Mediation -- Parenting Issues

1. When it comes to the custody of children, divorced or divorcing parents should mediate their disagreement -- the alternative is a court imposed resolution of the parents' dispute that may not be what either parent wanted for their children.
   
   In Sacharow v. Sacharow, 177 N.J. 62 (2003), the court held that: Both parents have a fundamental right to the care and custody of their children. When both parents have a fundamental right to the care and nurturing of their children and neither has a preeminent right over the other, by submitting their dispute to the court, it is the parties themselves who essentially seek the impairment of each other’s rights. By seeking a divorce and invoking the jurisdiction of the Family Part, each party assents to the possibility that there will be some curtailment of what would otherwise be the ordinary rights concomitant to parenthood. For example, a party may be denied custody. Visitation may be circumscribed. Vacations may be shared or lost. One parent may be granted the right to move away with the child. All such orders impair to some extent one of the parties’ parental rights, and the party participants are deemed to have consented to the possibility of such impairment when they submit their disagreement to a court. In such cases, the sole benchmark is the best interests of the child. In assessing best interests, the court should take into account the good faith of the parties; the prior history of dealings between them; the relationship between each parent and the child; any efforts by either party to alienate the child from the other parent; the effect that address confidentiality has or will have on those relationships and on the child; any special needs of the child; and any other matter that bears on the best interests of the child.



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