Ninety percent of the parents in the exit survey sample rated their mediation experience as positive overall. Ninety-three percent said they would recommend that a friend with a custody issue go through mediation, and 96 percent said they were treated with dignity and respect during the mediation process. More than half of the attorneys surveyed reported that mediation increases the quality of resolutions, and nearly three-fourths suggested that mediation reduces the client's costs. It pits one party against another and often increases the hostility and anger. With mediation, the focus is truly on parenting and children's issues.
Mediators provide the process for the parties to make their own decisions.
When parents are able to move away from their highly charged emotions and focus on the child's welfare, it fundamentally changes the way parents react to their children. Van Der Puy said judges report that mediation has cut down on the number of custody cases so that the ones that do make their way to court are the tough ones, where the conflict is deeply ingrained.