Family Law

By John M. "Jack" Starr

Children in the System

Sadly, in todays society, more and more families are breaking up for reasons they believe to be well founded. While mothers and fathers are in the midst of their separations, too often their children are bewildered and feel lost in a sea of uncertainty. Studies have shown that many times, a child will take on the burden of believing that he or she was the cause of the breakup of the family. Those children still deeply love both mom and dad and want to see their parents back together. Many times, that just can't happen because of the feeling of the parents.

As your superior court judge, I would work together with family court services, counselors, the parties, and the children to help keep the spark of love and admiration alive between the children and the parents. I would encourage the parents to put the interests of their children first and to put behind themselves the thougts, anger, animosity, and divisivness that may impair the devotion the children feel toward their parents. This at times may mean that one party or the other may be required to stay away from the children for a period of time, or that some of the participants may need to engage in more intensive activity with awareness programs. In short, as your judge, my goal will be to do what is necessary to help the children in a dissolution matter have a more full, rich and complete relationship with their parents regardless of which party initated the legal proceedings.