Split Decisions: Should Courts Force Reunification Therapy?

In this episode of Split Decisions, veteran California family law attorneys Tim Miranda and Carlos Tavares argue both sides of a high-conflict custody dispute involving parental alienation, reunification therapy, child custody rights, and the wishes of a teenage child.

A 14-year-old boy refuses all contact with his father.

The father believes the child's mother has alienated their son against him and asks the court to enforce reunification therapy. The mother argues the boy's feelings are genuine and that forcing therapy is only making things worse.

Can a court force a child to repair a broken relationship with a parent? 

After the debate, Tim and Carlos break down what would actually happen in California family court, discuss the role of Minor's Counsel, explain how much weight courts give a 14-year-old's preferences, and share why reunification therapy often struggles to achieve the results parents hope for.

Topics Covered:
• Reunification Therapy
• Parental Alienation Claims
• Child Custody Disputes
• Teenagers Refusing Visitation
• California Family Court
• Minor's Counsel
• Child's Preference in Custody Cases
• High-Conflict Co-Parenting
• Family Law Litigation
• Divorce and Parenting Conflicts

Every trial has two sides. Which one wins? You be the judge.

Cast your vote in the comments:
Should courts continue forcing reunification therapy when a child refuses to participate? Or should a teenager's wishes be respected, even if the relationship may never be repaired? 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Can the court order a parent and a child to repair their relationship? We have reunification therapy for Ethan, which is not working. Can therapy rebuild a bond when one side refuses to participate? This is framed as an attack on mom because she's not cooperating, and what happens when reunification therapy simply isn't working?

SPEAKER_00 0:26

You don't see reunification therapy without fundamental parenting problems.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

This is split decisions where veteran divorce attorneys go head to head over real-life conflict shaping today's family courts. Today's case centers on a 14-year-old boy who refuses all contact with his father. Father believes the mother has alienated their son against him and wants the court to enforce reunification therapy. The mother argues the boy's feelings are genuine and that forcing therapy is only making things worse.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

The father is asking the court for stronger enforcement of the reunification order. He wants sanctions against the mother and additional measures to help restore his relationship with his son. The mother supports the child's wishes and believes forcing therapy is only increasing resentment. She argues the court should respect the wishes of a 14-year-old who refuses to participate. So a legal question becomes: should a court continue forcing reunification therapy when a child refuses to participate? Or should the court accept that some relationships cannot be repaired through legal intervention? After the debate, we'll have a discussion and give you some insight into how we make these arguments and what we really think about these types of court-ordered measures. Let's start the debate.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

Thank you, Your Honor. You're intimately familiar with this case. It's been pending before you now for over two years. We have reunification therapy for Ethan, which is not working. And to hear Mother tell it, the reason is because Ethan wants to have absolutely no relationship with my client, the father, the father that before all of this started to degenerate had a great relationship. The issue is not what Ethan wants, it's what Ethan thinks he wants because mother is fomenting that. Mother, for example, is encouraging him to block his phone so he can't receive any calls from my client. Mother is getting specific instructions of the therapeutic plan from the reunification therapist, and she is refusing to follow those. You have admissible evidence of that from the reunification therapist. The issue for my client is what can he do now? He certainly appreciates the fact that this court has endeavored to do everything it can to repair this relationship. He respects the fact that Ethan is 14 years of age and is quickly becoming a man. He definitely does not want to do anything that would be deleterious to Ethan. However, he believes, and I believe this court believes, that what is in the best interest of Ethan is to have a productive, strong relationship with both parents. That's the basis of the request. What can you do? Number one, we're requesting that you appoint minors counsel. We've had previous discussions about this. We've attempted to avoid it. But at this juncture, we have a conflict. We have mother saying one thing, we have the reunification therapist saying another. We haven't heard much from Ethan, and we have my client who doesn't believe anything that the mother is saying. Appointing minors counsel to represent the interest of Ethan would make a lot of sense in this case. Economically, it would make sense, and the court should order, as we've requested, that mother bear the expense for that, because mother is the genesis of the issue, and her actions and her complete affront to the therapy plan is what is causing this request. So she should pay. The second would be therapy. We need additional therapy for mother individually and for Ethan. My client, the father, is already in individual therapy. We need to have additional work on everybody involved to ensure that they're on the right plane and that they are doing what they need to do to try to mend their relationship. Finally, the monetary sanctions request. We're requesting monetary sanctions for having to bring yet another motion in this case. The basis, the tethering of the sanctions, is the fact that it is mother under Family Code Section 271 who is frustrating settlement. She is causing unnecessary litigation by making us return to court to ask for additional measures from this court to ensure that father can have some kind of functional relationship. That is not promotive of settlement. That is not being done in the best interest of anybody except mother. So if we have to keep coming back and wasting your time and my time and my client's money and the taxpayer's dollar, she should have to pay for it. She should be the one to pay. She can pay. So you should order that today. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 5:07

Good morning, Your Honor. Two years ago, the court ordered reunification therapy due to a conflict between the son and father. For two years, this has occurred, and after two years, not much has changed. This is framed as an attack on mom because she's not cooperating. And while there is some evidence that she may not be 100% cooperative at all times, she has in substantive part participated and cooperated for the last two years. This issue does not involve mom. This is the son's issue with his father. And for two years of reunification therapy, the therapist reports that the child has chosen not to participate in the ways that the therapist sought him to participate. This is not mom's fault. So right now, the issue of the focus on mom is misguided. The issue is what is the essence of the conflict between the child and his father? So it's mom's an easy target on this, but the child has participated for two years. He's 14. Whatever his reasons are, they appear to have been reinforced. They were there two years ago. They continue to be here for two years. Perhaps the reunification therapist is ineffective and should be considered as such, including her opinion that mom was not participating to the extent required. Perhaps reunification therapist is not qualified enough because she could not communicate to dad whatever it is that dad is doing that has resulted in the alienation of his son. I don't know. But it certainly is low-lying fruit to come after mom for this uh shortcoming. The bottom line is we have a 14-year-old who has an issue with his father. He's had it for years, and the reunification therapy didn't work. Mom would like to not have to keep coming back to court because dad can't seem to fix this problem in the reunification therapy where it was. So we would ask that the court recognize the state of affairs, recognize that after two years, a pretty long time for reunification therapy, that it hasn't worked, and the court should allow this child to go about his business and have the relationship based on what he wants to have with his father without further court intervention.

SPEAKER_01 7:24

I appreciate the argument by Mr. Tavares, and in large part it sounds like acquiescence. He generally seems to agree. No one is disputing that there's a problem, that there's a problem with Ethan, and we need to find a solution. What is in dispute is why the child chose not to participate. Uh, it's not in dispute insofar as the reunification therapist has provided admissible evidence to the court of what mother has done and not done in that respect. The assertion that maybe the reunification therapist is ineffective, I appreciate that, but that should be disregarded entirely because if that were the case, there should have been something proactive on behalf of mother to replace this person with someone that might be more effective. These sound like excuses, excuses that don't solve the problem. Clearly, if the court grants my client's request, there will be a minor's counsel appointed. That person will be charged with informing this court what the root issues are, what is affecting Ethan, and what perhaps would be the best possible strategy going forward. Again, I'm asking that the court order that mother pay that cost and that mother be sanctioned for bringing today's hearing, because I believe, and my client believes, and the court should see that this was entirely mother's doing.

SPEAKER_00 8:39

Now the decision is yours. Tell us which side you agree with. Should a court keep enforcing reunification therapy in an effort to preserve the relationship between a parent and a child, or should a 14-year-old's wishes be respected, even if that relationship may never be repaired. He won. Carlos wins.

SPEAKER_01 8:59

No, his argument was great because quite frankly, that's pretty much all you have to say.

SPEAKER_00 9:04

I mean, it's that it's that one-sided and like usually blows up earlier, but it was coming out of my mouth.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

Two years.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

And at 14 And the therapist can't figure it out.

SPEAKER_01 9:15

And at 14, the court gives uh weight to what the child's interests are uh legally. So if they say, look, I just don't like my dad for X, they usually say, okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:25

What happens next in a case like this? As the persuasive attorney in the easy position, uh, the position of the court is the easy position is to appoint the minor's counsel because the parents are always pointing their fingers at each other, and you really want to find out A, is the child in conflict with father due to his parenting, or is the child in conflict with mother because he's being subverted by mother? So that's the only thing that needs to be determined. Once that is effectively determined, everything falls, you kind of know which lane you're gonna go down. So the the request for minors counsel at this point is a is a logical request because neither one of us could bring to the court's attention the why. Like, here's what happens. You know, like dad beat child at age 12 and child has never forgiven him, and the reunification therapy didn't address that. We don't know the why. So the next question is sorting out the why as objectively as possible, and minors counsel is probably the most effective way to do that.

SPEAKER_01 10:27

I think what happens next, from my perspective, the court will likely grant the request for the minors council. The court would probably reserve on the request that mother pay those fees and would reserve to reallocate the cost later. But more importantly, what happens is really going to be up to the child. I hate to say that, but at age 14 in California, a minor child, their custodial desires are given weight by the court. The court doesn't have to do that, but the court typically always does. And the court generally is very interested in understanding what the problem is from the perspective of the child. And if the child is competent to articulate and they can tell the court what the issue is or what the issues are, the court's generally very interested in that and will typically make orders that are aligned with what the child wants because the court wants the child to be happy, healthy, successful, and ultimately a lot of this never gets resolved. Hopefully, when the child reaches the age of majority, becomes an adult, they still have a functioning relationship with both parents, but there's no guarantee there either. These kind of cases are incredibly difficult because the court, despite its best efforts, is incredibly limited what it can really do. And despite the best efforts of the therapist involved, oftentimes it just does not work.

SPEAKER_00 11:46

I always really push on my clients really hard to be kick-ass parents as a as a as a position. Be the best parent you can be. Don't you know, not all your excuses and whatever. What does a role model parent look like and be that role model? Because if you're doing the right things as a parent, kids can handle nose. They may not like it and they don't get the pony they want or the car they want or the purse they want. But as they grow up, they realize that was done out of love. And what we see a lot in once you come into our offices and now you want to go to court, you've gone from, you know, being, you know, a parenting mindset, which is really a logical mindset, like you want to yell at your kid, but you know that's not the best way, so you're gonna deal with your kid, versus a highly emotional defensive mindset. And sometimes they just can't override that emotion because they're nervous or scared or I'm losing my kid. The emotions can be really overwhelming. But the first thing I tell them, say, look, man, you know what it takes to be a good parent, be a good parent, be a good role model, be a good example, and trust in that process. You don't see reunification therapy without fundamental parenting problems, be it parties get divorced, everything's kind of okay, and then dad gets a new girlfriend. You know, you see some fundamental stuff that back in the day Dr. Laura would tell you not to do. So if you stick to that kind of stuff, you're gonna end up okay. Your kids are gonna see through it as they get older because they can be persuaded when they're younger and you know, trust the process. And when I'm on the receiving end of it, where we're representing the parents and saying, hey, look, it's I'm not involved. Our job is just to do everything we can do to pull that person out of the fray. And like if mom's not cooperating, mom's gonna do everything she can to cooperate. We're not gonna make mom a target in any way, shape, or form this material. We're just gonna remove her so the true conflict can be seen. So there's a couple of things, but usually when it's gotten to this point, there's so many other uh power dynamic drivers in play. I imagine there's parents out there who work it out and we never see them. Parents that say, I hate you and I love my kid, and you're important to your kid, our kid. So for his sake or her sake, I'm gonna be decent and treat you professionally and treat you like an adult because it's important to the well-being of my kid. The parents that think like that, we don't see them. And occasionally we get, you know, there's one side of the case has one of those parents and the other side doesn't. And this is where your real the reunification therapy will expose that. It'll show that the child and the parent have a defective relationship and the adult is at fault because they're the adult. So it's within their power to lead and parent and fix it or not. And if they don't, then it just goes where it is.

SPEAKER_01 14:46

So some children, depending on how they were raised or whatever, um, are going to respond differently to pressure from the court, pressure from third persons, uh, pressure from people asking questions and following and wanting to know everything. And that also depends on the age of the child. The final thing I would say, and I do share this with clients when they're interested, is that based on my experience and ironically, oftentimes this only works temporarily while the child is a minor. And in my experience, later in life, when the child becomes an adult and the court can no longer intervene in terms of custody, visitation, communication, and everyone's free to talk to whomever they want, whenever they please, the child that during the minority had no relationship or a very limited relationship with one parent will oftentimes end up having a relationship with that parent when they become adults for whatever reason. I have my own notions about that. But again, I just don't know that going through all of this and trying to compel a child in the long run will produce anything of value except for perhaps the lawyers, maybe the minors counsel and the therapists in terms of fees. But that's not the objective here, or it shouldn't be.

SPEAKER_00 16:05

Part of this is really let's remember who the child is in this proceeding. They're not a party. The court has no jurisdiction over them whatsoever. They can do whatever they want, and the court begrudgingly recognizes that. So when a child starts to come of age and starts to sort of push everybody away, the court doesn't have any hard tools in its bag to deal with the child. They have to take a more soft approach. Secondly, the the court realizes that a child in a divorce is in a delicate place. So the last thing they want to do is start pushing that child into more detrimental behavior. You know, we see cutting, we see drugs, we see staying out late, we see running away, we see uh pre you know underage sex. So they already know that child is in a tough spot with the household being divided. And now they're like, okay, what can we do to kind of not lose this kid? So they're not really pushing on the child hard, they're really pushing on the parents. When it comes to reunification therapy, I have yet to see a case that wasn't really just a parenting failure. Because when a child says, even at 14, so in our courts allow a 14-year-old to address the court if they want to address the court. That's like the cutoff. And it's kind of a pretty reasonable cutoff. 14-year-olds for the most part are fairly sophisticated nowadays, especially coming of age in a house in conflict. So we see some very moving statements from these kids. Now, we also can see they're only 14 or 15 or 16 or 17. And but we can see that it's their reality. And you have to deal with these kids based on their reality. So if you go in going, hey, that was wrong, you lose every time. The kid just keeps pulling away because A, you're not listening, and you just keep telling me I'm wrong. Well, kids, if they're telling you their truth, it may not be real, but it's it's certainly real to them. So when a child says, Hey, I'm upset because I didn't feel like you gave me attention or you give your new wife more attention or your new kid with your new wife more attention, the answer isn't no, that's not true. I have a stopwatch on it. That's where that child's reality is, and you have to meet that child there. If you go into reunification therapy and can't say, Hey, I want to have a relationship with you, I didn't know where you were at. Let me meet you where you were at, let me be the adult and be the parent. That's the only way it's going to work. And I found that the parents that approach their kids like that are not the ones that end up in reunification therapy. That's why I, in 20-something years, have yet to see reunification therapy work. But you sort of have to go through the process because that's really the only mechanism to go through and lame grade and find out, okay, well, what can we, what do we see out of this? And at some point, the reunification therapists will um raise their hand and say, okay, this isn't working. And coming from the therapist, that carries a lot of weight.

SPEAKER_01 19:04

I agree with Carlos. I have never seen this work to the extent that anybody would certainly hope that it works. Again, I don't blame anybody on the therapeutic side necessarily. I don't blame the court. The court will always endeavor to do whatever it can to try to assist and put pieces back together. They're not going to just give up on the child. But generally speaking, despite all the therapeutic intervention and orders that the court can make, if you fundamentally have two parents that will not co-parent productively, that continue to have residual issues from the breakup of their relationship. And there could be other issues, substance abuse, mental illness, um, who knows, domestic violence. Those types of things are always going to impact and exacerbate the situation. So these are the types of cases that you're hoping for the best, um, but you're probably not expecting to ever get that. And again, I think that ultimately what sometimes parents need to hear, and what I certainly talk to my clients about is the reality of spending years in court, tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars on legal fees and what the outcome might be, versus taking a different approach, um, trying to treat the child with more respect, trying to meet the child at their level, trying to understand what the issue is, recognizing me a culpa, I did some things wrong, I need to repair myself, and then hoping that again, once the child becomes an adult and the family court has nothing to do with custody and visitation, there can be a productive and meaningful relationship for the rest of their respective lives. That type of advice doesn't always resonate, but certainly there's more than one way to approach this. And reunification therapy is probably not going to give anybody what they really uh are seeking. However, if you're in a situation where you love your children and they won't communicate with you, I can certainly empathize with the client that wants to pursue every available measure to make that happen. So it's a very, very tough situation for everybody, including the court. This is split decisions where the arguments collide and you decide. Cast your vote in the comments or the poll. Subscribe for more real world legal debates on the AM sidebar.