Latest / SPLITUP / Co-Parenting Plans That Actually Work - With Guest Annette Burns

Transcript

Co-Parenting Plans That Actually Work - With Guest Annette Burns · SPLITUP

• 0:07
  Speaker: This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not legal or psychological advice.
• 0:12
  Speaker: Listening does not create a professional relationship with Split Up or any guests.
• 0:17
  Speaker: Lonnie and Robert are only licensed in the state of Arizona.
• 0:21
  Speaker: For legal or mental health concerns, please consult a licensed professional in your state.
• 0:26
  Speaker: Guest identities may be changed for privacy.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Launi with Split Up, and today I have Annette Burns with me.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Hi, Annette.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Hi, good morning.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: So Annette is an Arizona certified family law specialist and author.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: She was the she was um a co-author of the Biff Communication Book, which Annette, I really want to do one of those with you also if we if you are willing.
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's this that's this one from uh 2021, I think.
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, another great book.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Um today we're talking about the co-parenting by design book, which is this one.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Um and you've written uh just so many other books or have co-written or have written articles.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Uh so you can check that out on her website.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: It's thehayenet.com.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: But she does a lot of writing for like AFCC, AAML, uh, and a lot of article writing.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: So I appreciate you being here.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: This one is co-authoring with uh Nicole Sekierov Stoutner.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Um and this is the one that we're gonna talk about today because it's I think it's a really great book.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: And again, it's called co-parenting by design.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: So go out and get a copy.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: You can get it on Amazon.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Actually, what I'll do is I'll put a link at the bottom of the podcast and the the YouTube.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Um all right, so I I do have a bunch of questions, and we were talking just before we started recording um about this book, and I was adding questions for her because it's it is a really great book, but there's some specific things I want to talk to her about.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: So, first, what do you think is the best way to use this book?
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: Oh, using it.
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: Um, I I I personally think anyone who's getting ready for a separation or getting ready for a divorce that involves kids, um, reading it up front and and doing it before you have a parenting plan, I think is one of the best ways to use it because it'll make you think about a lot of things you never would have dreamed uh need to be in a parenting plan.
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: And it's frankly, it's usually up to the lawyers, if you're using a lawyer, um, to explain some things about parenting plans to people.
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: And, you know, we're lawyers.
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: We're not we're parents too, mostly, but um, that's not the best way to learn about what needs to be in a parenting plan.
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: So if you educate yourself by reading this book before you go into it, and especially if you're doing your divorce on your own, this will give you a lot of things to think about and know that you need to discuss with your other parent.
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: So that's one way to deal, to use it.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: And I was I was telling Annette too, if if you've already done, if you're already gone through it and you've got a parenting plan, there are points to talk about with your co-parent in here.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: Um, and if you're gonna change it, you know, make some really good additional changes because language matters.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: And you probably, if you've got a parenting plan, you already know that.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Um, you probably already had problems with it because it wasn't specific enough or it was too specific, or you know, whatever the issue might be.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: Um but a net gives samples in here.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: And uh today we're what we're gonna talk about is like the child's possessions.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Um, and we're gonna say, I don't know, I say child and children's um, you know.
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: Um we use mostly child.
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: We use mostly child in the book, I think, just to be consistent.
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: But and yeah, I would just point out if you already have a parenting plan, the whole first section of this book um is just called co-parenting and its challenges.
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: And that's before we get to the second section, which has a lot of specific parenting plan things.
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: The whole first section is kind of for the people that have already been engaged in some kind of co-parenting and have found some real problems.
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: And for one thing, it talks about parallel parenting, and we're trying to make you realize that being somewhat disengaged from the other parent is fine.
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: It's not a failure.
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: Uh, if it has been really difficult dealing with the other parent, there's a lot of strategies and how to do that, but mostly not to feel like a failure if you have to be somewhat disengaged from the other parent.
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: So the whole first section is kind of for people who have already been trying to co-parent and run into problems and how to deal with them.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: So we should almost have a whole podcast on just parallel parenting and what that looks like and how to make the best out of that.
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: Because I I would love that because I think it's it's underused.
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: I think some people have a um a wrong or bad definition of it that makes it seem like parallel parents hate each other.
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: That's not true at all.
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: Parallel parenting is just a methodology.
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: It's it doesn't mean people hate each other or that they've they've ruined things between themselves.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: So I would definitely do an we'll do another one for that.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: I know today I asked you to plan talking about the the child's possessions going back and forth because that's I can't tell you how many times I've had that issue, but I actually had it, and I'm gonna I'll end up bringing this up, which I always throw myself under the bus uh on my own divorce.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: Um, but we had issues with with our kids.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: Um, my ex wouldn't let stuff come to my house that they had purchased.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: It was just, it was sad because they want their stuff.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: So, what is your position on that?
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: Well, it I it depends.
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: And I say that a lot.
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: But with the children's possessions, you've got so many different categories of it.
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: I mean, first of all, you can talk about who buys the things, who's responsible for buying, who actually owns the things.
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: And my feeling is generally it's the child, but there's exceptions, and who controls the things.
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: So you have all those issues.
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: And when we're talking about the things, we could be talking about anything from electronic devices, which are their own category.
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: We could do Yeah, we should definitely do one on that because all the like the location stuff on the watches and would be a great GPS and uh each household's rules about use of devices and the non-custodial parents' ability to contact the children on those devices.
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: That's its own category.
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: But that is things, so that falls in what we're talking about.
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: But we're also talking about sports equipment, clothing, shoes, specialty items, um, dropping, and and then we need to talk about dropping off stuff when the kids have forgotten something at mom's house and now they're at dad's.
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: How do you do that without being too intrusive?
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: So there's all these categories of how to deal with it.
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: And that's why the book, um, we have one chapter just called possessions.
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: And to just try and generally uh talk about these things.
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: Forgotten things at the other parent's house, like I said.
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: And then you have the comfort items.
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: You have the blanky and the whoopie and the fluffy the dog.
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: We could even talk about children's pets as children's possessions.
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: Pets are a whole different category.
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: I've seen those go back and forth.
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, absolutely.
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: I have too.
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: Sometimes not voluntarily.
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: But so how do we handle those?
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: I mean, if we start with what I think of as the easier ones, clothing and shoes.
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: I mean, and they're not easy, but the most common.
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: Clothing and shoes.
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, when I'm acting as a parenting coordinator, sometimes I have had to tell the parents, look, you are messaging each other about clothing and shoes constantly.
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: This has to stop.
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: It's too much engagement about a sweater, about a water bottle, about a um uh uh sweatshirt.
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: First of all, as we explain in the book, if if an item's missing, it may or may not be at the other parent's home.
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: Your kids may have lost it.
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: Have you checked school, lost, and found?
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: Have you checked everywhere else?
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: Second of all, if you have things that you believe are at the other parents' home, don't be writing or texting about it constantly.
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: Maybe do one email a week, or even I'd prefer one email a month, where you say, Here are things missing from my house, pink sweatshirt with her initials, uh, green shoes, or one green shoe.
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: That's the worst when one shoe's missing, right?
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: Um, do that periodically, not more than once a week.
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: And I'd prefer once a month.
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: And just do that solely in an email.
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: Here are things we're missing.
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: Have you searched in your home for these things?
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: Would you let me know?
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: Usually, uh, well, if you have a parenting coordinator or a judge is looking at this, the judge is going to order the other parent to look and to um respond.
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: And that's what I would do as parenting coordinator.
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: Um, but make it a nice email, not accusing, and wait for a response.
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: If the parent responds and says, I don't have these things, you're pretty much stuck with that.
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: Uh, to continue the argument and go on, what are you gonna do?
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: Go to the other parent's house and search the house.
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: You're not gonna get a search warrant.
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: So at some point, you got to let it go.
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: I have also written a number of emails to parents saying, you have now gone back and forth on this issue about 12 times.
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: You have paid me to some extent to deal with this issue.
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: You could have gone to Target and replaced that sweatshirt for $12.
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: So you need to give it up sometimes.
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: Go to Target, go to Old Navy, go on Amazon, and just get some more.
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: And the same thing applies with water bottles.
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: I see constant lunchbox and water bottle communication.
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: Sometimes you need to just buy extras.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think that's that's what people need to really understand is what is your goal?
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: Like to what end?
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: Is it just because you want to be right?
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: Or do you need a lunchbox?
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: Because if you just want to be right, then you can email till you're purple.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: But if you just need a lunchbox, go to Target, go to Cole's, get a new one.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: You've now saved.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, how much is that nagging and headache worth to you?
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: Is it worth more than a hundred?
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: And and going to your parenting coordinator.
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: I mean, well, you know, that's makes sense, believe me.
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: But yeah, at some point, you just have to say, I I've I've emailed him 12 times about this.
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: And I can understand the frustration as a parent if you absolutely know that that lunchbox or that sweatshirt is at dad's house.
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: I mean, I'm married.
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: I know it's frustrating.
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: If you absolutely know it's at dad's house and he just keeps saying, I don't have it, I haven't seen it, I don't know what you're talking about.
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: Sometimes you just have to give it up.
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: You gotta pick your battles, and that's not one to that's not a hill to die on, believe me.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: And it's it's really not, I mean, I'm so I happen to be the disorganized parent.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: You know, you know what I mean?
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: Like you always it's I'm the organized parent.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: Hi.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: Right, right, right.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: Um, I'm the disorganized parent.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: So like if anything went missing, it was always blamed on me because I am the disorganized parent.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: Um and I have to say, you know, there were times where things were found at their house afterwards, and I felt good about it because it wasn't me.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: Um, you know, it it's not always the disorganized parent who's losing stuff.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: Sometimes the organized exactly the kid.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: The kid might set it somewhere else, even at the organized parent's house.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: So, you know, have some grace, have some kindness, and move on from it, right?
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: And and realize you're not gonna be able to take the other disorganized parent and teach them the skills about why isn't the lunchbox always in the same place?
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: Why don't they put their water bottles by the front door when they come home?
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: You're not gonna be able to do that.
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: You do not control that household, give it up.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, and I would love to do that.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: I always I always end up with that intention, right?
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: I always ended up with I'm gonna put open the backpack here, things are gonna stay here, this is what's gonna happen, and eventually I'm throwing stuff all over and I don't know where any of it is.
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: That's just you know, ADD unmedicated.
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: That's just life.
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: It's life, Lonnie.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: It's not just yeah, and and so you know, I just have some grace with your other parent, move on, go get a new one.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: It's 12 bucks, you know, 15 bucks.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: Um, but there are things I I know we weren't necessarily going to go into this, but while I've gotcha, what what do you think about the watches with location devices?
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, let's talk about devices.
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: Oh, yes, we know this comes up a lot.
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: Um, the way okay, there's these watches.
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: And I first started hearing about gizmos, what, 10 years ago, maybe more.
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: And I'm sure there's lots of others now too.
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: And now there's Apple watches.
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: I've got cases where 10-year-olds are showing up with Apple watches.
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: Okay, when a parent buys a child these watches that have GPS and location services, or maybe even just texting services, and then sends the child to the other house with this device.
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: Once the child crosses the doorstep of the other parent's house, that other parent is in charge of whether or not the child gets to use that device.
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: That's just the way it is.
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: So there is no guarantee that just because you send your child over there wearing a watch, that the other parent is gonna let him keep it on.
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: Um, now, maybe some parents don't care at all.
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: They're like, oh, you got him an Apple Watch.
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: That's fabulous.
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: We're gonna wear it everywhere.
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: But um the more common cases that end up with us as lawyers or parenting coordinators, the other parent doesn't like it.
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: And so I tell the other parent, stay cool, fine, you control the watch, take it off the child, put it in a safe place, and the next time the child goes back to parent A, who bought the watch, send the watch back.
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: And that's it.
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: And and you control it.
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: And then I have to make it clear to parent A who bought the watch.
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: I'm not gonna force the other parent to let the child wear it everywhere.
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: You're tracking him.
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: That's not that's not always permitted.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: And that was that was always the big thing that I saw with phones and with watches was the tracking.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: And I mean, listen, if my ex had tracked me, I wouldn't care.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: But some people do, and there's stoppers, and there's some bad stuff happening right there.
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't care much either, but there's also the domestic violence issue that someone is actually being tracked where they're going.
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: So I wouldn't care much either.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: And what do you do with that with a phone?
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Like, do you have both parents have permissions to turn off the location device?
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: Or do you ever do anything with that?
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: Because yeah, listen, when a kid's 15, they want their phone.
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: Right, right.
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: And if the parents won't share the basic information that allows you to turn on the tracking on and off and on, then sometimes it ends up that the child doesn't get to use the phone at the other parent's house.
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: And unfortunately, I've seen a number of cases where these kids have two phones.
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: One TV.
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: It's terrible.
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: It's terrible, but and I've never told anyone to do that.
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: But a lot of parents, that is the solution they've reached.
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: And if a parent, okay, this child comes into your home, he's got an Apple phone, and you have no control over the cloud services, you can't sign into it, you can't turn off Find My Phone, et cetera.
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: Um, what are you gonna do?
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: Maybe that's your only choice is to say, you can't use that phone here because I have no control over it.
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: So, but when you get up, you mentioned a 15-year-old.
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: When you get up in the that age, the tracking is mostly tracking the child and not the parent.
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: And so, in I'd say most cases, both parents appreciate that ability.
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: They do want to be able to track the 15, 16-year-old.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree that that most parents who aren't super high conflict appreciate that.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's uh like what's I'm my kids, my kids didn't want to give me the family, wouldn't enter my family plan.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: Like we had the issues with I bought a phone, Todd got a phone.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: We weren't all on the same plan.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: But once my kids turned 18, I they they made sure I I was on, like they wanted me to know where they were for safety's sake, right?
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: I mean, my daughter's like, I'm not going anywhere without you knowing, let's we're on, you know, life 360.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: Um, and I think that's important for kids.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: You want to know for sure.
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: Of course, it is it's a the bigger problems arise when you're talking about very young children.
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: So anywhere from ages two or three to 11 or 12.
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: And it's the gizmo watches, usually with limited ability.
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: It can only call a few numbers, no texting, no internet access.
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: Um, and it's really strictly used for tracking.
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: And that's where I've seen most of the problems between parents saying, I do not want to be tracked.
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: And that's where you say, okay, then you control the device when the child's with you, send it back and tell parent A, I am not letting him wear this watch when he's with me, leave it at home.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: Do you ever have them share their like passwords for it or anything to make sure that they have control over it?
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: And if the parents will share passwords and can both control what's going on with the device, that's a good compromise.
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: And then the the device isn't going to be taken away.
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: The problem is when you get into sharing passwords that involve your Apple account, your home account, it could also potentially give parent B access to parent A's Gmail.
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: I've seen that happen.
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: You got to be really careful when you're dealing with anything in the cloud.
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: You could be giving access to more than just that device.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: Um, so if anyone sets that up, set it up with a different email address, a different like your kids' email address, your create a whole new thing.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: I I because I think I did that with um with the medical portals too, right?
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: Like the medical portals, yes.
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: And I think they're getting better at it because I think doctor's offices are realizing we need to give both parents access to the children's portion of the medical, but not the parents.
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: I've seen improvements in that lately.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's a that was has always been a problem.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: And you're like, why wouldn't they just it seems like the people doing the software, it would be that difficult to say, okay, there can be two people on this who have access with different passwords, different email addresses.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: But hey, even three or four.
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: But hey, eight to ten years ago, we didn't have medical portals.
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: So you know, we got to get used to all this stuff, and they are getting better.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: That's true.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: The the one part I I dislike about the the watches, and I just wanted to sort of follow up is where you do have a parent who is searching, going, why is Billy at this address um at 10 o'clock at night?
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: Um and again, I mean, what what do you tell?
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: Like, mind your own business, right?
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: The the parents a fit and appropriate parent to have parenting time, let them have it and and you know, mind your own business.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: But there are people who aren't capable of that.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: Well, and that's a situation where um if if a third party is involved, a judge or otherwise, that person questioning the child's whereabouts or questioning why are they out at 10 at night may need to be told, okay, that's a reason you don't get access to this device anymore.
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: So, but the first thing to do is emphasize look, you have joint legal decision making.
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: Here's a court finding that says you're both capable parents or you're both suitable, whatever the word is, competent, whatever the word is the court used.
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: Um, you don't get to question what's going on at the other parents' home.
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: You just don't.
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: And it's it's a real, it's a behavioral change.
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: It takes a long time.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: It it is, it's hard.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: I've been through it.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: I, you know, the loss of control, I think, is so loss of control is huge.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: It's huge.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: I and I can from listen, I admit it that there were times where it just sucked.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, you know, I made you read some of my letters before I sent them.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: I think I did, yes.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: You're like, don't send that, and I'm like, I'm sending it.
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: But I'm totally, I'm totally sympathetic to that because it's so and we talk about this in the book.
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: We talk about giving up some of that control and how hard it is.
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: It's very um very common for one person to have been in charge of most of these things while the parents were together.
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: And and it was fine when they were together.
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: This is the way they got along.
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: They were cooperative.
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: Mom sets all the doctor's appointments, dad goes to all the soccer games, and then all of a sudden you separate and you have to both become experts in all these areas.
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: And I am totally sympathetic to that.
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: It's a big behavioral change.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: And I think if if if you have if you're good co-parents, sometimes people keep that, right?
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: They you know mom has always done the the doctor's appointments, dad's like, just let me know what's going on and I'm fine with that.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: Doesn't mean dad doesn't care.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: It just means that he's not rocking the boat.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: And and so don't blame dad for allowing that.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: And if mom's trying to do it, don't blame mom for trying to do it.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: That's what she's always done, right?
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: You know, just just let her understand that now you want a piece of that if you're the the other parent and you want to be more involved.
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: Um say, this is a process, mom.
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: You have to let go.
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: Dad is going to attend doctor's appointments now, even if he never attended a single one until this kid was eight.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: And the difference is, is when they were together, you know, maybe dad was working, and I and I'm generalizing, I know, uh, but that's it's just degeneralize for a reason, right?
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: So let's assume mom was taking the child and dad would come come home and have a conversation about what that doctor appointment looked like.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: And so they were filled in, they had a conversation back and forth, and they're not having that anymore.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: So of course that parent's gonna feel a little excluded and probably want to participate more.
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: Plus, the level of trust that was going on between them during the marriage has probably or the the relationship has probably changed a lot too.
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: Specific factors may have said, Oh, yeah, I used to be fine with him taking the kids to all the doctor's appointments.
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: I'm not anymore.
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: And by the way, it's not him taking them, it's his girlfriend.
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: Then we get into that.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: But that's that's again.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: That's another one that I would love to do.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: Just before we talk about we talk about that in the book too.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: So whole different section.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: So, okay, let's talk about the driver's licenses because that comes up and bites people often.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: And um, you had talked about possibly like that that they're I mean, maybe you do this for your clients where you do you create a an agreement regarding the cars?
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: Um very often.
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: And I would have liked to put a sample driver's agreement in the book.
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: We just we just ran out of room.
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: We just had to stop at some point.
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: But but yeah, and it's a fairly a driver's license or driving agreement can be a fairly simple, you know, it's a page or two.
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: I my guess is that if you Google it, you could come up with some online because there are various children's organizations and parent organizations.
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: My guess is you can come up with um with an agreement online.
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: But what we did was we sat down and asked, we tried to come up with every question we would want to know as a parent and every situation we would want covered for our child to get a driver's license.
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: And so, and it's um it covers about a page and a half in the book.
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: And we we just basically said, what's everything you need to know?
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: Is this child ready?
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: Have I been driving with this child, practicing?
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: Have I personally seen this child's um driving abilities?
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: Has he gone to a driver's education school?
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: And was it a good one?
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: And did he graduate?
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: Um, you know, all the things to know about whether the child's ready.
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: Is the child, there's there's a couple general questions, like is the child, you know, in a fairly good place?
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: Is he he hasn't been getting in trouble at school or at home?
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: He's a good kid, his grades are decent, he's got a lot of friends.
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: You know, the kid is basically stable.
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: Let's put it that way.
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: If the child's having a lot of problems or acting up, or disciplinary problems or or psychological problems, that's that's a whole different area.
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: Do you really want this child driving yet?
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: Or do we need to deal with some other things?
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: And then you get into everything you need covered once he gets behind the wheel.
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: Whose car is it?
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: What cars are is he allowed to drive?
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: Who's got it covered with insurance and who pays for it?
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: Um, can he have someone in the front seat with them?
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: Can he have someone in the back seat?
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: Can he have other teenagers?
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: Can he drive at night?
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: Can he drive?
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: And we just we just threw out all the questions we could think of.
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: And I'm sure there's others that parents can come up with.
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: And those are the things the parents need to discuss and agree on for a driver's agreement and to say, yes, this child can go get his driver's license.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: And it, you know, I think it's best to do that when you're making agreements, when you're sort of in that mode, as opposed to when it's happening and a child's got a D in a class, but the rest are A's and B's.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: And and now you're going, well, there's a D.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: Well, no one ever said that D was a problem.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: You know when you when you build that ahead of time, you're not building it in a reactive way, you're building it proactively.
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: Um I would think a logical time, if you haven't already dealt with this, is when the child starts high school.
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: Because at that point, he's at least a year out from being 16, usually.
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: And you've already had to decide where he's going to high school.
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: So you're already in decision-making mode with the other parent.
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: And why not also start talking about that, even though it's a year or more off?
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: Um, we got to remember though, a lot of people are doing these parenting plans when the children are three, five, seven.
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: You're not thinking about driver's licenses then.
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: And so that's probably a little too early.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: So yeah, but that's why you, that's why you get the book and then you know what to think about because you don't want to have to visit revisit that again in in you know, 12, 14 years.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: You want, I mean, honestly, that's that's one of my favorite parts about this, is it's you you get to see the stuff that you're not thinking about yet.
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: Well, that's that's absolutely true.
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: And it's it's hard when you have a two-year-old as your only child to think about high school and driving.
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: And even a cell phone is hard to think about at that point.
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: So, yeah, the book will make you think about all that.
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: But I would say at the latest, when you're talking about high school and where your child's going to transition from middle to high school, you got to get into, and you've by that time, believe me, you're already dealing with the issue of cell phones and devices.
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: Um, you got to get into the driving at that, and that's the latest possible time.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I and I do still advocate for doing it like as soon as you do your parenting plan, because again, I I had mine, my parenting plan.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: I think my kids were five and seven.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: Um, and we never touched it again, and we didn't want to have to touch it.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: And that's impressive.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: Well, we fought, but we had a parenting coordinator.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: Um, but it's not anything that we would if I suggested anything, he wouldn't go for it anyway.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: So it was like, you know, maybe we could add this.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: No, you hear that a lot.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: And and so from my experience, it's like just get it done now and you know, use this as sort of a checklist too, to make sure you're addressing all the stuff you need to address to get them to 18 years old.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: Because if you've got a co-parent like I had, it's you're you may not get another opportunity to, you know, tackle some of this.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: And by the way, I wrote the parenting plan because I was an attorney and it was the worst parenting plan I ever wrote.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: You know, this is why they say don't represent yourself.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: So sorry.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: Of course you should.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: It was it was terrible.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: It was like, oh come on.
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: But I will I will tell you the very worst time to start talking about the driver's license, and that is the case where the child's 15 and a half or whatever age where you can get a permit, and one parent takes the kid down to MVD and signs the paperwork, which usually means they've signed it falsely because there's check marks on that paperwork that says, Do you have joint custody or soul custody?
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: If you check joint, the paperwork requires two signatures.
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: So people somehow get around that.
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: They either don't check anything and it slips through, whatever.
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: But the worst thing is one parent gets the child a driver's permit and the other parent hears about it and says, You got him a permit?
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: You didn't ask, what's going on?
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: And they're furious.
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: And then there's nothing but trouble because I have seen in several cases the parent who was not consulted can go down to MVD and they can get that permit canceled.
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: They can get a driver's license canceled if it was obtained without a joint custodial parent signature.
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: Oh, I've never seen that.
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: I don't know how they do it.
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: I've never done it, but I have seen it where it's happened.
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: And that is the worst case because here's this poor kid right in the middle.
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: So any kind of advanced planning will prevent those situations.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: I think I told Todd in our case just to write that he had so legal decision making so that he could do it, so I wouldn't have to go down there.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: Okay, but you know, that means when you do it, you're doing it as as a you know, as a team.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: It's not like he would have done that otherwise.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: Um, and I gave him that, you know, that little permission because why should we both be down there?
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: The one issue that did come up though, because he took them was that it was his address as the place.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: So anytime something happened, like a ticket, right, or uh, you know, he was the one who found out, which is maybe not what the kiddos wanted at that time.
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: So you gotta take that into account too.
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: And is the parent who's getting those kind of notifications then telling the other parent about it?
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: So there's all these things to be taken into account.
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: So, but they can all be prevented with advanced planning, just like you said.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: And again, that's why you get the book, right?
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: It's I don't care if they're two, right?
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: And just make sure you're checking off all the things that are in here, just so you can say you've at least thought about it.
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: What happens when this kid gets his first ticket?
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: I personally I had a daughter who totaled a car three months after she got her license.
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: She was 16 years and three months old.
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: Totaled a car.
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: I mean, that's scary.
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: You do not you do not want to be dealing with that if you're a separated or divorced parent, because it was hard enough not being divorced.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: So my kids got tickets and I did not, I didn't tell.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Jade, well, because Jadens came to me.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: So um, and I didn't tell.
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: Well, I think there's a big difference whether the ticket paid the insurance, so well, but there's also a big difference whether the ticket was for going uh 50 in a 40 mile an hour zone or going 100 in a 60 mile an hour zone.
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: Or if the tickets for reckless driving or you know something worse.
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: There's a big difference.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: I just I I and I listen, I don't think I would have cared if he didn't, as long as he took care of it.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: And if he didn't tell me, I don't know that I would have cared either.
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: That's good to know in hindsight.
• 32:20
  unknown: Yeah.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: So um, all right.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: So that's there there's a lot to consider definitely for the driver's licenses and and also I think who pays for the class and stuff like that.
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: There's oh yeah that you need to worry about and think about and who's you know who teaches them.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: I I really had preferred that I not teach any of my kids, but I ended up really teaching Jaden.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: Um and Cody learned like um he just learned with just the because he didn't even want a license, but he just learned with just the instructor.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: And he'd only driven a couple of times because he just didn't want to.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: Jaden wanted to drive every chance she got, and so I took her over to you know Westworld and on a Saturday with an empty parking lot and said, let's go.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: Um so that's kind of another issue that I chose to come up.
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: Well, and one thing we run into is okay, parent A buys the child a car, or at least provides the child with a car to use, I should say.
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: And parent B doesn't want anything to do with it, or parent B, who contributed nothing to it, wants to use it for all kinds of things.
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: So there needs to be a big discussion about where's this car gonna go?
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: Where's it gonna be parked at night?
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: Um, does it stay at the house of the parent who bought it, or can there be free use of it at the other parent's house?
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: Um, even though the other parent hasn't paid for insurance, the car itself, gas, anything.
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: And then you have to look at are there younger siblings?
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: Is this child who's driving now going to be the exchange person for all the younger siblings?
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: And I've run into a lot of situations where we have to coordinate that because sometimes parent B says, no, I don't agree that younger siblings can drive with um 16-year-old Adam yet.
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: He's not ready and I don't want the younger kids in the car with him.
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: So, you know, how much control does uh does parent B have over that?
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: I don't have a definitive answer for that, by the way.
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: But yeah, I was hoping for one.
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: It needs well, it needs to be discussed.
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: How much control does a parent ever have with who transports the kids from point A to point B?
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: Um, that's that's a big question.
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: And I'm not sure sometimes the court has to rule on that, but it's usually not built into a parenting plan.
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: And that's not something I even suggest you build into a parenting plan because it's just fluid.
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: Um but I believe if parent B says, I do not agree the 16-year-old is capable of driving the younger kids, let's say, let's say a couple of the younger kids are still in car seats, and so parent B doesn't agree with that.
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: I think parent B is going to be able to enforce that and say the 16-year-old cannot do the exchanges.
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: Parent A is still in charge of getting those younger kids from his place to my place.
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: I personally think that.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: Um I agree.
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: But but it's always best to have the discussion.
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: That's just one of many things.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: And it's different like per child.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: I have three kids.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: You know, two of them are like amazing drivers, super safe, super amazing.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: One of them that gets tickets a little more frequently than the other ones, um, is I'm she's you know, a safe driver, but she, you know, exceeds the speed limit a little more frequently.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: But I'll tell you what, with when my kids got old enough, it was like you're yeah, especially Britt, who had four o'clock hockey practices, right?
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: Like 4 a.m.
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: hockey practices.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: Go, go.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: I don't want to do that.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: Let's get her a car and you know, get her driving as soon as possible to take that pressure off.
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: Well, and it, you know, personally, there's a lot of adults I don't even trust to buckle a kid into a driver's uh car seat properly.
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: So that that is one issue.
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: I actually saw a driver's agreement and I was impressed by this.
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: Um, it specified who could ride with the driver and whether the siblings could or not.
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: It also said all the kids' cell phones are to be put in the trunk before you get in the car and drive.
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: All the cell phones.
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: And I thought that's kind of brilliant.
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: Um, and especially it's a 16-year-old driver and then a couple of other younger kids.
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: And I thought, that's great.
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: And if you teach the 16-year-old, this will be enforced.
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: I am following up on this.
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: Like the moment you get to my house, I pop the trunk and see if those phones are in there.
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: That's kind of brilliant because that controls another, another issue, which is distractions.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: So that's a great idea.
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I I really like that.
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: If I'd known about that in time for the book, I would have put it in there.
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: But yeah, that's a great idea.
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: I just saw that one recently.
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: So yeah, driver's agreements.
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: I think they can be great creative works of art, and parents can do well to really, really overthink the whole issue.
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of stuff comes up.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: And you know, you just again, like you said, you won't know until you know the driver.
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: You won't know until Exactly.
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: Until, you know, who they are and how they're all you can do to put in a parenting plan early is here's the things we're gonna talk about and consider.
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: Load it up, loaded up with those things.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: So let's also let's move on to um communication.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: And this is in this book, but it's also in your Biff book, which we should do a whole separate one on.
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: Um, is communicating with your co-parent when when that other co-parent has gone a little bit um, I don't know, like I for lack of a better word, crazy.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: Um you know, where they get they get a little bit um high strung.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: They're off track.
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: They're off track.
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: That's the that's the way to say it.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: Perfect.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: That's great.
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: And and maybe you, the person listening to this, you have read Biff, and you you are biffing, you're biffing your emails.
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: And that means, in essence, it means you're paying a lot of attention, you're making sure they're brief, you're making sure you don't go off on wild tangents, um, you keep it informative, you're as friendly as possible, you don't do dumb things.
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: Okay, so you're biffing your emails, but the other parent isn't, and you can't make them.
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: So despite you sending all these great emails, you are getting back these crazy emails, or they're off the rails, or they go on for two pages and tell you what a horrible person you are and what a horrible person everybody in your face is.
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: And and what do you do?
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: How do you respond to that?
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: And that's that's a question that comes up a lot.
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: And or do you need to respond?
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: Is the first is the first issue.
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: Um, do I have to read?
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: If I get a two or three page email, single space, do I have to read it?
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: Uh I have to tell you what I told Todd when when he did that to me.
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: I said, make this a hundred words or less and I'll read it.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: That's how I responded.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: What are you?
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: No, that's a good response.
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: And I've heard people say, I will they'll respond and say, I will read the first five sentences.
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, first five lines.
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: You can't say sentences because a sentence could be one email.
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: Um, I will read the first five lines and respond.
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: So, or or first hundred words, something like that, and set your boundaries so you can respond and say, I'm not gonna read this whole thing, it's too long.
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: I will read pertinent information that you have to send me about the kids, and I will read the first hundred words or the first 10 lines.
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: Um, thank you.
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: And that's that's all.
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: If you feel you need to respond uh and not just look like you're ignoring the whole thing, that's one way of covering it.
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: Um the best thing I can tell parents in that kind of situation is we all struggle with this.
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: It's not just between co-parents.
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: We as attorneys get crazy emails that that we don't know how to respond to or if we should respond.
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: And I I I personally go back, I reread Biff all the time.
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: I reread chapter three several times, um periodically, which is avoid the three A's, admonishments, advice, and apologies.
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: And when you're considering how to respond, avoiding giving advice.
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: And of course, what we just said, make this a hundred words, that's kind of advice, but it's it's not really encroaching too much.
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: Avoid admonishments.
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: Don't say this email is a piece of garbage and I'm not gonna read it.
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: You say, I'm not gonna read it.
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: You've just taken a stand.
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: So don't admonish, don't give advice, and don't apologize.
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: So apologies kind of go into a different area.
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: Um, take a situation where um you're supposed to pick up your child at school, and pickups got to be by 3:30, and you blew it, you forgot.
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: You're, I mean, you just you're not just late, you forgot.
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: And the school starts calling you at quarter to four or four, you rush over there, and it ends up your child sat there for 45 minutes, and it's totally your fault.
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: And you get this crazed email from the other parent berating you, you're a horrible mother.
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: Uh, you've done this before.
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: Um, our child was traumatized, everything just horrible.
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: Why shouldn't you apologize to that email?
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: You screwed up, right?
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: Here's the thing you should apologize to your kid.
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: Your kid was the one that was uh affected.
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: So you definitely need to have a talk with your child.
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: Apologize, assure them that's not going to happen again.
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: You maybe should also apologize to whoever whoever had to stay at school and watch him.
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: So apologize to the school.
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: You do not owe your other parent an apology.
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: And if you write an apology to the other parent, it will be used against you in the future.
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: If you say, I am so sorry, I can't believe I did this, that will be used against you in the future.
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: So you do not apologize.
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: You can acknowledge and say, I screwed up.
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: I got him, he is fine, I have talked to him.
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: This will I will do my very best that this will not happen again.
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: You can say all those things without apologizing because you don't owe that other parent an apology.
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: You now what if that other parent had to go pick up?
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: Okay, that's I was just gonna say that.
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: Now, if the other parent had to, I still believe you could say the exact same things I just said.
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: I screwed up.
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: You could say, you saved him.
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: You were the good parent and went and got him.
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: So you definitely can thank him without apologizing.
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: And you can go on and say, I will talk to little Adam about this and and tell him how sorry I am.
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: So you're pointing out you'll apologize to the child without apologizing, but acknowledge the parent.
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: Thank you for getting him.
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: I screwed up.
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: You have acknowledged and thanked, but you have not apologized.
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm such an over apologizer that a lot of people are that it's hard for me to think that why wouldn't I apologize?
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: I read chapter three of Biff again.
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: And I oh, I've read it and I just was watching something else that that Megan did.
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: Um I'm I don't remember where I saw it, but we were just I was just reading or watching, it might have been like a you YouTube thing that she had done on the apologizing thing.
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: And I just always is such a hard one for me because I I get it.
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: Um and I I believe that that her and you know Bill are right.
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: Um right, right.
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: And it's hard, you have to really practice that in like we're doing here.
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: You have to practice it.
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: What can I say that acknowledges I screwed up without coming out and saying I'm sorry?
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: Uh and there's ways of doing it.
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: It's like practicing Biff in general.
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: But similarly, when someone's going off, it's just as important to ignore to ignore, to stay away from the admonishments and the advice.
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: You need to keep your emails short.
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: You need that that's advice.
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: You can set your own boundary and say, I will read the first 10 lines.
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: And that's not advice, that's just a statement.
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: And certainly responding and admonishing the other person, you're crazy, you can't even stay on track, your emails are ridiculous, they make no sense, everybody thinks you're crazy.
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: That's not the way to respond.
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: So uh brief and setting your boundaries is the best way to deal with that kind of thing, uh, in my opinion.
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: But again, it's not just with coherence.
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: We as attorneys have to do this all the time.
• 45:18
  Speaker 3: We get emails from our clients and other attorneys that you just have no idea what to do with it.
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: And sometimes the very first thing to ask is, do I need to respond at all?
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: And I mean, I'm I'm a responder too.
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: I'm a responder even when I don't need to respond.
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: Um in part, I think, because I'm an attorney and I feel like if there's any allegation, then it's an admission, is where I get nervous without responding.
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: So do our clients.
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 45:53
  unknown: Yeah.
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: And so it's like I don't want to, I don't so listen, I'm not reading it or received or received, I disagree.
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: Received and I disagree is a great response.
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: And I see a lot of of co-parents doing that these days.
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: When I am parenting coordinator and I see these things happening uh between the parents, I try, well, first of all, when I get started on a case, I tell the parents, please don't jump in and respond to each other too fast if things are out of hand.
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: Give me a chance to see it, please.
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: Because you know, sometimes I sign on to email and there's a back and forth that goes on for 48 emails before I've even seen the first one.
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: It's like, stop.
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: But but how often do you check those?
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: What?
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: How often do you check that?
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: Oh, I check emails constantly.
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: I mean, I every day.
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: On on like OFW?
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: Oh, on our family wizard, OFW and regular emails, I check all the time.
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: I mean, I don't go 24 hours without checking to see if there's some kind of uh uh situation that I need to get involved with.
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: But if the parents start going at it after nine o'clock at night, um, and I sign on at, you know, this time the next morning, 11 a.m.
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: noon the next day, they could have been going at it all night.
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: So that's true, especially if they're you know how these email strings.
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: So all I need is one parent to put a stop to it.
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: And if that one parent will simply respond to both me, the parenting coordinator, and the other parent to say, I'm not gonna read this or respond to it yet.
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: I'm hoping Annette will check in.
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: Boom, it's stopped.
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: And if parent A, the one who's off the rails, keeps writing, well, he or she just looks crazy then because no one's responding to him.
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: So that's what I look for is one parent who can put a stop to it until I can get involved.
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: Then when I get involved, I can say, I have read the allegations in parent A's email.
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: I don't see any need for parent B to respond.
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: I am, and I I usually go on and say, I am requesting, parent B, that you not respond.
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: So awesome.
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: I I try to make it clear.
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: I read this, it's going nowhere.
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: Just stop right now.
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: And I I and this is to take care of the fear you just said, which is I fear that a non-response is taken as agreement.
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: No, no, no, it's not.
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean, I think it's it's in court, it's used against people if they don't respond.
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: You know, it's written in parenting plans, respond within 24 hours or 48 hours or whatever they've put in their parenting plan.
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: So that's when it's just all right, acknowledged, received, disagree, done.
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: And that's just fine.
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: But I've seen judges do a very good job of not using a non-response against someone and saying, you you don't get to come, you don't get to come in here and say we have an agreement because you wrote this and they didn't deny it.
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: That's that's not a contract, that's not an agreement.
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: True, yeah.
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: I think my my more my bigger fear is where somebody says, you know, your lack of something caused this, or people still say that.
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: You whatever you did is this was your fault, and you didn't do ABC, whatever it is.
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: Your lack of response will be considered agreement.
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: I still oh yeah, I still see that and again, if I'm a party to these, I will respond and say, no, a lack of response is not an agreement, period.
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: Do you ever well let that's that goes down to a whole different point because I think I think I've seen judges order that that if if there's an issue that needs to be addressed, um, like a medical something, like a medical appointment, and you've got somebody who just refuses to respond, then that means, okay, look, you've got 48 hours to respond.
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: Otherwise, I'm taking little Billy to the doctor.
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: See, but we've shifted into a different area now.
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: We've shifted from a lengthy, kind of off the rails email that's full of allegations to a legitimate email.
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: I want to take him to the doctor.
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: The appointments open are Thursday and Friday, which is your preference.
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: And then there's no response.
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: So that's a totally different issue.
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: And yes, most parenting plans will deal with that somehow and say, if it, if uh there's no response, uh, the parent who wants to do the appointment can go ahead and have the appointment.
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: If there's a parenting coordinator, certainly I'm I am gonna say, hey, there was plenty of notice here, no response, go for the appointment.
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: Um, so we've shifted from the crazy emails where you don't want to respond in too much depth to the legitimate emails that need to be responded to.
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: It is really hard.
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: I'm just gonna add here, it is really hard in some cases to get parents to check their emails even once every 48 hours.
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: That was gonna be my question.
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: What do you do when like you know, if you go camping, if someone goes camping and and they, you know, I've always had my clients just put in there that it's within 48 hours of getting back to cell service if they're out of you know, out of touch, but um, but they don't want to necessarily notify the other parent that they're gonna be out of touch, right?
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: Right, right.
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: And here's here's the other problem.
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: The 48 hours, okay, that means that means if it's um my co-parents' weekend with the kids, and so I email him at five o'clock on Friday about a stupid issue.
• 51:39
  Speaker 3: I want to reserve, I want to go out of town in October.
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: And he has to respond to me by five o'clock Sunday while it's his weekend with the kids.
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: Come on, that's ridiculous.
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: But can't you just say received, I'll respond later?
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, you can, you can, but maybe he doesn't even want to check his emails the weekend he has the kids.
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: That's true.
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: He knows there's no emergency with the kid because he's got them.
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: So I will tell you, even when I see 24 hours or 48 hours, I am interpreting that as business hours.
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: And I am particularly lenient if the communication came while the recipient has the children.
• 52:18
  Speaker 3: And I'm particularly lenient if the recipient is on vacation with the children or it's spring break.
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: I mean, all those things have to be taken into account when you're reviewing whether someone uh appropriately responded.
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: So you brought up you brought up the camping issue.
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: I don't even think it has to be as serious as being camping and without um internet access.
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: I think it could be a busy weekend with your kids, means you didn't check your emails.
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: That's not I remember that's not a criminal act.
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: I know.
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: I remember I remember getting um sending an email during my ex's parenting time.
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: Because that's when you have time also to send the email, right?
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's like you're that just happens to be when you have the time to send you the kids.
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: Um saying I'm not addressing any emails from you during my parenting time.
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, all right, but then but then I would go back and say, hey, can you address this?
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: I'm not addressing any emails when I don't have the kids.
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: Um, because I'm not thinking about right.
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: So it was it was yeah, that doesn't work that doesn't work.
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: Like, well, choose one because at some point you have to respond.
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: But I did have that, I did have that issue and thought it was kind of funny.
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: That's bizarre.
• 53:39
  Speaker 3: Um, and again, yeah, okay, you don't have the kids on a given Saturday, and you're thinking of all these plans, you can sit down and do your email on Saturday and list them all, list them all out and say, I realize you have the kids, I'd appreciate a response by Wednesday morning at 9 a.m.
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: or end of day Tuesday.
• 53:59
  Speaker 3: That gives that takes him through his weekend parenting time and gives a time for a response that's reasonable.
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: I mean, to me, that's the way you could handle it as the parent who needs a response.
• 54:11
  Speaker 3: I have no problem at all when parents say, I would appreciate a response by Friday.
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: I do that as parenting coordinator.
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: I'll throw some things out to the parents and say, please respond by end of day Thursday.
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: Or if you can't do that, tell me what's reasonable for your response.
• 54:28
  Speaker 3: I mean, I let them know.
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: Tell me I'll get it, I'll get it by you know next Monday or as long as it's you know a couple days farther.
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: If you're gonna be at a funeral on Thursday, yeah, tell me that.
• 54:39
  Speaker 3: So it's it's all about reasonable expectations.
• 54:42
  Speaker 3: And you can put those in when you're the parent writing the email, you can put those in at the outset.
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: A reasonable expectation.
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we've just become so um needy of instant communication and instant response to the text.
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, remember back in the day before the before texting, and not necessarily before email, but sort of before it was used as as it is now.
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: What didn't we get like as lawyers 10 days to read?
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: Like was kind of a deal, like we would get at least 10 days to respond to a letter, and you didn't have to think about it that minute.
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: And now if you get an email, you're expected to respond within you know minutes.
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: People know that you have it on your phone, people expect you to respond at any time.
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: And I'm sort of to the point where I'm gonna go, you know, I just I'm not answering emails on weekends, any, you know, something like that, because it's just it's too much.
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: And I'm okay with that.
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: But again, we're back to what I said.
• 55:44
  Speaker 3: It's hard to get some people to check to I'm and I'm saying check emails once every 48 hours or even 72 hours.
• 55:53
  Speaker 3: You just can't tell me that you're going a week or more or three days or more and not checking emails at all.
• 56:00
  Speaker 3: That's that's not I I shouldn't say it that way.
• 56:04
  Speaker 3: I shouldn't say you can't tell me that.
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: There are probably people who live their lives like that.
• 56:09
  Speaker 3: In general, I do not think they're people who have young children who are raising children because you are getting emails from their soccer coach, their teacher, um, a variety of other things.
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: Um, your birthday parties are coming by emails.
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: So I feel like you are checking emails, you're just ignoring the ones from the other parent.
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: So you're checking if you've given, like if you've created a you're gonna see a kitty tail like right here in a second.
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: I don't have a cat here at the office.
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: Um if your if your if you or your ex has created an email account specifically for just you because they don't want you, you know, popping into their emails.
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: Um and and people don't make it a nasty email address name, you know, be simple.
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: Um, you know, nobody wants to go like um my ex-wife is a bitch.com and have to like email to that.
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: And I've seen them.
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: Don't do it.
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: I've seen those.
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: I the some of them are terrible.
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: Um, same with what they put their the numbers in.
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: Um on the phone.
• 57:13
  Speaker 3: No, but no, um my only point is if if I'm telling you you have to check your emails from the co-parent every 48 hours, say, and you're saying, I no, I can't do that.
• 57:25
  Speaker 3: I'm too busy.
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: You need to educate me on what your life is like, that you're really not using email at least once every 48 hours.
• 57:34
  Speaker 3: And most of the people who have made those arguments to me are professionals and they're working, and I know they have to be on email.
• 57:42
  Speaker 3: They just don't want to do it.
• 57:43
  Speaker 3: By the same token, I recognize so many parents tell me when I chat when I sign on to my email and I see his name, I have a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach.
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: I am physically sick, I have these trauma reactions.
• 57:58
  Speaker 3: I get it.
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: And so, on the other hand, we're trying to reduce those trauma reactions.
• 58:04
  Speaker 3: We're trying to make sure that the emails are not upsetting.
• 58:07
  Speaker 3: But again, it's a behavior modification.
• 58:10
  Speaker 3: It's going to take time.
• 58:11
  Speaker 3: You can't simply ignore it.
• 58:14
  Speaker 3: And believe me, there's times I sign on my email and I have an incoming from somebody, I don't want to read it either.
• 58:22
  Speaker 3: But you gotta open it up, you gotta deal with it.
• 58:25
  Speaker 3: And if you can't, your co-parenting is gonna suffer.
• 58:30
  Speaker 3: Already is yeah.
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, I I think we all even text, when you get the text from your ex, that's hard.
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: You don't know, it's usually not nice, right?
• 58:39
  Speaker 3: I mean it's texting can be a disaster.
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's just it's usually not a nice.
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever received an email or text from my ex that said something like, hey, you're doing a great job parenting.
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: Um, you know, I don't I don't think that's ever happened.
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: So some parents do that.
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: You know it's gonna be something crappy typically coming coming in.
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: At least in my case, it was something crappy coming in.
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: Um, and you just have to, I don't know, like eat a piece of candy or something and go, all right.
• 59:10
  Speaker 3: Well, that's that's why I'm in favor of cutting off texting.
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: I mean, unless the text is about, hey, we're on our way to urgent care because he smacked his head, that's a reason to text.
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: If you're running 15 minutes late, hey, I just can't be there.
• 59:24
  Speaker 3: There's an accident, that's a reason for a text.
• 59:26
  Speaker 3: Other than that, shouldn't be any texting.
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: What do you think about phone calls?
• 59:31
  Speaker 3: Between the parents or with the kids?
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: Uh between the parents.
• 59:38
  Speaker 3: Let's put it this way.
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: I'm sure there's tons of co-parents who are able to talk on the phone and be perfectly nice.
• 59:44
  Speaker 3: Those are not the parents that I see or that you see because they don't need parenting coordinators and lawyers.
• 59:51
  Speaker 3: So the problem is the cases we see in general, the parents cannot be nice to each other on the phone.
• 59:58
  Speaker 3: So, again, with the exception of I'm on my way to urgent care, his fever's really high, those parents can be nice to each other.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 3: They they click into good parent mode, and that's fine.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 3: But the rest of the time, why are you doing it?
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 3: It's just gonna devolve into uh accusations and and bad things said.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 3: And the worst part is if you think you reached an agreement, there's no way to prove it.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 3: Somebody's gonna deny something was said later, or they're gonna say you misunderstood me.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and unless you record it, which then that's a whole different issue, but that's a different issue.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: And even with recordings, it's very often not clear in talking if somebody agreed to something.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 3: So the recording isn't gonna save you.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 3: So that's why parents, if you can just be business-like and focus on emailing, biff your emails be very business-like and brief and to the point, um, and go back and forth as little as possible, as little as necessary, be clear on what you're talking about.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 3: That leads to agreements and good co-parenting and understandings.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's and when you get when you feel like sending a really junky email, just think to yourself, to what end?
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: Like, what's this gonna do?
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: What do you write that response?
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: Do you want that that fight?
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 3: Write the email and send it to yourself and send it to your best friend or whoever's review it, or send it to your own lawyer, and and then wait 24 hours.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 3: And you probably won't even want to send it after 24 hours, but certainly those other people will tell you you're not gonna send this.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 3: Just stop.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: So yeah, you gotta you gotta let off the steam, but letting off the steam to the other parent never works.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: Never.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: You're either gonna get no response or a response, you're gonna hopefully you're gonna get the response received.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 3: I am not reading all of this, and then you're gonna go, oh, that was used against me, and probably deservedly so.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 3: So, yeah, parent communication, keep it business like.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 3: I I know most of the people writing these horrible emails are not writing these horrible emails at work or they'd be fired.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they're long.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: It takes a long time to write any an email that's a long email.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, it's crazy.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: Us are just, you know, like dictating it and just you know, vomiting it all out.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 3: But the best thing you can do if your parent has gone off the your co-parent has gone off the rails is take a breath, don't respond, write or write, received, I'll get back to you, whatever.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 3: Let him and or her take a breath and you take a breath yourself.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 3: Do not react.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: And no, and no drunk messaging.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: No drunk messaging.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: That's it's obvious.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 3: It's obviously drunking, co-parenting messaging.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 3: Perfect.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 3: That yeah, and yeah, that works out as well as the drunken um social media.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's perfect.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, that's and that's a whole other issue.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: And and it's in the book too, so we should talk about that one too.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 3: We did, we did.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: All right, well, thank you so much for being here.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: I appreciate it.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: If anyone wrap it there, well sorry, we're gonna wrap it there.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 3: That's good.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 3: Well, I appreciate it.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 3: Um, like I said, we tried to put everything possible in the book here, and um we had to leave things out, so we'll be writing more as we go along.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I I I asked them to.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: There's in the the section where they go, they go, there's some place where they go back and forth, um, where they sort of have opposite um viewpoints.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: Viewpoints.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: They're fun to read, and it shows that just because somebody's different doesn't mean that they're wrong.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: It's different.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: And so I would love to see more of that in another one or an appendix, or or you could even put like a link on your websites that we could we could all go to to see more stuff.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: Um, just we might do that.
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: We might do that.
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: It's fun to see more.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: And she said that she went over the page number, the page, the word limit on this.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: But I it's so easy to read, it's broken out perfectly.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: Um so I've actually already done a couple of social media recordings on this, um, where I've read some of them because I thought that they were they're fun.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: It's just a really great the the chapters are short.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: That's why I'm not a huge reader, so I like short chapters.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: Oh, I do too.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: I feel like I get like a lot read.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: Um, and so the chapters are short but but good and um really informative.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: So thank you so much, Annette.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: I appreciate it.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: It's been a pleasure.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: All right.