This isn't something that has happened overnight, to become an adversarial system. Courts do generally have winners and losers, so I think it's going to take a bit of time for that to change, and for people to understand that when they approach the court, they'll be approaching it in a different way.
Very few people are at their best during divorce. They may be acting quite differently than they normally do. It takes a lot of co-operation to have a mutually agreed-upon divorce. We need to do more within the system, as others have said, about supporting parents, listening to children and helping people possibly find a less conflicting solution to their parenting issues.
For those the court needs to see, it's important that the court understand the nature of family violence and the central role of a child's growing up in a protected and loving situation, whatever the family constellation will be.
I would just like to offer one comment made a number of years ago by an author named Margrit Eichler. She favoured a nesting agreement whereby the parents would move out and the child would stay in the home. Most adults would say, “You can't do that to me. All of my stuff is there.” When children live in two homes, all of their stuff is moving back and forth as well, so we are definitely proponents of a child-centred arrangement.
