In response to the article on family court experiences for women and children (Family courts in England and Wales ‘not good enough’ for women and children, minister says, 22 March), the key to measuring the success or otherwise of reforms should be tracking children over the long term, focusing on their lived experience rather than the legal outcomes.
If the now-grown children were asked to evaluate their experiences retrospectively, it would provide actual evidence. Currently, there’s a feedback loop, with professionals in the system effectively evaluating themselves.
There is a systemic problem in the family courts whereby parents with narcissistic or other personality disorders are not being recognised as abusive and allowed to repeatedly seek control of the other parent or the children, either by seeking to have the child live with them or in other ways.
In some cases, they succeed in gaining control by making false allegations to professionals, or by co-opting the child’s sympathies through guilt and manipulation. Children’s voices should absolutely be listened to, but with the caveat that professionals need to be trained to understand power imbalances and the patterns of behaviour that reveal a protective parent versus a coercive one.
Currently, the system tends to treat parents equally in the name of fairness rather than supporting the weaker, manipulated or abused party. Without studies reflecting the long-term experiences of the children, outcomes are unlikely to improve.
Karen Pine
Rhyl, Denbighshire
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