With the Bench Cozied Up to the Bar, the Lawyers Can't Lose
By ADAM LIPTAK
Dennis G. Jacobs, the chief judge of the federal appeals court in New York, is a candid man, and in a speech last year he admitted that he and his colleagues had ''a serious and secret bias.'' Perhaps unthinkingly but quite consistently, he said, judges can be counted on to rule in favor of anything that protects and empowers lawyers. Read more… 777 more words
Dennis G. Jacobs, the chief judge of the federal appeals court in New York, is a candid man, and in a speech last year he admitted that he and his colleagues had ''a serious and secret bias.'' Perhaps unthinkingly but quite consistently, he said, judges can be counted on to rule in favor of anything that protects and empowers lawyers. Read more… 777 more words
Posted by Children's Rights on Sunday, August 30, 2015
How Judges Violate the Code of Judicial Conduct, Commit Fraud Upon the Court, and Commit Crimes against Parties
Dear Custody Judge:
I am writing this letter in support of a joint legal custody arrangement with physical custody of 50-50 whenever feasible and practical. Of course, this recommendation assumes that there is no child protective supervision of one of the parents or that a parent has been evaluated to be socially deviant or mentally impaired to the degree that parenting will be compromised.
I am making this recommendation based upon my 43 years of professional experience working with families and children, my initial 24 years as a social worker and then as an administrator in New York's foster care system and subsequently for 19 years as a family therapist currently in private practice. In my professional career, I have worked with several thousand children who had been placed in foster care and, in my practice as a family therapist, with more than 500 children who have experienced their parent’s high conflict divorce.
Based on my experiences with these populations, I have arrived at the conclusion that both parents must remain substantially and meaningfully involved with their child for the child to obtain optimal development and functioning and likely to escape serious mental health and behavioral symptoms. This conclusion has been validated by extensive research, including but not limited to, the research that was offered in support of Arizona's recently enacted shared parenting law.
Additionally, I have further determined that when the residential parent marginalizes the nonresidential parent with decreased parenting time, it is frequently an alienating maneuver----the goal being to eradicate the nonresidential parent from the child's life. Any effort, therefore, by the residential parent to object to equal, or at least substantial, parenting time for the other parent should at least raise a question as to the residential parent’s recognition of the importance of the other parent to the child.
In further support of my shared parenting recommendation, let me state emphatically that the customary visitation arrangement for the nonresidential parent to have every other weekend and one night during the week in parenting time garners absolutely no evidence-based or anecdotal support and no scientific research for serving the best interests of the child. It is unclear how this customary arrangement has gained such wide acceptance other than to hypothesize that it developed from the contention that children need stability.
I would question, however, that stability with one’s bed would trump the stability of the relationship with the nonresidential parent. After all, the child indeed had had a relationship with this parent on daily basis prior to the parents’ separation. It is therefore logical to conclude that the child would be harmed by only marginal participation of and input from this parent. Furthermore, children do not perceive their parents’ separation as an issue confined to the marital relationship. They do perceive it, more pertinently, as abandonment of them by their nonresidential parent. The child’s object constancy is consequently undermined thereby creating issues with trust. Moreover, the customary visitation/parenting arrangement conveys to children that the residential parent is more vital and important to them, possesses more authority, and is probably entitled to garner more respect. The self-esteem of the child of the same gender as the nonresidential parent will likely be diminished as a result. And the child of the same gender as the residential parent will likely develop a sense of superiority over the other gender. In fact, it has been my experience that residential parents become empowered by the imbalance in time with their children in their favor because this justifies their sense of entitlement to make unilateral decisions regarding their children's education, medical care, and social activities. As a family therapist who was trained by the world-renowned and highly respected child psychiatrist, Salvador Minuchin, I have accepted his determination that the best outcome for children usually results from decisions made with equal input by each parent.
Having thus expressed these concerns for the marginalization of the nonresidential parent, what parenting arrangement does this therapist instead recommend? I will first offer the opinions of my professional mental health colleagues whom I had interviewed for my book, The Parental Alienation Syndrome: A Family Therapy and Collaborative Systems Approach to Amelioration.
Raymond Havlicek, PhD., is one of these esteemed experts. He is a forensic and clinical psychologist who is a Diplomat of the American Board of Professional Psychology and a Fellow at the American Academy of Clinical Psychology. He is a founding member of the Parent Coordinator Association of New York. Dr. Havlicek has completed hundreds of child custody evaluations for Supreme and Family Courts throughout New York State. He is currently developing an educational program for upstate New York judges concerning issues of child custody and parental alienation. In response to my request for his opinion regarding the importance of both parents providing meaningful input and involvement in the child's life, he asserted, “The trust that children place in both parents is to their mental health what the foundation is to a building. If you undermine that trust, there is no stability.”
Amy Baker holds a Ph.D. in developmental psychology with a specialization in early social and emotional development. She is the Director of Research at the Vincent J. Fontana Center for Child Protection at the New York Foundling. Dr. Baker maintained in her interview for my book that children really want and need a meaningful relationship with both parents. In her book, Adult Children of Parental Alienation Syndrome, she summarized her research on the devastating effects to children when a parent is eradicated from their lives resulting from high-conflict divorce. Briefly summarized for purposes of this letter, Dr. Baker's research concluded that these children suffer from serious bouts with depression, problems with low self-esteem, substance abuse, issues with trust and intimacy, and poor interpersonal relationships----all in much higher rates than the general population.
Barbara Burkhard, Ph.D., co-founded Child and Family Psychological Services, P.C., Smithtown, New York, with Jane Albertson-Kelly, Ph.D. This agency provides research-informed therapy for children and families. It has a contract with Suffolk County Department of Social Services to provide therapeutic child/parent visits and evaluations of parents who have been accused of abuse and neglect. They also receive referrals from Suffolk County Supreme and Family Courts for custody evaluations, therapeutic visitation, reunification therapy, and forensic mental health evaluations and risk assessments. Both Dr. Burkhard and Dr. Kelly affirmed, “Children generally benefit from a relationship with each parent with respect to the attainment of healthy long-term relationships and for their optimal social, psychological, and cognitive development.”
As a family therapist, I could not agree more with these respected doctors regarding the importance of both parents playing an active role in their children's lives. All the recent research indicates that children who have a parent either absent from their lives or only marginally involved develop very poor outcomes. And I suggest referring to the book, Fatherneed, by child psychiatrist, Kyle Pruitt, in which he summarizes the alarming research by Yale University when a father is only minimally involved in his children's lives or were completely eradicated from his children's lives. Pruitt conveys that when fathers are absent, children have a significantly high vulnerability to acting out behaviors, dropping out of school, suicidal ideation and other serious mental disorders, engaging in sexually inappropriate activities, and other serious issues. Other research indicates the following alarming statistics to children resulting from father-deprivation: 72% of all teenage murders, 60% of rapists, 70% of kids incarcerated, twice as likely to quit school, 11 times more likely to be violent, 3 our of 4 suicides, 80% of adolescents in psychiatric hospitals, 90% of runaways.
The conclusion is that “Father-deprivation is a more reliable predictor of criminal activity than race, environment or poverty.” (National Fatherhood Initiative, US Bureau of Census, FBI)
I am unequivocal----as are my colleagues who specialize in children of high-conflict divorce----that the same findings would apply to the eradication or minimization of a mother from a child’s life. We are already beginning to develop this research about mothers now that more fathers are receiving residential custody.
And the research that supported Arizona’s recently enacted shared parenting law validates that children of divorce have the best outcomes when there is shared parenting, with physical custody as close as possible to 50/50. This research further revealed that children of divorce would have expressed their desire for equal time with their nonresidential parent had they felt free to express their feelings and opinions. (Finley; McIntosh & Chisholm; Tippins & Wittmann; Michael Lamb; Braver, Fabricus & Ellman; Fabricus & Luecken; Schwartz & Finley; Fabricus & Hall; Finley & Schwartz.)
The child of a high-conflict divorce is like a rope in a tug of war between her/his parents. And just like the rope, the child will also unravel.
Children of high-conflict divorce feel a loyalty to the residential parent due to their utter dependency on that parent. Taking their cue from their residential parent, who is hostile to their other parent, these children will not likely express their instinctual yearning and need for a relationship with their nonresidential parent. Asking these children to decide about their relationship with their nonresidential parent exacerbates this impossible and detrimental situation and leaves them with no good options: it is a double-bind situation in which they cannot have both parents because they know that seeking a relationship with their nonresidential parent will be perceived as an act of betrayal by their residential parent. When this dynamic had been first observed by the child psychiatrists who later founded the family therapy movement, they documented it on the psychiatric ward when observing their psychotic child patients during family visits. In the extreme situation, this family dynamic, labeled by these psychiatrists as the “pathological triangle,” as per Murray Bowen, does indeed lead to serious mental disorders in the child. I have seen the serious detrimental effects to children in my own practice as a result of the triangulation.
Unfortunately, due to the influences that technology has now afforded the younger population, I am seeing socio-pathology instead of psychosis in this population. We have an obligation to help these children by extricating them from having to chose and express their desire for meaningful time with their nonresidential parent.
In my professional opinion, the child of high-conflict divorce needs to be extricated from this triangulation, which is exacerbated by the burden to decide about what relationship to have or not with the nonresidential parent. The professionals who intervene in child custody and visitation must make these decisions for them in favor of shared parenting and substantial parenting time with the nonresidential parent as close as practical to 50/50 physical custody. This is the responsibility with which we are charged as professionals who intervene in child custody and visitation.
Please feel free to contact me with any questions.
Respectfully submitted,
Children’s Rights
~~Facebook Support Group ~~
Dear Custody Judge:
I am writing this letter in support of a joint legal custody arrangement with physical custody of 50-50 whenever feasible and practical. Of course, this recommendation assumes that there is no child protective supervision of one of the parents or that a parent has been evaluated to be socially deviant or mentally impaired to the degree that parenting will be compromised.
I am making this recommendation based upon my 43 years of professional experience working with families and children, my initial 24 years as a social worker and then as an administrator in New York's foster care system and subsequently for 19 years as a family therapist currently in private practice. In my professional career, I have worked with several thousand children who had been placed in foster care and, in my practice as a family therapist, with more than 500 children who have experienced their parent’s high conflict divorce.
Based on my experiences with these populations, I have arrived at the conclusion that both parents must remain substantially and meaningfully involved with their child for the child to obtain optimal development and functioning and likely to escape serious mental health and behavioral symptoms. This conclusion has been validated by extensive research, including but not limited to, the research that was offered in support of Arizona's recently enacted shared parenting law.
Additionally, I have further determined that when the residential parent marginalizes the nonresidential parent with decreased parenting time, it is frequently an alienating maneuver----the goal being to eradicate the nonresidential parent from the child's life. Any effort, therefore, by the residential parent to object to equal, or at least substantial, parenting time for the other parent should at least raise a question as to the residential parent’s recognition of the importance of the other parent to the child.
In further support of my shared parenting recommendation, let me state emphatically that the customary visitation arrangement for the nonresidential parent to have every other weekend and one night during the week in parenting time garners absolutely no evidence-based or anecdotal support and no scientific research for serving the best interests of the child. It is unclear how this customary arrangement has gained such wide acceptance other than to hypothesize that it developed from the contention that children need stability.
I would question, however, that stability with one’s bed would trump the stability of the relationship with the nonresidential parent. After all, the child indeed had had a relationship with this parent on daily basis prior to the parents’ separation. It is therefore logical to conclude that the child would be harmed by only marginal participation of and input from this parent. Furthermore, children do not perceive their parents’ separation as an issue confined to the marital relationship. They do perceive it, more pertinently, as abandonment of them by their nonresidential parent. The child’s object constancy is consequently undermined thereby creating issues with trust. Moreover, the customary visitation/parenting arrangement conveys to children that the residential parent is more vital and important to them, possesses more authority, and is probably entitled to garner more respect. The self-esteem of the child of the same gender as the nonresidential parent will likely be diminished as a result. And the child of the same gender as the residential parent will likely develop a sense of superiority over the other gender. In fact, it has been my experience that residential parents become empowered by the imbalance in time with their children in their favor because this justifies their sense of entitlement to make unilateral decisions regarding their children's education, medical care, and social activities. As a family therapist who was trained by the world-renowned and highly respected child psychiatrist, Salvador Minuchin, I have accepted his determination that the best outcome for children usually results from decisions made with equal input by each parent.
Having thus expressed these concerns for the marginalization of the nonresidential parent, what parenting arrangement does this therapist instead recommend? I will first offer the opinions of my professional mental health colleagues whom I had interviewed for my book, The Parental Alienation Syndrome: A Family Therapy and Collaborative Systems Approach to Amelioration.
Raymond Havlicek, PhD., is one of these esteemed experts. He is a forensic and clinical psychologist who is a Diplomat of the American Board of Professional Psychology and a Fellow at the American Academy of Clinical Psychology. He is a founding member of the Parent Coordinator Association of New York. Dr. Havlicek has completed hundreds of child custody evaluations for Supreme and Family Courts throughout New York State. He is currently developing an educational program for upstate New York judges concerning issues of child custody and parental alienation. In response to my request for his opinion regarding the importance of both parents providing meaningful input and involvement in the child's life, he asserted, “The trust that children place in both parents is to their mental health what the foundation is to a building. If you undermine that trust, there is no stability.”
Amy Baker holds a Ph.D. in developmental psychology with a specialization in early social and emotional development. She is the Director of Research at the Vincent J. Fontana Center for Child Protection at the New York Foundling. Dr. Baker maintained in her interview for my book that children really want and need a meaningful relationship with both parents. In her book, Adult Children of Parental Alienation Syndrome, she summarized her research on the devastating effects to children when a parent is eradicated from their lives resulting from high-conflict divorce. Briefly summarized for purposes of this letter, Dr. Baker's research concluded that these children suffer from serious bouts with depression, problems with low self-esteem, substance abuse, issues with trust and intimacy, and poor interpersonal relationships----all in much higher rates than the general population.
Barbara Burkhard, Ph.D., co-founded Child and Family Psychological Services, P.C., Smithtown, New York, with Jane Albertson-Kelly, Ph.D. This agency provides research-informed therapy for children and families. It has a contract with Suffolk County Department of Social Services to provide therapeutic child/parent visits and evaluations of parents who have been accused of abuse and neglect. They also receive referrals from Suffolk County Supreme and Family Courts for custody evaluations, therapeutic visitation, reunification therapy, and forensic mental health evaluations and risk assessments. Both Dr. Burkhard and Dr. Kelly affirmed, “Children generally benefit from a relationship with each parent with respect to the attainment of healthy long-term relationships and for their optimal social, psychological, and cognitive development.”
As a family therapist, I could not agree more with these respected doctors regarding the importance of both parents playing an active role in their children's lives. All the recent research indicates that children who have a parent either absent from their lives or only marginally involved develop very poor outcomes. And I suggest referring to the book, Fatherneed, by child psychiatrist, Kyle Pruitt, in which he summarizes the alarming research by Yale University when a father is only minimally involved in his children's lives or were completely eradicated from his children's lives. Pruitt conveys that when fathers are absent, children have a significantly high vulnerability to acting out behaviors, dropping out of school, suicidal ideation and other serious mental disorders, engaging in sexually inappropriate activities, and other serious issues. Other research indicates the following alarming statistics to children resulting from father-deprivation: 72% of all teenage murders, 60% of rapists, 70% of kids incarcerated, twice as likely to quit school, 11 times more likely to be violent, 3 our of 4 suicides, 80% of adolescents in psychiatric hospitals, 90% of runaways.
The conclusion is that “Father-deprivation is a more reliable predictor of criminal activity than race, environment or poverty.” (National Fatherhood Initiative, US Bureau of Census, FBI)
I am unequivocal----as are my colleagues who specialize in children of high-conflict divorce----that the same findings would apply to the eradication or minimization of a mother from a child’s life. We are already beginning to develop this research about mothers now that more fathers are receiving residential custody.
And the research that supported Arizona’s recently enacted shared parenting law validates that children of divorce have the best outcomes when there is shared parenting, with physical custody as close as possible to 50/50. This research further revealed that children of divorce would have expressed their desire for equal time with their nonresidential parent had they felt free to express their feelings and opinions. (Finley; McIntosh & Chisholm; Tippins & Wittmann; Michael Lamb; Braver, Fabricus & Ellman; Fabricus & Luecken; Schwartz & Finley; Fabricus & Hall; Finley & Schwartz.)
The child of a high-conflict divorce is like a rope in a tug of war between her/his parents. And just like the rope, the child will also unravel.
Children of high-conflict divorce feel a loyalty to the residential parent due to their utter dependency on that parent. Taking their cue from their residential parent, who is hostile to their other parent, these children will not likely express their instinctual yearning and need for a relationship with their nonresidential parent. Asking these children to decide about their relationship with their nonresidential parent exacerbates this impossible and detrimental situation and leaves them with no good options: it is a double-bind situation in which they cannot have both parents because they know that seeking a relationship with their nonresidential parent will be perceived as an act of betrayal by their residential parent. When this dynamic had been first observed by the child psychiatrists who later founded the family therapy movement, they documented it on the psychiatric ward when observing their psychotic child patients during family visits. In the extreme situation, this family dynamic, labeled by these psychiatrists as the “pathological triangle,” as per Murray Bowen, does indeed lead to serious mental disorders in the child. I have seen the serious detrimental effects to children in my own practice as a result of the triangulation.
Unfortunately, due to the influences that technology has now afforded the younger population, I am seeing socio-pathology instead of psychosis in this population. We have an obligation to help these children by extricating them from having to chose and express their desire for meaningful time with their nonresidential parent.
In my professional opinion, the child of high-conflict divorce needs to be extricated from this triangulation, which is exacerbated by the burden to decide about what relationship to have or not with the nonresidential parent. The professionals who intervene in child custody and visitation must make these decisions for them in favor of shared parenting and substantial parenting time with the nonresidential parent as close as practical to 50/50 physical custody. This is the responsibility with which we are charged as professionals who intervene in child custody and visitation.
Please feel free to contact me with any questions.
Respectfully submitted,
Children’s Rights~~Facebook Support Group ~~
Thank you for reading petition and having further interest in my personal case. Please read at least my brief 500 word...
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Brief 500 word statement regarding my corrupt case emailed to Politicians and media..December 8, 1999 my 10 year old...
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WHY IS THIS A CRITICAL ISSUE?
Not All Dads Are Deadbeats - Non-Profit Organization
Not All Dads Are Deadbeats is “North America’sLeading Equal Parenting Organization” that provides free support and educational resources for Parents, Grandparents and Children. We… Continue Reading
Not All Dads Are Deadbeats is “North America’sLeading Equal Parenting Organization” that provides free support and educational resources for Parents, Grandparents and Children. We… Continue Reading
judges must be educated by the mental health profession that children need both parents equally.and they must give priority to hearing cases of visit refusal and allegations alienation. The endless adjournments embolden and empower the alienatior. Judges must treat cases of alleged PAS on the basis of time is of the essence.
ReplyDeleteHOW DID CHILDREN OF DIVORCE GET STUCK WITH THE VISITATION PLAN THAT AFFORDS THEM ACCESS TO THEIR NON-RESIDENTIAL PARENT ONLY ONE NIGHT DURING THE WEEK AND EVERY OTHER WEEK-END?
DeleteWhat is the research that supports such a schedule? Where is the data that confirms that such a plan is in the best interest of the child?
Well, reader, you can spend your time from now until eternity researching the literature, and YOU WILL NOT DISCOVER ANY SUPPORTING DATA for the typical visitation arrangement with the non-residential parent! The reality is that this arrangement is based solely on custom. And just like the short story, "The Lottery," in which the prizewinner is stoned to death, the message is that deeds and judgments are frequently arrived at based on nothing more than habit, fantasy, prejudice, and yes, on "junk science."
This family therapist upholds the importance of both parents playing an active and substantial role in their children's lives----especially in situations when the parents are apart. In order to support the goal for each parent to provide a meaningfully and considerable involvement in the lives of their children, I affirm that the resolution to custody requires an arrangement for joint legal custody and physical custody that maximizes the time with the non-residential----with the optimal arrangement being 50-50, whenever practical. It is my professional opinion that the customary visitation arrangement for non-residential parents to visit every other weekend and one night during the week is not sufficient to maintain a consequential relationship with their children. Although I have heard matrimonial attorneys, children's attorneys, and judges assert that the child needs the consistency of the same residence, I deem this assumption to be nonsense. I cannot be convinced that the consistency with one's bed trumps consistency with a parent!
Should the reader question how such an arrangement can be judiciously implemented which maximizes the child's time---even in a 50-50 arrangement----with the non-residential parent, I direct the reader to the book, Mom's House, Dads House, by the Isolina Ricci, PhD.
Indeed, the research that we do have supports the serious consequences to children when the father, who is generally the non-residential parent, does not play a meaningful role in lives of his children. The book, Fatherneed, (2000) by Dr. Kyle Pruitt, summarizes the research at Yale University about the importance of fathers to their children. And another post on this page summarizes an extensive list of other research.
Children of divorce or separation of their parents previously had each parent 100% of the time and obviously cannot have the same arrangement subsequent to their parents' separation. But it makes no sense to this family therapist that the result of parental separation is that the child is accorded only 20% time with one parent and 80% with the other. What rational person could possibly justify this?
FLORIDA TODAY - OPINION
DeleteWritten by Gordon E. Finley, Ph.D., Miami
While I applaud columnist Paul Flemming for a sound review of the issues in Saturday’s “Alimony bill will be great — for lawyers,” his bottom-line conclusion is dead wrong.
The proposed state alimony reform bill will reduce litigation, not increase litigation. A bit of history: For years, the divorce vultures (a.k.a., the Family Law Section of the Florida Bar) have conned the Florida Legislature into writing divorce legislation that maximizes litigation and thus maximizes their income. In part, they have accomplished this by maximizing judicial discretion, which in practice means endless conflict and, of course, endless paid litigation.
No matter what they may say, the divorce vultures are interested only in one thing — maximizing their income.
I can irrefutably demonstrate this point with Flemming’s own words: “Thomas Duggar, an attorney in Tallahassee and a member of the Florida Bar’s Family Law Section, said last week at a Tallahassee Bar Association meeting that the section has a $100,000 war chest to sway public opinion against the legislation.”
Do your readers honestly believe they are spending all this money so they will lose income? The divorce vultures get the message in terms of what alimony reform will cost them — and save the children, fathers and mothers of divorce. I regret Mr. Flemming did not do the same.
Full Disclosure: I am an alimony-paying divorced father of two young adult daughters and retired university divorce researcher with multiple research and scholarly publications on this topic.