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Telling your children about the divorce

3/20/2015

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When is the best time to tell your children that you are getting divorced?  We often hear this question from our divorce mediation clients at Westfield Mediation, LLC.   

While your children may already have a sense of what is going on, we usually recommend waiting to tell them about the divorce until you have a parenting plan in place. Once you break the news to them, your kids are going to want to know where everyone is going to live, and how the new dynamic is going to affect their own lives. The better able you are to answer these questions, the less stressful the changes will likely be on your kids. Children, like adults, feel uncomfortable with uncertainty. Once they know the plan, they can begin the process of adapting.

In divorce mediation, a neutral, impartial mediator works with divorcing parents to develop their parenting plan.  In these plans, we outline weekly schedules, holiday schedules, and strategies for financing your new family arrangement. Generally, the parenting plans allow for flexibility, because the needs of the parents and the kids change somewhat over time. Still, the parenting plans provide a blueprint for moving forward, which can be reassuring and helpful to both the parents and the children in the family.

For more information about parenting plans or divorce mediation, please contact Randi M. Albert, JD, or Michelle Weinberg, LMFT, at Westfield Mediation, LLC, at 908.913.0373.  View our website at www.westfieldnjmediation.com or email us at info@westfieldnjmediation.com


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A Free Consult

3/6/2015

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We occasionally get phone calls asking if we do a free consult.  A free 30 minute consultation is more common with divorce attorneys, so we understand how clients may think mediators would do the same.  At Westfield Mediation, LLC, we do not offer a free consult.  We feel the information we share with you is valuable and we want to attract people who are serious about starting the divorce mediation process.  There is no pressure from us to come on in and just hear what we have to say, as you may be tempted to do with the offer of a free consult.  You come when you are ready to come.  We want you to value our expertise and have found that clients who are ready to pay from the start are willing to move forward with the process.  There are lots of ways to get some free information about our services.  We are happy to talk to you on the phone and briefly explain how divorce mediation works to see if it is a good fit for your situation.  Or you can read one of our informative blogs (just like this one) listed on our website. 

We find that some of our colleagues in the world of divorce do offer a free 30 minute consult.  We hear from them that 30 minutes is often just the tip of the iceberg and the clients often stay longer once they are there and end up paying for a portion of the meeting anyway.  So the free consult ends up costing the client some money. We plan from the start for an hour initial meeting to explain how divorce works in New Jersey, how divorce mediation proceeds and how Westfield Mediation, LLC, functions. 

So you may save $125 ($67.50 each if splitting the costs evenly) by meeting with someone that offers a free consult.  When looking at the big picture and the overall cost of the divorce, this is really not much of a savings.  If you both go into the process agreeing to go through mediation and taking it seriously from the start, this is a small price to pay. 

For more information about Divorce Mediation contact Randi M. Albert, JD, or Michelle Weinberg, LMFT, at Westfield Mediation, LLC, at 908.913.0373.  View our website at www.westfieldnjmediation.com or email us at info@westfieldnjmediation.com

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    Authors

    Michelle Weinberg, M.Ed.,LMFT, is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with many years of experience working with couples.

    Randi M. Albert, JD, is an attorney with experience in family law and public service.

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