The Effects of Family Court Can Be Traumatic.

The volunteer staff of Leon Koziol.Com wishes to extend our heartfelt sympathies to the family of Thomas J. Ball as we were just informed that he took his own life in front of a family court building in New England.

Here is a sad story that came to our attention by one of our many nationwide. June 2011. followers:

We would encourage anyone reading this blog who may be in contact with the family to share Civil Rights Advocate  Leon Koziol, J.D.’s “National Father’s Day Message” found at:  .

It’s important the family know that Mr. Koziol is working diligently within the system to secure long overdue reform in domestic relations matters given the related escalation of violence. A more ominous sign may exist here in our own small community in Upstate, NY, where a number of of law enforcement officers were victimized both on duty and off duty by domestic relations abuses.

According to research[1] approximately 330 people commit suicide monthly in the U.S. in response to the way family courts and CPS handle divorce, domestic violence and child support. The study points out that the suicide rate for divorced men is 9.94 times higher than the suicide rate for divorced women.

[1] Augustine J. Kposowa, “Marital Status and suicide in National Longitudinal Mortality Study”, Journal of Epideiology and Community Health, Vol. 54, April 2000, p. 256.

Excellent article written by William Norman Grigg courtesy of lewrockwell.com 

The Role of Father Involvement in Children’s Lives

Misleading Assumptions in
Fatherhood Research

The evolution of fatherhood research offers interesting insights into academics’ assumptions about how fathers contribute to their children’s well-being. These assumptions influence research agendas and, while sometimes being helpful, can also lead to misunderstanding fathers and their contributions. For instance, the scholarly study of fathers began with the Second World War when researchers made the assumption that father absence would lead young boys to become effeminate (Bach, 1946; McCord, McCord, & Thurber, 1962) or homosexual (see Pleck, 2007), with much of this research drawing on Freudian theory (Burton & Whiting, 1961). During this time and through much of the 1970s, aside from examining their presence or absence, fathers were not included in “parenting” research, which was primarily the study of the mother’s influence.

Then, in the 1980s, feminist thought began to influence the research field, and the assumptions about the father’s role expanded to include multiple aspects of parenting (see Lamb, 2000). Scholars began to categorize general “types” of father involvement (e.g., engagement, responsibility, accessibility) and study how these types influenced children (Lamb, Pleck, Charnov, & Levine, 1985, 1987). From this research grew a wealth of information on how a father’s involvement contributed to his children’s development (Lamb, 2010). Bolstered by these findings, fatherhood researchers increasingly argued that when studying child development, it was critical to study the father’s role.

At the same time, social movements arose that began to call into question two assumptions often underlying fatherhood research: 1) that what fathers do as parents is different from what mothers do and 2) that father involvement is essential for child well-being. Regarding the first assumption, it is certainly true that there is much overlap in what fathers and mothers do. Both mothers and fathers care for their children, express love, monitor, discipline, play, teach, etc. In fact, it is difficult to name a category of parenting tasks that fathers and mothers cannot both do. Jay Fagan and colleagues (Fagan, Day, Lamb, & Cabrera, 2014) found little research justification that “mothering” and “fathering” were different. They therefore conclude that there is justification for collapsing the terms “mothering” and “fathering” into “parenting.”

Regarding the second assumption about “essentiality,” Louise Silverstein and Carl Auerbach (1999) rightly challenged the notion that every child requires a father in order to successfully develop. Indeed, there are numerous examples of people who succeeded without being raised by a father. Barack Obama became President of the United States and Michael Phelps became the most decorated Olympic athlete in history, and both were raised primarily without a father.

NOT IN THE BEST INTEREST OF THE CHILDREN

STOP Court's DENIAL of REASONABLE Parent/Child CONTACT
Please sign the petition to Florida 11th Judicial Circuit Chief Judge Honorable Bertila Soto please pledge to Contact the Florida Courts - Demand Judge Manno-Schuerr's Recusal - Reinstatement of Timesharing -https://www.causes.com/campaigns/93161-stop-courts-denial...

How do you put a face on what it means to have an equal opportunity for access to civil justice? That's difficult -- but the Feb. 15 edition of The Florida Bar News attempts to do just that in their article, "Putting a human face on the civil legal access gap: Access Commission learns how the system is broken"

Look no further than the story of Miami's Maria Garcia, said Commission member and Third DCA Clerk of Court Mary Cay Blanks during a recent January Commission meeting. Garcia was fired from her job of 15 years, denied benefits and didn't know where to turn. When she visited Blanks' office to file an appeal, the attendant simply handed her forms and wasn't permitted -- by law -- to give her any legal advice. Unable to afford a lawyer, Ms. Garcia left feeling frustrated and unsure of what step to take next, as if the system had failed her.

That has to change, said Blanks.

“The challenge we face in my office is being able to assist them in a meaningful way without crossing that line of giving out too much information and worrying about the unauthorized practice of law,” Blanks told the Commission. “So we err on the side of giving less information because we don’t want to cross that line. The perception is that we’re unhelpful; it causes a lot of people leaving the office disgruntled, and feeling like they are not getting their day in court, or we’re not going to help them get their day in court.”

Read why and how that process soon will change: http://bit.ly/1uwFLMS

PARENTAL ALIENATION:
NOT IN THE BEST INTEREST OF THE CHILDREN

SIGNS OF ALIENATION: 1. In Parents Below are the more common symptoms of parental alienation. Many of these behaviors will look familiar, because some alienation occurs in all divorces. Some symptoms may come as a surprise, because many don't think of the…Read More

Family law system broken, needs major changes

This Father's Day, and every day, all across America, there are children who are being denied access to their fathers, and most of these fathers were in their children's lives prior. People must awaken to the truth and the horrors of family law and see how…Read More

ANOTHER EASTER WITHOUT MY DAUGHER

WHY IS THIS A CRITICAL ISSUE?

Super Dads Who Have Angry Moms

Filmmaker Al Greeze Exposes Unfair Family Courts

Filmmaker Al Greeze's new documentary, "Frustrated 2: Mama's Baby, Daddy's Maybe," exposes many of the injustices fathers face in family courts.