Splitsville News

As those who have had parenting matters in King County, Snohomish County or Pierce County know, many Washington counties have local rules that require proof of a parent’s attendance at a parenting seminar.  In King County, the seminar is called “What About the Children?” and the goal is to have parents think about what’s going on from the perspective of their children.  The take home lesson:  Divorce or separation isn’t necessarily bad for kids but seeing conflict between parents is.

A DallasNews.com story came out today that, to me, is an example of the parent education idea gone too far.

Texas, like many states, has a divorce rate of about 50%.  Texas Representative Warren Chisum has said that he hopes to spare kids of divorcing parents anxiety and stress as a result of the process.  His proposal is that couples attend workshops in conflict management, communication skills and forgiveness skills.

At first I thought “This sounds like a good thing.”  Communication skills are good.  Forgiveness is good.  Conflict management is good, particularly for separated parents, who often need to coordinate more after divorce than they did during marriage.

So what’s the problem?

Well, 10 hours of counseling as a prerequisite to filing divorce is bad.  Forcing each person to incur a cost of $150 is bad.  Allowing judges–as the proposal provides–to limit parenting simply because one parent has not taken the seminar…that’s bad, too.

To Rep. Chisum, I have this say:  Good idea, but keep working on it.