How will a Collaborative Divorce affect my children?

There is no way to go through a divorce that is more protective of children, and more focused on the needs and interests of children, than Collaborative Divorce. None. In a Collaborative Divorce, we have a child specialist on the team who is a very skilled and experienced mental-health professional who knows about child development and about what happens to children during the divorce process. Every child has issues during a divorce. And you need professional advisors, you need your lawyers, perhaps your coaches, perhaps even a therapist, to help you through the divorce process. Who’s helping your children? The children need somebody to talk to who’s safe, who’s not a parent, and they also need somebody to bring their concerns in an even-handed way into the decision-making process. That’s what the Collaborative Divorce team model offers, and there’s nothing like it anywhere else, and it’s remarkable. We don’t have custody battles in Collaborative Divorce. We have solutions.

Pauline H. Tesler is a Certified Family Law Specialist with Tesler, Sandmann & Fishman in San Francisco and Mill Valley, CA. She is also a pioneer in Collaborative Divorce and devotes her practice exclusively to the collaborative model. Tesler is a co-founder of the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals and the author of two books on Collaborative Divorce. She can be reached at (415) 383-5671.