When someone you love is ill and requires significant and ongoing care, it is not unusual to experience stress, grief, fear and sometimes depression due to your loved one’s condition.
This emotional environment can fuel disputes and conflicts among those interested in that person’s care. Rather than letting these arguments rip a family apart, you may want to explore mediation as a way to resolve an issue without destroying familial ties.
Benefits of mediation
There are several benefits to mediating family disputes instead of going to court.
As this article points out, some advantages of mediation include:
- Giving all parties the opportunity to voice their opinion
- Keeping discussions focused on the issue at hand and not going off on tangents
- Examining creative solutions
- Identifying problems without placing blame
- Working with a neutral mediator trained in facilitating communication
- Allowing parties to reach resolutions together, making them easier to carry out
Further, mediation can move faster and be less expensive than litigation.
Thus, resolving complicated, emotional disputes using this approach can reduce the strain families may be under and give them a clear path forward.
Can mediation work for your family?
Mediating a family legal matter can be an effective approach, particularly those families who:
- Have a shared interest in solving issues peacefully
- Want to keep details of the dispute private
- Are willing to set aside differences in the interest of cooperation
- Can communicate effectively (with or without the help of a mediator)
- Want to preserve familial connections
That said, mediation is not suitable in every situation. It may not be appropriate if there are concerns of abuse or domestic violence among family members or if parties cannot agree on the fundamental aspects of a dispute.
In these cases, going to court can be necessary.
Regardless of how you approach a family dispute concerning a loved one’s care, understand that it can be a challenging process. Painful decisions combined with familial history can make it difficult to reach solutions.
However, legal resources and trained dispute resolution professionals can make this situation easier for everyone.