What's Happening [08.05.13]

The "What's Happening?" Blog is a weekly round up of the all the ADR news, jobs, events and more. Check it out each week and view past news [HERE]

CROSS BORDER FAMILY MEDIATION: International Standards and Protocols

Research conducted by the American Bar Association, Center on Children and the Law reports research findings that suggest traditional family mediation is not appropriate for high conflict abducting families (Johnston, Sagatun-Edward, & Girdner, 2001). The United States responded by supporting efforts by The Hague Bureau on International Private Law to explore the development of an effective family mediation model that could address the concerns of parents separated by international borders.

...Nearly 1 in 7 new marriages in the USA were bicultural in 2010 (Chen, 2010). Research suggests that 61.8% of international child abductions from the USA were committed in families where each parent held citizenship in another country and an additional 16.5% held dual citizenship (Chiancone and Girdner, 1998). The lack of understanding and appreciation of the others’ cultural traditions, values, and identity creates conflict.

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THE SLOW BURN

Cinnie Noble- I remember my mother using the slang expression ‘slow burn’ when she was feeling angry at someone about something she or he said or did. The sentence started, “I’m doing a slow burn ever since Mary….” Luckily, we seemed to be a family that regularly used idioms, so I didn’t literally think of her burning. But, I do recall asking her, “What is a fast burn?” and her response, “Well that’s when I boil over!” I had observed both so knew what she meant.

So, to bring in my mother’s experience of being in conflict for this blog, I looked up the meaning of ‘slow burn’ to find that it is consistent with the meaning I attributed it. That is, an apparent signal that something or someone is provoking a negative response – starting at a low level with the potential of erupting to a higher one. One definition more precisely is “a steadily penetrating show of anger or contempt”.

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