‘They’re meant to help and did the complete opposite’: many children feel silenced by family courts
- Written by The Conversation
When parental separation ends up in the family courts, serious risks such as family violence, child abuse, drug, alcohol or substance misuse, and mental health issues are often involved.
But many children feel shut out of family court processes that decide what is in their “best interests”.
My new paper, co-authored with Southern Cross University researchers Eliza Hew, Meaghan Vosz and Helen Walsh and published in the journal Child and Family Social Work, looked at how children felt about their experiences in the family courts.
We interviewed 41 children and young people aged ten to 19 from Queensland, New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory and Victoria. Four key themes emerged.
1. Children feel silenced
Some children we spoke with felt they were heard by family law professionals. Many, however, described feeling silenced. Penny (all names in this article changed to protect identies), aged 14, said:
[It was like] someone was standing there and putting something over my mouth so I couldn’t speak […] I should have been allowed in the courtroom and been allowed to say what I wanted.
Chelsea, 15, felt:
squashed and I just had to do what I was told and be quiet and suck it up, even if it wasn’t what I wanted.
Family court orders required Paige, 17, and her sister to spend time with their father, contrary to their expressed wishes. Paige blamed herself, saying:
That was always one of my biggest regrets because I’m like, maybe if I had said something differently, or emphasised it more, they would have understood what I was trying to say and actually listened […] it wouldn’t have made such traumatic memories, which happened afterwards, when we were forced to see him.
The children in our study wanted to be heard directly. As Troy, 14, put it:
Talk to us, not about us.
Children also told us that they wanted their words conveyed accurately by family law professionals to the court. Lisa, 10, said:
It’s like whispering to another person, and then you keep whispering, whispering, and then eventually, something comes out differently. People get it mixed up.
Other children felt speaking up was futile. Ari, 11, said:
I had some ideas that I wanted, that I thought would be fair, but it never really changed […] So I just stopped talking.
2. Children feel ‘in the dark’
Most children we interviewed felt “in the dark” about family court processes. Olive, 11, said she had “no clue what was going on”, while Leo, 13, said:
I didn’t know anything. I was playing the guessing game.
Some children got information through their own proactive, even covert efforts. Ava, 13, said:
I was snooping through Mum’s room and I found some papers.
Ava then Googled the family court judge who decided her parents’ case, because “she, like, ruined my life. Need to know who.”
Other children got more information than they wanted.
Eva, 12, said:
Mum shared with me lots of the law court stuff and I really wish she didn’t, because I should just be a kid. That was the sort of thing that made me feel […] sort of responsible and it sort of made me look at my mum in a bad way.
3. Some children will vote with their feet
Some children said they’d refused to comply with family court parenting orders. As Ava, 13, put it:
If they can’t listen to me, I’m not going to listen to them.
Chelsea, 15, explained:
I wasn’t listened to at all […] in the end, I finally put my foot down, and I was like, “I’m not going to Dad’s”.
Aaron, 16, and his siblings chose to live with their father, contrary to family court orders. He explained:
When they said that we had to live with Mum, we just lived with Dad anyway […] They’re meant to help and did the complete opposite.
4. Children feel less able to trust others
Children stressed the importance of family law professionals creating space to build trust. But several children felt they were betrayed by law professionals who’d shared what the children had said with their parents.
Troy, 14, said:
If I knew what I said was going to get back to Dad, I wouldn’t have said it.
Jessica, 16, wanted:
More support on knowing that what I said directly wouldn’t get back to my dad in case I was sent back there, because stuff I said could have really, really, really hurt me if I was sent back.
Gabrielle, 18, said:
Adults are meant to be the people that you can trust, particularly when they say that they’re there for your best interest. I lost a lot of trust. I couldn’t trust anyone again.
Protecting children
Our study didn’t ask children about details of their family court orders, so it’s possible that, as Aaron, 16, observed, “the people that probably want to do this [research] are probably the people that got messed around”.
But our findings are important because they expose concerning attitudes about children and their rights in the family courts, and the capacity and skills of professionals to support children to participate meaningfully and safely.
We’re now working with the children and young people we interviewed to co-create a children’s participation toolkit, which will give children information about their right to participate in family law processes.
Olive, 11, captures it best:
You gotta listen to the children, ‘cause it’s their lives. But it’s also like, sometimes they’ve got some pretty great ideas too.
