The Family Mental Health and Child Custody Act

by

V. Jones

1. Before marriage or the birth of a child and again during separation or divorce, the state of Oregon shall provide and require parents to take mental health and communication classes. The classes shall include:

• Nonviolent Communication
• Listening skills
• Mindfulness or similar religious or secular practices, such as centering prayer, yoga, or Native American sacred practices, such as Sweat Lodge and traditional dances. The reason is that these practices all heal, but parents may be more likely to comply if healing skills are part of their cultural traditions. A group of professors of psychology, psychiatry, or social work may be convened to examine the literature and decide which practices and groups offer the same healing for trauma as mindfulness.
• Journaling is both a form of healing for trauma and a source of documentation of trauma.
• Professors of psychology, social work, or psychiatry.

2.  After separation or if unmarried parents live separately, parents shall communicate by parenting app or email. This is to document which parent is trying harder to use healthy relationship and communication skills. Child custody will not be split 50/50 in all cases. If the parents are struggling to co-parent, a social worker will examine their communications, meet with both children and parents privately and together, and directly recommend to the judge appropriate child custody arrangements. Child support will be adjusted accordingly.

3.  If problems arise in a relationship between co-parents in the future, this process can be repeated. Parental use of mental health and communication skills will remain a central concern in all situations.

4. This is not meant to be an end-all and be-all to this issue of child custody in unmarried or divorced co-parenting situations. This is meant to be the beginning of a new way of handling custody battles between parents that focuses on therapy rather than on lawyers and courtroom battles. Courtroom battles fought by lawyers may still take place in the most contested and abusive situations.

5. This law should be re-evaluated and potentially altered to be more therapeutically effective at 5-year intervals.

 How to Heal: A Workbook for Survivors by a Survivor Plus Tips for Documenting Abuse

by. V. Jones

This is the title of my book, available for purchase at https://www.amazon.com/How-Heal-Workbook-Survivors-Documenting/dp/B0GMQBP8R8.

    Last year, I traveled around Oregon to promote my first book, which included a workbook and stories of my childhood trauma and the things that went right in my life. For example, I worked in wildlife and fisheries, which helped me gain self-confidence. Then I studied to become a Registered Nurse and became a psychiatric nurse. I also wrote about my marriage and divorce, and the child custody battle that followed. I won that battle so thoroughly that the judge ordered my ex-husband to pay 90% of my attorney's fees. My life's story is very interesting, in part because I worked as a Foreign Fisheries Observer on Soviet, Japanese, and Polish fishing vessels in the 1980s. 

    Although I think my life story is interesting, I found people were mostly interested in a workbook for survivors by a survivor. So I cut most of my life story, leaving in only a few stories that illustrated important points I wanted people to understand, such as what coercive control is and how it manifests as child abuse.

    During my trip around Oregon last year, I met so many survivors of coercive control that I came to feel that coercive control is damaging enough that it needs laws to help families, particularly divorcing and separating families, to cope with coercive control. Specifically, I stood by county circuit courts, and people would come out crying because they lost custody of or parenting time with their children.

    Some of those parents may be abusive, but most likely, they had imperfect parents and learned imperfect parenting skills. Others may have had wounds from childhood trauma. That sounds like both my ex-husband and me, as well as his second wife. My ex-husband is a good person who went through considerable childhood trauma, but did not fully heal. I healed from my childhood trauma in the most unusual way--by going through more trauma. 

    My ex-husband's second wife did not want him paying me child support. She wanted to have custody of both our children so I would pay them child support. Please understand, I have a very valid objection to this. My father died and left me a couple of hundred thousand dollars after I married my husband. The first thing I did with that money was to pay off my ex-husband's loans from college and graduate school. I naively thought we were happily married and did not demand that he sign legal documents to repay me the money I had given him.

    My ex-husband and his second wife succeeded in taking our daughter from me, but they could not take our son on the autism spectrum from me. I stayed home to homeschool my autistic son until a therapist gave him the right diagnosis. Only with the right diagnosis could he receive help in school. 

    Within a couple of years after our divorce, my ex-husband and, particularly, his second wife began subjecting both our children and me to lots of coercive control and harassment. I probably would have gone back to work if my ex-husband's second wife had left well enough alone, but she kept trying to take my children from me by criticizing me.

    One day, while my son was visiting his father, who was at work, his girlfriend tried to force him to look her in the eyes and repeat back her criticisms of me.

    "Stop criticizing my mom," my son said.

    People on the Autism spectrum feel stress more easily and more strongly than most people not on the spectrum. If my ex-husband's girlfriend wanted my son to leave my care, she did exactly the opposite of what she needed to do. If she wanted sole custody of him, she should have found out what he enjoyed and done more of that. Instead of doing something constructive, she doubled down on coercive control of the whole family.

    I had to fight for my kids' well-being. I could not approve of them spending more time in their stepmother's care. So I obtained court orders for my ex-husband and me to work with a court-ordered parenting time coordinator and therapists for our children. Then I did what these therapists told me to do. I was imperfect and made many mistakes, but I did enough that was right that, in the long run, our family's therapists felt the children felt safer with me. This article leaves out about 99 percent of the story, which could and did fill a book.

    The short story is that I focused so much on my family's mental health that I ended up healing myself. I needed to learn skills such as Nonviolent Communication, Compassionate Listening, the value of journaling, and, finally, mindfulness and similar practices such as yoga and centering prayer that I learned when I converted to Catholicism. Truthfully, I relied on centering prayer. I was too stressed much of the time to use mindfulness. My thoughts would wander to all the bad things going on in my life. 

    Centering prayer is now taught as focusing on a single word, such as "peace," but when I converted to Catholicism, I learned it as a brief phrase, such as "God have mercy on me."

    I changed that to, "Please God, help me be strong."

    Many a sleepless night during the years my ex-husband and his soon-to-be second wife fought me for custody of our children, I fell asleep praying that prayer over and over.

    Although I think my personal story is very interesting, you can skip it and just learn the skills you need to be mentally healthy by buying my second book--How to Heal.... It would be best to work with a therapist as well as work on my workbook, but if you can't afford therapy, my workbook is much better than doing nothing.

    However, in the meantime, I want to pass a law to require counties to teach parents, especially divorcing and separated parents, skills such as Nonviolent Communication, listening skills, journaling for both documentation purposes and healing, and trauma healing skills such as mindfulness, yoga, or centering prayer, which can be taught for free by churches. Parents should also be required to communicate through a parenting app or email so therapists and social workers can monitor their communication skills. Are they mistreating their co-parent, or are they communicating appropriately? If there is a problem, the therapist or social worker can make a recommendation to a judge to change child custody arrangements and child support. I think parents are more likely to embrace mental health and communication skills if there is a monetary value attached.

@ Virginia Pickles Jones

    

    

    

Oregon Needs Coercive Control Legislation to Help Families Heal High Conflict Divorce and Child Custody Battles

 Why We Need Coercive Control Legislation and 

What Should That Legislation Contain?

by

Virginia Jones

I care about coercive control family violence because my family went through it in the form of a protracted child custody battle. I obtained court orders for my children to have therapy and for my ex-husband and me to work with a Court-Ordered Parenting Time Coordinator. Unfortunately, the legal system works very slowly, and my ex-husband was able to slow it down further. Moreover, even when I had therapists in place, my ex-husband frequently refused to follow their orders. This left my children in emotionally abusive situations for years before I could obtain proper help for them from the legal system. 

I need to explain that I, Virginia Jones, the author of this article, am a former psychiatric nurse, so I am familiar with psychiatric diagnoses and mental health treatments.

My family's story, which fills twenty file boxes of emails, legal documents, and my daughter’s hospital discharge notes, began in February 2007, when my son’s stepmother tried to force him to look her in the eyes and repeat her criticisms of me back to her. My son has a superpower—Asperger’s Syndrome. It is very hard to manipulate him. He refused to do what his stepmother ordered and remained on her bad side until our family’s court-ordered parenting time coordinator allowed him to stop visiting his father five years later. 

My daughter, however, is a people pleaser who cares deeply about what others think of her. After she chose to live with her father in 2012, my contact with her dropped to almost zero almost immediately. Nearly two years passed before I had regular contact with her again. By then, a judge ruled in my favor in the lawsuit her father filed against me to take custody of her from me permanently, and restored my contact with her.

Over the eight years of coercive control to which my ex-husband and his second wife subjected my children and me, my son developed Irritable Bowel Syndrome, which is a stress-related disorder. My daughter, however, developed Borderline Personality Disorder, which is common among survivors of chronic, long-term child sex abuse.

But my family was not the only family subjected to coercive control during long-term child custody battles. I know both a child sex abuse survivor and a domestic violence survivor who lost custody of their children to the men who abused them. They could not afford the lawyer, court-ordered parenting time coordinator, and family systems therapist who helped me regain contact with my daughter and at least partial custody of both my children.

Unfortunately, the judicial system's slowness and high costs cause disruptions and losses in family relationships. And children suffer. Both children and parents suffer. We need another way.

What We Need for Divorced and Separated Families

        First, this is just a proposal meant to start a conversation. We need fathers, mothers, domestic violence victims, domestic violence advocates, judges, social workers, therapists, and especially experienced parenting time coordinators to all be a part of the conversation, along with lawmakers and attorneys.

        Because not all parents and not all jobs are equal, 50/50 time sharing in parenting plans should not be assumed to be automatic. Separating and divorcing parents who differ in their opinions about parenting time should first work with a social worker to come up with a mutually agreeable plan. The social worker's first concern should be the family's mental health. If parents still disagree, they can present their case to a judge, either with or without the assistance of lawyers. There should be no delay in parents appearing before judges because this leaves children in a bad situation for an extended period.

The First Step is Prevention of Mental Health Problems

1. When people marry, become parents after marriage, or become parents without being married, they will be required to take classes on how parental conflict can traumatize children, classes on Nonviolent Communication, listening skills, and mindfulness and/or similar practices that have been scientifically validated to calm stress and the wounds of trauma, such as centering prayer. 

    `Therapists and researchers are careful not to offend anyone's religious sensibilities, so they tend to recommend mindfulness. I frequently experienced such extreme stress while I was going through the extended years of conflict with my ex-husband that I could not meditate mindfully. Fortunately, I had converted to Catholicism and had learned centering prayer in the process. 

    When I was too stressed to sleep during the years of conflict, I lay awake praying over and over, breathing in, "Please God," breathing out, "help me be strong."

    It worked. I always calmed down and fell asleep.

    Therapists and scientific researchers stay away from religion because people have different ideas about religious beliefs and practices, and feel offended if someone suggests they try a religious practice not their own. I think we may get better compliance with therapeutic practices if we allow people to use practices from their religion that heal trauma. For example, mindfulness is derived from Buddhism. Yoga, which also involves mindful breathing and is derived from Hinduism, also heals trauma. So do Native American traditional dances and sweat lodge ceremonies. And for people who don't want to engage in a religious practice, walking in nature and noticing beautiful sights, whether it is a waterfall, a tree, a wildflower, or a mountain, and practicing awe as you gaze at the beautiful sight, will help you heal from trauma. Growing up, I had many happy events, but I also endured much trauma. I learned early on that I felt better when I spent time in nature. I eventually became a wildlife and fisheries biologist — work I absolutely loved. Unfortunately, permanent jobs were rare, so I studied nursing and became a psychiatric nurse.

2: All separated and/or divorcing parents with minor children who separate or divorce should be automatically required to communicate about parenting issues, parenting schedules, and any changes to parenting schedules through a parenting app and/or email. Parenting apps can be used for emergencies or communications that require a response within minutes, such as when a parent is late to pick up or drop off children for visitation. Emails allow parents to be more detailed and precise in their communications. The reason parents will be required to use parenting apps and emails is to allow third parties to examine their communications for conflict behaviors.

3: During separation and divorce, all parents will be required to retake classes on how parental conflict can traumatize children, to relearn or strengthen their Nonviolent Communication (NVC) skills, how to listen more empathetically to both their children and co-parent, and how to calm the agitated mind through mindfulness and similar practices, including yoga and centering prayer.

4: All counties should hire social workers to work with separated and divorced families, who can examine emails and text messages between separated and divorced parents to identify situations involving conflict. The social worker should be able to communicate their findings to the parents and require the parents to retake classes in Item 3. If the conflict between parents continues, the social worker reviews the emails to determine which parent is more responsible for family problems and conveys this and her documentation (the parent’s emails and parenting app messages to a judge, who can then rule on which parent appears to be more responsible for the conflict in the family. The parent who is more responsible for the conflict will have their parenting time decreased, their child support share increased, and will work one-on-one with the social worker about specific problems and retake classes on mindfulness, NVC, and listening skills, while continuing to communicate with their co-parent on parenting issues via the parenting app and email. If they are not able to improve their communication and relationship issues, they may have their parenting time further decreased, and child support further increased. If they noticeably improve their skills, their parenting time can be increased, and child support can be adjusted to reflect this increase.

5. Judicial decisions need to be timely—made within one month, so children do not remain in a bad situation for a long time.

6. Parents who cannot improve their behavior can still see their children in visitation supervised by a family systems therapist. If the family systems therapist believes the dysfunctional parent is improving, they can recommend to the family’s social worker or judge that the parent's parenting time be increased, and child support can be adjusted accordingly.

7. If the family systems therapist thinks the parent is not improving or is mistreating the child or the therapist, they can terminate the parent’s right to see the child, but they must give the parent a three-month warning before they terminate a parent’s right to see a child. This termination will also increase the parent’s share of child support.

8. If a parent has their parental rights terminated, they can appeal if they work hard to improve their mental health and communication skills and are able to demonstrate that improvement to both a social worker and their judge. 

9. Family situations are better coordinated if families keep working with the same social worker and judge.

9.  Examples of coercive control in separated and divorced families occur when parents criticize or harass their co-parent by demanding frequent schedule changes or trying to take away a co-parent’s vacation, holiday, or birthday time with children. Another example is when a co-parent harasses the other co-parent with health-related issues. For example, my ex-husband sent me numerous emails the evening after I got out of surgery on my elbow, and I was on a bed rest order.

10. Wealthy families can still work with private lawyers, therapists, and judges as they always have. This law is intended to address the problems faced by families that can’t afford therapists and lawyers.