Joint Custody Blues

But even that arrangement won't keep the peace for the angriest exes. Some parents never accept the fifty-fifty split and appeal endlessly to the courts for modifications, says Candice Komar, a family-law attorney in Pittsburgh. "They'll say it's in the best interest of the child to change the custody arrangement," she says. "But the truth is, often it's because joint custody is driving these parents crazy. I've had people consult me because they fight over whether their child wears a spring coat or a winter coat--and I'm not kidding."

Parenting experts say legal wrangling is to be avoided if at all possible. Mediators and parent educators can help. So can new programs intended to disarm parents in contentious custody situations. Elizabeth Thayer and Jeffrey Zimmerman founded Parents Equally Allied to Co-Parent Effectively (PEACE) in 1998 to help high-conflict parents who are referred by their weary attorneys. So far, the program has trained more than 400 sets of parents in Connecticut and is expanding to other states. PEACE throws out the psychotherapy model of conflict resolution and approaches custody battles as a business. Get rid of the emotions and anger, Thayer says. Instead, think about the bottom line: What will the kids say about their parents' divorce when they're adults?

It's tempting to think that when parents fail to compromise, kids should decide for themselves where to live. Yet most courts try to protect children from having to make such choices, partly because parents will try to manipulate them. In Pittsburgh, Komar doesn't often hear testimony from kids younger than 11. "The first thing out of kids' mouths, whether they talk to the judge in chambers or talk to me," she says, "is, 'Don't make me pick.'"