How Family Lawyers Minimize the Emotional Impact of Divorce on Children

Have you ever thought about what a child goes through when he or sees the two people, he/she loves and cares for the most fight and disagree with each other daily? This is a very common occurrence in most households, such instances cause depression, anxiety, and loneliness among the youth or infants. The exact purpose of this post would be to analyze how exactly family lawyers tackle the psychological aspect of their job how this can affect the way they approach and handle cases, and how this approach can be proven to be more successful in the long run than to just ignore this aspect.

How does divorce emotionally impact children?

We can go on and on about how divorce affects children in different ways physically and mentally about how they face depression, anxiety, loneliness, and non-compliance but we are forgetting one very basic thing, a child’s brain is fully developed by their mid to late 20’s, this implies the fact that facing such hardcore trauma so early on in their lives can cause permanent CNS damage wherein their perspective of things takes such a drastic turn, that a comeback from such a situation feels unlikely.

Role of family lawyers in a divorce process

Okay but who are family lawyers?!!!, well exactly as the name suggests they deal with issues that impact a family, whether it be positively or negatively. Some common tasks include drafting custody agreements, wills, prenuptial agreements, separation, and property settlement agreements, etc. Family lawyers in Dubai not only have legal skills, but they have psychological skills as well through extensive self-training and anger management. These skills help them guide their clients in a polite and understanding manner alongside making sure that all legal issues faced by their clients are understood by them with their complications. Some lawyers just go with the basic approach which is explaining the legal side of the case and that proves to be more than enough as the majority are not familiar with their rights.

Strategies family lawyers use to support children

Now let’s move on to some legal technical methods that lawyers use and understand them in detail:

First off let’s understand mediation, it is a process where a neutral third party assists family and couples in finding a solution to their problems that is acceptable for all.

1. Mediation and resolution of conflicts:

i) The first major benefit of the process of mediation is that it’s much more cost-effective than going to court.

ii) Much simpler, easier, and usually quicker in comparison to litigation.

iii)Strengthens relationships by allowing the families to sit together and talk to understand their family and themselves at a psychological level.

iv)They tend to put the child’s interests first, by talking to them about their soft point about how their child would be severely affected and depleted of a good childhood if they were to divorce, and it works almost all the time.

Some benefits of Mediation for children include:

• Parents learn how to manage their disagreements which are crucial for the emotional well-being of a child.
• Children learn to adjust to things more quickly and with no issues.
• The overall sense of security.

2. Child-Centered Legal approaches

Let’s now talk about some Legal approaches that are centered around children, this is usually called as child-centered divorce approaches, which concern the child’s personal, social, physical, and educational wants.

It’s best to stay out of court as far as possible, as a growing child the fear of so many people watching and sometimes even asking questions would be their worst nightmare.

Prioritize building a connection with the child and their parents and do not hide the challenges they will face in this rebuilding stage.

Moving forward if God-forbid a similar situation arises within the family it’s best to mention another skilled or experienced professional of your level to the family in advance, this ensures that the family will have contacted a trusted professional who would handle their issues because no matter how skilled one is family problems are one type of issues that may arise even to the most loved and caring for people within a family.

3. Collaborative law over Adversarial law

So collaborative law/practice is a bit different than just a family lawyer solving legal issues, it involves a range of different professionals such as a financial advisor, psychologists, and divorce coaches. This is advantageous over adversarial law due to the following reasons:

. Decisions are made according to the agreement of the parties usually around the interests of children.

. On some occasions the family lawyers get straight to the point and without any hesitation in saying, ”What other options do you have?”, this allows them to change their minds and rethink about what they’re doing and how it would impact their child’s life.

Let’s take a hypothetical example of how collaborative law can help with child support: Let’s say Frank and Julia are going to get divorced, Julia is worried about how she will pay for her 18-year-old’s college fees for his first year. Julia and Frank with the help of collaborative law sign an agreement saying that Frank is willing and ready to pay his son’s college fees whilst at the same time filing for a divorce. If this same matter was taken to court it would have been so much more expensive and time-consuming.

4. Involvement of child psychologists and counselors

I do not want to elaborate a lot on this title as this was pretty much covered in collaborative law, but a major difference psychologists and counselors bring to the table is privacy, their clients which are usually families would love to express their frustration and problems to someone in private not to around 10-15 people in a court.

What does UAE Divorce law discuss about?

Within this part, I would like to talk about the UAE Divorce laws protecting the interests of children in the UAE.

1. Both parents are obligated to provide financial support to the child also known as child maintenance
2. Article 156 of Federal Law No 28 of 2005 states that the child’s custody under the mother ends when a son reaches 11 and the daughter reaches 13, the father being the guardian should claim later.
3. According to articles 143 and 144 of the law in protecting the children’s interests, the custodian should have a set amount of good character traits after evaluation by the authorities, such as No criminal history, the mother cannot remarry, no infectious disease and the father will have to let a female relative take precise car if he has a daughter and share the same religion as the child.

Some further legislation in the UAE related to child support and how family lawyers in the UAE apply these laws for the betterment of the child:

1. a) Child Protection Law, which is Federal Law No. 3 of 2016 also known as Wadeema’s law protects children from all sorts of discrimination.

Article 7 of this law states ’the child shall have the right to life and security’ and, ‘the State shall guarantee the child’s growth, development and law’.

1. b) Federal Decree Law No 41 of 2022 on Civil Personal Status for Non-Muslims in the UAE talks about child custody and how children will have no impact in their lives due to any divorce as their interests would be heavily protected by this law.

How can family lawyers ensure that the work they are doing will go according to plan as well as the betterment of the family?

1. a) As bad as the parents might feel, a family lawyer should just get back to the basics and have a chat with the parents regarding their parental techniques and it will shock you that many parents still are not aware of the right way of parenting their child and this usually makes a huge difference in their mentality and overall plays a better role in the development of a child.
2. b) Try to give them knowledge about how the legal world related to family law operates and warn them about the consequences they and their child would face if they were to try and go for a legal route the second time.
3. c) This might sound unfair but these types of practices that I’m going to mention are used in many parts of the world, these are known as postnuptial agreements, it is modified prenup agreements done after marriage, this is one of the most effective way a family lawyer can prevent future mishaps between a family or even if God-forbid anything does happen it is modified in the best interests of the child.

How to become a family lawyer in the UAE.

1. a) High school certificate- It doesn’t matter if your subjects in high school do not match the legal field, any high school curriculum student should be able to apply to a university in UAE that offers an accredited law degree.
2. b) University Application process- Complete all necessary tests and requirements to enroll in the university.
3. c) Apply for professional training/internship at esteemed law firms during or after your law degree.
4. c) Complete a Bar course or certified law undertaking test of any country after receiving the law degree. In the UAE that would be the legal qualification exam.
5. d) Apply for a license to practice law in the UAE, this would be provided by the Dubai Legal Affairs Department.

If you know anyone who requires such help, please don’t hesitate to suggest to them a good family lawyer, it can change their lives. We at Musaab Ali AlNaqbi Advocates and Legal Consultants, have a specialized team of family lawyers, and we are known for providing thorough guidance and the best solutions, with experience of 20 years.