“Dilip in cooperation with Alexia Georgakopoulos, Ph.D….written for the ICRC Blog”
The Need to View Co-parenting Conflicts from a Different Perspective
Family dispute mediators have firsthand experience with fights, impasse and approaches taken by divorcing couples that seek a settlement that is more reflective of their emotionally-laden motives of penalizing and punishing the other party, neglecting the post-divorce cooperative partnership that is necessary for the welfare and the future of their children. Family dispute mediators also experience how divorcing couples approach the resolution of their conflict with a distributive negotiation consisting of a “win-lose” and a “zero-sum” (sharing of a “fixed-pie”) approach. Therefore, there is a need for family dispute mediators to make divorcing couples aware that there is another way for them to resolve their conflict through integrative negotiations in which they can collectively achieve “win-win” solutions that they cannot accomplish independently on their own. To accomplish this objective the mediator needs to empower the parties to change their negotiations from “value claiming” (getting the most out of what they have)” to “value creating” (where both can achieve their goals and objectives while creating something they cannot do independently own their own). Family dispute mediators could benefit from using the integrative negotiation approach in helping their clients resolve post-divorce co-parenting conflicts (Reference: Lewicki, R.J., Barry B., & Saunders, D. M. 2007. Essentials of negotiation. McGraw-Hill).
Negotiating Factors
Parties’ negotiations for resolving divorce conflicts take place because: 1) the parties need to divide their resources and liabilities, 2) the parties are transitioning into a relationship that requires them to do co-parenting that they could not do on their own, and 3) they have to resolve their problems associated with their expectations of their post-divorce relationship. In these situations, they look to the mediator to help them find mutually acceptable solutions to a complex conflict that is shaped by the context of their past relationship. In resolving their divorce conflict, the parties appear to emphasize negotiations associated with the division of tangibles such as the house, money and other assets. However, the parties overlook or minimize the importance of intangibles; such as the need to “ win” or to look “good”, the need to appear “fair”, and the need to defend an important “principle”; that drive the psychological motivations that influence the parties during their negotiations. These intangible factors undermine the interdependent and interlocking aspects of the parties’ post-divorce relationship that is essential to their effective co-parenting. The mediator can assist the parties to coordinate their interdependence and differences in interests, judgments about the future, risk tolerance, and time preference to develop synergy for creating an effective post-divorce co-parenting relationship. Through this approach the mediator can facilitate transformation of the parties’ conflict style from either yielding or contending to a collaborative negotiating style.
Role of the Mediator
By assisting the parties in using integrative negotiations for resolving their conflict, the mediator can encourage the parties to maintain a free flow of information and clear and accurate communication; enable them to make efforts to understand the other party’s real needs and interests and accept them as valid; facilitate the parties’ efforts for emphasizing their commonalities while minimizing their differences; and assist the parties’ search for solutions that meet the needs and the objectives of both parties. To assist the parties in using the integrative negotiation process, the mediator can help them execute the following key steps: 1) Developing a mutually acceptable definition of the problem; 2) Using practicality and comprehensiveness for stating the problem; 3) Identifying the obstacles in achieving the goal of solving the stated problem; 4) Depersonalizing the problem; and 5) Separating the definition of the problem from the search for solutions. Through this approach the mediator empowers the parties to identify the interests and needs of each party and to fully understand the problem for developing collaborative and integrative solutions.
In facilitating the parties’ use of the integrative approach, the mediator seeks ways to enable parties to set common goals and objectives; empower them to have faith in their individual problem-solving abilities; have belief in the validity of their position and of the other party’s perspective; and find ways to keep the parties motivated and committed for working together and trusting the other party.
In assisting the parties, the mediator can help them to understand their perceptual distortions including stereotyping, selective perception, and projection. The mediator should support the parties’ efforts to frame the conflict that minimize the emphasis on negative characterization of the other party and loss-gain perspectives while effectively balancing the interests, rights, and the power of each party. The mediator should facilitate the parties’ use of these frames to interactively negotiate and use the unity achieved from each of them getting their desires into the conflict frame to develop a shared vision of their issues and the processes for resolving them. In this integrative negotiation process, the mediator should help parties in controlling irrational escalation of commitment to a course that would not be conducive to a productive co-parenting relationship, and to minimize the influence of self-serving biases on the integrative negotiations undertaken by the parties. With effective facilitation of these integrative approaches, the mediator would be able to empower the parties to develop an understanding that negotiating a mutually acceptable co-parenting relationship is the overarching goal of their negotiation.
Reference
Lewicki, R. J., Garry, B. & Saunders, D. M. (2007). Essentials of negotiations. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
