk about mothers in one corner and fathers in the other,” said Michael McCormick, executive director of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children. “We need to recognize the value of the contribution both parents make in raising children.”

Myers’ proposal calls for each parent to have equal time with and responsibility for their children and to formulate a parenting agreement on how they will carry this out.

If, for instance, a mother disagrees with joint custody, it’s up to her to convince the judge that it’s not a good idea.

The legislation was endorsed by a House committee and awaits a vote in the full House.

However, the plan faces opposition from the Illinois Coalition Against Domestic Violence. The group is concerned that violent parents could get custody more easily under the law.

“One of the reasons we’re against that is in situations where there is domestic violence, lots of times when there’s someone who is violent in that relationship ... they use that joint custody as a way of continuing to control and dominate the victim,” said Cheryl Howard, the coalition’s executive director.

She’s working with Myers to include exceptions for domestic violence cases.

The Illinois State Bar Association also has other ideas of how to alter the system. While it agrees both parents should be involved in a child’s life, the association feels a more complete and detailed overhaul is needed.

Illinois - NIU College of Law to host child custody symposium

The MidWeek News Local

Excerpts:

Individuals interested in child custody issues, whether professionals in the field, attorneys, social service workers, students or parents, can hear some of the latest in family law research at NIU’s “Current Issues in Child Custody Law” on March 24, 8:45 a.m.-4:30 p.m. in the university’s Holmes Student Center.

The registration fee for the Symposium is $50 for general attendees, $25 for NIU faculty, administration and staff and $15 for full-time students. To reserve by phone, call 800-345-9472. Register online at the Web site http://law.niu.edu

A different story for divorced parents in Illinois concerning tuition: Daily Herald