Latest / It’s All Your Fault: High Conflict People / Co-Parenting by Design with Lawyers Annette Burns and Nicole Siqueiros-Stoutner
Transcript
- Speaker 1 (00:05): Welcome to, it's All Your Fault On True Story fm, the one and only podcast dedicated to helping you identify and deal with the most challenging human interactions, those involving someone with a high conflict personality. I'm Megan Hunter and I'm usually here with my co-host, bill Eddie, but he's away for the month. So it's just me as the host. We are the co-founders of the High Conflict Institute based in San Diego, California where we focus on training, consulting, coaching, and educational programs and methods, all to do with high conflict. Today I'm joined by two very special people, a couple of authors and attorneys who have written a great book that's coming out in October and we're going to talk all about it today. It's called Co-Parenting by Design. But first, please send your questions to podcast@highconflictinstitute.com or on our website@highconflictinstitute.com slash podcast where you'll also find all the show notes and links for today's episode. Speaker 1 (01:14): So welcome to Annette Burns and Nicole Ros Stouter. I hope I got your name right, Nicole. You got it perfectly, yes, thank you. How old are you? Alright, that's like a big win. Really happy to have both of you as co-authors of this brand new book that's coming out in October, Co-Parenting By Design, the Definitive Guide for Divorced or Separated Parents. So Annette, I've known you for a long time and I'd like to introduce you to our listeners even though this is your second time being on our podcast. So Annette Burns is a family law attorney, certified family law specialist and a parenting coordinator, and we are going to talk about what that is. For those of you that don't know, she practices in Arizona. She's the past president of a really big organization called the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts, not just a state chapter, but she was president of the whole gig. There's over 5,000 professionals, family law professionals in that organization. She's been a fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers and lots of other things. Speaker 1 (02:21): Annette would be embarrassed if I named them all off, but she is top of the game and she's also the co-author of Fifth for Co-Parent Communication with Bill Eddie and Kevin Chavin. And that's really been our top selling book of our entire catalog, Annette's here in Arizona, as is Nicole, who is also a family law attorney and a mediator and a court appointed parenting coordinator. She's really has a dynamic background, very diverse, having worked with Child Protective Services, which as you all know can and is sometimes a part of family law cases, worked with a domestic violence shelter, also quite important in these cases and did all that before transitioning into legal practice. She managed a nonprofit organization's legal department and later became a partner in a law firm in Phoenix. She been in alternative facilitated a DR alternative dispute resolution conferences. She's been a participant on this Maricopa Superior Court mental health roster and had a tenure as a judicial officer in the Maricopa County Superior Court here in Arizona. Speaker 1 (03:33): So she's doing lots of teaching and things like that. So what I'm saying is these two gals are very qualified to write a book about co-parenting. Welcome to both of you. Thank you for joining us. Super happy to have you here and I'm really excited about this book. Full disclosure to our listeners and thank you for listening is that my other company, unhooked books is publishing this book and so it's kind of a nice little sister relationship between High Conflict Institute and unhooked books. I'm very grateful to Annette and Nicole for writing this book. It's extraordinarily helpful, going to be very helpful for a lot of parents and professionals. So let's talk about the book. Why did you write this book? How did it come about? Speaker 2 (04:19): As you pointed out, Megan, we've been doing this for a long time. I mean for me it's about 40 years at this point and you start to see patterns and you see behaviors over and over and over again. And we just started thinking we need to help these people. We don't just need to get in and represent them in court and litigate. Surely we can put down some things that can help them because we've seen so many of these situations over and over again. So we were really just trying to get the most helpful things we can think of down on paper and buying this book or checking it out of the library or whatever is so much cheaper than paying a lawyer or any legal professional for hours and hours of coaching that this book can give you. And I do want to emphasize, I think it's pretty clear, but this book is about co-parenting. It's not a parenting book. We are not trying to tell you how to raise your children. It's about co-parenting and we're trying to help you deal with your co-parent. Just to make that really clear upfront, Speaker 1 (05:20): What does co-parenting mean? Speaker 2 (05:22): We actually define it in the book, but basically it's the process of trying to raise another little human being with another human being. So if the other parent is not around or deceased, you're not really co-parenting parenting, but when there's two people trying to raise this little human and do the best they can, they have to deal with each other as well Speaker 1 (05:46): In different households, Speaker 2 (05:48): Usually in different households. Right. Speaker 1 (05:50): So Nicole, how did you come into this book? I know Annette sort of had some things already written down and you then entered the picture and Speaker 3 (06:01): I'm a parenting coordinator like Annette, and she's someone who I consider a mentor and I think I sort of reached out to her and said, I really think we need to come up with something where we're providing information that's helpful to families. And I think that's where we started. And then from there we started to build on that and say, well, this would be good to know, this would be good to know. And I think we even expanded our audience too in a way. I think we started out, and Annette correct me if I'm wrong, looking at this as something that we could give to our clients as a helpful guide. And then from there we said, well, this could be helpful for lawyers. We can put language in here that they might find helpful or maybe in scenarios that they never considered. What do we do with a driver's license dispute? And then we said, well, this is obviously helpful for judges. And we kind of expanded the book and we expanded our audience and in doing those two things we just collaborated and worked together to make the book. Speaker 2 (07:03): Nicole's being a little too modest here too, because I'm going to say she came in and she took a lot of the stuff and ideas that I had down and she fixed them, she fixed it, she started putting it together in logical comprehensive form. So don't be modest, Nicole, you came in and did a ton. Speaker 1 (07:22): Two heads are better than one book writing is difficult and both of you bring such a wealth of knowledge and information experience to the table. So it was probably super helpful to have another set of eyes come in and ideas and just get it organized and logically done. So I wanted Speaker 2 (07:41): This book we co Speaker 1 (07:42): You co-parented. I was Speaker 3 (07:44): Just going to say that, but I was like, I better not because that's not technically, and I was going to say, it's funny, we both have very different perspectives. We're both at different points in our lives and I think that's really helpful. So I have a younger daughter, she's 10. And so some of the things in this book are things that I have thought of in parenting her, okay, well what if there was a dispute at school because of testing? How would I deal with that? Because something I see right now as a parent, and then I think Annette, you have adult children, you've raised two children, then you have grandchildren. So you were able to bring some of that perspective into and I think that's neat because we really have different point of views that make it better. I'm actually Speaker 2 (08:27): Actively changing diapers these days a lot, Speaker 1 (08:31): Which hasn't changed from now. But the interesting bit too is there are a lot of issues that arise now in Nicole, your daughter's era that didn't arise in Annette's or my children's eras, things with technology and social media and just so many things that we didn't have to deal with or address, thank goodness. But okay, so let's circle back just for a second to parenting coordinators. Now in the US it's a fairly widely known term, especially amongst professionals, but not everyone outside of the us, there's spots here and there, different places. We go around the globe, we get asked about it a lot because they know we're from the US and it's much more well known and established here. So for those who don't know what a parenting coordinator is, what is it? A Speaker 3 (09:26): Parenting coordinator is a court appointed professional. Many times their lawyers, sometimes they're mental health professionals. My favorite word for it, and I don't know if you've ever heard this, Annette is referee. I like that term because I think a lot of people can relate to it and I think it's a little bit more than that, but I think it's a relatable word that helps people understand it. Parenting coordinators are lawyers. They can also be mental health professionals. And their role is to help parents resolve disputes that are within their scope and the scope is defined by the law. Essentially what they do is there's a level of mediation trying to help the parties resolve the dispute. There's a level of education trying to help the parties understand what may help them going forward and understand more about the dispute and the children. And then there's a level of, I guess, arbitration. And in that sense, if the parties are unable to resolve the issue or the dispute, the parenting coordinator can issue a recommendation that in Arizona at least would become an order of the court if it was adopted by the court. So then there's that we're changing orders that are in place if needed to better serve the family and the children. Speaker 1 (10:46): Nice. And Annette, how is that different from a guardian ad litem or children's minor's council? Speaker 2 (10:51): Well, if you're a guardian ad litem or counsel for a child, you are focused on the child's best interest. Now parenting coordinators are too, but we have to work with the parents and we are coaches, we are mediators. We are cheerleaders for the parents and sometimes we are the bad guy that has to pull the trigger and make big decisions that someone is not going to like. When you're counsel for a child or a GAL, you may be giving opinions, but in general you're not making final decisions. So this is much more co-parent focused. And I tell people when I'm appointed as PC parenting coordinator, I tell them my goal is to get fired. My goal is that you see how I help you resolve disputes or how I resolve disputes. And then you start doing it on your own. I do not want to be someone's parenting coordinator for 10 years or five years or even two years. You should be able to figure this out with a help. So it's a process, but hopefully it's a short-term process. Speaker 3 (11:58): And I would throw in examples of things that I would do as a parenting coordinator. And Annette, I'm sure you've got some two. School choice is one I get a lot. One parent wants school A, the other parent wants cool B, they can't decide. So that's something that I could help with as a parenting coordinator. The pediatrician retires who is the child's new pediatrician, mom wants a, dad wants B. That is something that I could help if they're not able to resolve it. And then things like communication, which is I'm sure something we'll talk about today. How can I help this family improve their communication? What rules would be helpful for them? Maybe there's resources, maybe there's some type of ancillary service, they need a therapist or something to make that better and to make co-parenting smoother. Those are all things we can do too. Speaker 1 (12:49): Nice. So it's not therapy. Parenting coordination is, like you said, it's a referee, you're kind of a conflict coach, you're helping people reach agreements. So let's talk about agreements. You mentioned picking doctors, but looking kind of through the list that you've talked about in the book, there are things like the parenting schedules, I guess that's the most foundational fundamental, probably the first thing that you talk about. The holidays, vacations, things like that. So what happens in those meetings? Like say you're as a lawyer or as a parenting coordinator, what do you say to a parent that says, I don't really agree, I don't know what to do. I don't want the other parent to have 50 50 time with the child. So where do you start with all that Speaker 2 (13:32): Education? Mostly I will say as parenting coordinators, we only work with parents that already have a parenting schedule. So mediators help parents create the schedule. And when it comes to creating a schedule, if I'm working as a mediator, it's education, it's predictions, it's helping them find research and resources that show children really do have better outcomes. If they have good quality access to both parents not cutting off one parent, those children do not have good outcomes. So it's a lot of education and a lot of helping them realize what the court system is there to do. And if they do take their parenting disputes to court, number one, they're probably not going to be happy with the outcome. And number two, the judge is never going to know their family as well as we can in a mediation setting. Speaker 1 (14:30): Shouldn't the courts have that right over the door of the courthouse? The judge will never know your family like you do. Speaker 2 (14:38): Yeah, some judges do and a lot of judges will make that speech to the parties and just say, I'm going to see you for at most two hours, three hours, even six hours. That's nothing. That's nothing in the scheme of your family. Why can you not work this out? So that's what we try to do. Speaker 1 (14:56): Nice. So parenting schedule. So people are coming and circumstances change and what was in the original parenting plan may no longer apply or because children change and they grow and there's new schedules of maybe sports activities or holidays out of the country or something. So I would assume that that's a large portion of the change requests you get maybe for parenting coordination, Speaker 2 (15:22): Huge. One thing that always happens no matter what you're expecting is those darn kids grow up, they get older, they go from their little car seats to starting kindergarten and sometimes the parents can't agree where they go to kindergarten and then miraculously they go from kindergarten to wanting cell phones and the parents can't agree on whether they get a cell phone and they have friends and they have extracurricular activities and dad wants little Julie to go to dance and mom wants her in jujitsu. These kids just keep getting older and changing and gee, and the parents change too. The parents Repartner, mom gets married and moves 10 miles this way and dad moves 10 miles that way and all of a sudden you got a big problem. So it's change. I happen to think change is wonderful, but it's very hard to deal with sometimes. Speaker 3 (16:17): But it's putting in place tools and rules and things that will help them better navigate the change because children will change. That's a given. We all know that. And there is no plan that we can write for a 2-year-old that's going to be effective and correct for a 17-year-old. Exactly. What we're trying to do is say, okay, when these changes come, how do you approach them? What's the best way to approach them for your children? Speaker 2 (16:44): And it's not go back to court, Speaker 3 (16:45): Right, right. It's not Speaker 1 (16:48): Expensive and it takes so much time and it's so stressful. So yeah, I'm thinking about all the different changes of life and I was talking to someone recently about she's breastfeeding her child and the other parent is demanding a nine day holiday away with the child. So those are tough situations that come up and parents I guess have to try to have some understanding that and really focus on the child and what is the child going to do, who can't do something that it's been doing since birth. And then I think too about we hear a lot about parents who are one parent has the stronger rules in their household and the other household they're giving unlimited screen time and those types of things. And what are your thoughts about, do you just tell parents, look, you can't control what's in the other household or what do you say? Speaker 3 (17:52): I think that's true. I think you can't At the same time, I mean I do think children do better or it's better for children to have some level of consistency, but I don't know that that's always possible and I would love to see that be possible, but I can't guarantee that that would happen and I don't think that's required, if that makes sense. Speaker 2 (18:15): In a perfect world, the parents are coordinating bedtimes and nutrition and things like that, but in a perfect world, they also don't need parenting coordinators need lawyers. So the cases we see are not those perfect world things. And a lot of it is education. Again, it's parenting time is defined by the court because that is parent's time and day-to-day decisions over the counter medication, meals, clothing, what they wear that day that belongs to the parent who has parenting time. And both parents need to learn to respect that. And it can be very, very hard because often when these parents were together, one parent did control all of that. He or she wants the gatekeeper and the other parent was fine with it. Yeah, I don't care what she wears to school, you take her to the doctor. I never do. But when the parents separate, everything changes. And the parent who was the gatekeeper needs to get used to, ah, I don't have control over. And the parent who didn't do those things needs to step up and take responsibility. It's hard on both ends Speaker 3 (19:26): And they may not know how to do it either. I can say in my relationship, I definitely would pick the child, my daughter's school, I am the person that will do that. And if we were not to be together, I think that'd be very hard. I mean, how do I select schools? I'm not even sure if my husband is aware of that he trust I'm not. So again, I think there's that level of education and the level of understanding that now things will change. Speaker 1 (19:51): That's a big piece of it. It's having that decision point in your mind, okay, I'm deciding that I'm going to commit to things are different now and I have to do things differently. And accepting that, I think accepting that is just a really big piece of this. And even if you didn't want to be separated or divorced from this other person, it is different and it is reality and we just all have to be grownups here and we have to do what's best for the kids' development and so they can grow up and have healthy relationships and be healthy productive adults. Right. Speaker 2 (20:24): There's an important piece here I want to mention though, because a lot of people we deal with will simply say the other parent is not competent or is not fit and they're not making good decisions. And what do I do about that? And the answer is that falls within the purview of the court. There's not a lot that parenting coordinators or anyone outside of the court system can do if there are truly parents who are not competent or not fit to raise children, that has to come from the court of finding that yes, this child is going to live more with one parent than the other because the other parent cannot handle it. But once you get through the court system and have these orders that says little Johnny is going to spend every other week or every third week with one parent, that court has found that parent is fit to do it for that period of time. And that's the hard part to get used to even. And the Speaker 3 (21:19): Level of fitness. Every day I cook, this isn't true, but every day I cook for my daughter a vegan meal because I believe that's best for her. And maybe if I wasn't with my husband at his house, she's getting McDonald's, it's okay. He is not unfit for providing McDonald's where I'm providing vegan and understanding that there's going to be kind of those things that happen. And that doesn't mean one parent is not a good parent. Speaker 2 (21:51): McDonald's is legal in all 50 states Speaker 1 (21:55): And the rest of the world pretty, I think not positive. Don't quote me. So let's talk about that leads me to think of parallel parenting. Let's talk about that. What is parallel parenting? I think some parents are aware of it, but not everyone Speaker 3 (22:12): Parallel parenting is a concept and I don't know that it's universally agreed as the best approach. And I'll say that right from the start. I think it's in dispute in our field about whether this is the best way to handle parents who are in conflict. But the idea is essentially there are two households. They are functioning separately. They are not functioning together. So we're not ensuring consistency of the bedtime between household A and household B. What household A does is what household A does. What household B does is what household B does. And they're very much parenting next to each other but not together. Speaker 2 (22:53): It comes from the child development concept of parallel play where I believe it's at the age of two or ages two to three kids tend to play next to each other maybe in the little kitchen or in the sandbox, but they don't really interact that much. I have to bone up on my child development Speaker 1 (23:12): Just Speaker 2 (23:13): But that's where that concept comes from. Is child parallel play? Speaker 1 (23:16): I did not know that. No, Speaker 2 (23:20): I didn't make that. No Speaker 1 (23:21): I didn't. And I took child development in college, but it's been a hot minute ago. So do you recommend this for all clients or some clients? Does it depend? Speaker 3 (23:31): I think it really depends. It sometimes it's really appropriate. It will really work. Sometimes it won't. And I think sometimes it also depends on there are levels of parallel parenting. I don't think it's extreme. It's either that or not. You can say this concept from parallel parenting really works for this family, but this other piece of it may not. Speaker 2 (23:54): I've had some cases that are so extreme that the parallel parenting literally restricts the parents to one email to each other per week. And other than that, or absent some emergency, they are not to contact each other outside of once a week. What's going on with the child? Here's the past week and here's what's coming up with the child and that's it. And they do not communicate. Now that's very extreme. Speaker 3 (24:19): Yeah, they're not going to events together. They're not at school together. They are separate. Speaker 2 (24:24): Exactly. There are levels of it, but what I also like to work with some people, if they're only a year or two out from the separation and the divorce, they're still in a really bad place. I try to recommend parallel parenting maybe for the next year or two. And I try to emphasize to them, you're not always going to have to stay this far apart from each other. I mean in 2, 3, 5 years you guys may be sitting together at the school concert, but for the next year, let's try this. While you both get used to these new households and circumstances. So it doesn't have to be you go for parallel parenting the year after you get divorced and you stay there for 18 years. That's not Speaker 1 (25:06): Right. And I think research bears out that in most cases, yeah, it's a little tense in the beginning, but things kind of filter out over time and they settle over time and then you develop other interests and you see that this other parent isn't a threat to your very existence and all of that. Speaker 2 (25:26): All the research talks about levels of conflict generally reducing in the first two years after the divorce. If they don't, then they fall in these categories of high conflict or whatever you want to call them, where it stays bad, longer, Speaker 3 (25:42): Consistent, and it keeps happening and everything becomes difficult. Speaker 1 (25:47): Yeah. Speaker 2 (25:48): Something interesting about parallel parenting before we get off of this. In Canada, it's actually a legal concept. So Canadian courts in divorce can actually order the parents, they can order joint legal decision making or soul or they can order the parents to have parallel parenting. And it's actually a legal concept with legal definitions. We do not have that in the United States, but I think it's really interesting that Canada went that way. Speaker 1 (26:14): Yeah, yeah, I think I like that. I just had a thought, it's a little way out of left field here, but it's just something that's been coming up a lot recently is one saw in the co-parenting space, right? Timeline. One parent is constantly going back to court, constantly back to court and the other parent's like, look, I have no more money to fight this. How do I deal it? So what do you say to, I just had someone this week ask me what do I say to my attorney to get the other attorney shut down from bleeding me dry over every little thing? It's a tough one. Speaker 3 (26:53): Yeah. I don't know that I have a good answer for that. I mean, it happens. I agree with you. It happens quite a bit. I don't know that because these are cases that involve two people. If one person wants everything to be better and wants to settle the other, that's not going to resolve the case. It really does require both of them to be on the same page. Speaker 2 (27:16): The best I can say is judges are familiar with these cases. Judges, once they look at the file usually do realize that it's one person causing most of the conflict. And judges in the court system in general are very, very supportive of anything, any alternative to litigation. So they will order mediation, they will order parenting coordination when they can. Sometimes it requires agreement of both parties, but sometimes it doesn't. So the judges are very supportive of any alternative. I really do think judges recognize when one person is causing most of the litigation and then they can respond with attorney's fees awards as well. So you do see that, and that's what I'd say is try to bring those things to the court's attention Speaker 3 (28:00): And good lawyers, and I think this was something you and I had talked about just now, Annette, good lawyers should be asking themselves, doing what's best advocating for my client, am I, and I believe, and I think I said this a little bit earlier too, I ethically believe that you should always try to settle if possible. It's not always possible in every case, but that is a lawyer's responsibility to make that effort because that usually is best for a client, at least the effort. And I think that's a part of it too. If that's something that's happening, a question should also be, I need to talk to my lawyer about this, make sure they understand that and the lawyer needs to be thinking about it for themselves. Speaker 1 (28:41): And I think probably, obviously you can see the logo behind my head, high Conflict Institute. We do get all of those extreme questions and we hear about so many extreme cases and fortunately for most that is not the case and it's a lot easier to work things out either on your own or using a parenting coordinator such as yourselves. So we're going to take a short break and then we'll come back. We're going to talk about our most often asked question, which is in the divorce space in co-parenting space, which is around the term alienation or the concept of alienation. So we'll come back in just a minute Speaker 1 (29:29): And we are back. So we're going to talk next about this thing called alienation. As I just mentioned, it's one of the most discussed and asked questions and topics here at High Conflict Institute. So there's been some conversation, a lot of conversation around the terminology, and I don't even want to go into all of it, but let's talk about alienation, estrangement, resistance and refusal, right? This is, these are the terms that are talked about now, and I think people maybe are a bit confused about them. And so I guess I'll ask you all, let's start with you, Annette. What are the differences? What terminology is right is some of it not right? Speaker 2 (30:13): People should be confused about them because the entire legal community is confused about them and the terminology actually changes every few years. So everyone seems to have heard of alienation. Alienation is also the most alienating of the terms and the most extreme as far as I'm concerned. The one important thing to remember is any type of resistance on a child's part to see or be with one parent is always on a continuum. There could be resistance where the child just simply doesn't want to go for a couple of weekends in a row or half a school year or one summer. That's on one end of the continuum. Then it could go to the other end, which is the most extreme, where the child not only will have nothing to do with the other parent, but is vituperative and spits derogatory comments and not only rejects the parent, but rejects every person on the parent's side of the family and even the parent's pets and the household. Speaker 2 (31:13): So that is extreme. And then between those two, there's a whole continuum of, yeah, she likes being with mom more. She doesn't reject dad, but when she goes to dad's, she tends to stay in her room the whole time or is on her phone the whole time. That's part of the continuum. So important thing to remember is every time a child says, I hate you to a parent, that is not alienation part of that. It can be due to child development, natural affiliation with one parent or the other. There's a whole list which we go through in the book, by the way, a whole list of different factors to look at. So alienation, I am not a fan of that word. It's the most extreme and the most popular online from the Google printouts that we all receive from our clients. Parent child contact problems is a popular one right now because it doesn't lay blame on anyone. It just says there's a problem with contact between the parent and child. It doesn't say it's the other parent's fault. It doesn't say it's the non-contact parent's fault. It just says there's a problem. Let's figure out what it is and not try to blame on one or the other. Speaker 3 (32:26): I think it's really important to understand that it's not always the other parent's fault if one parent is favored or if one parent is feeling alienated or being resisted by the children. Like you said. There are other reasons, and I think so often people are looking to blame that other parent tells the kid It's okay that we're going to be okay, my relationship. That may not be true. Speaker 2 (32:54): And of course, the parent who is being resisted by the child, he or she is often blamed, oh, he's a rotten person. He committed domestic violence. She's a drug addict. Sometimes it is that severe. Most of the time it's not, but is it not natural for a child, especially a young teenager, to want to hang out more with the parent whose rules are maybe looser for some children? Yes. Other children who are rural followers may want to hang with the parent who has strict household rules and expectations, and the other parents too, loosey goody, these are child development and individual child issues that you need to look at. It's such a huge area to be looked at, and it's never like it's her fault. She's alienating the child from him. There's Speaker 3 (33:43): So much more. There's a whole dynamic. Speaker 1 (33:45): So could it start with, let's explore this. I wonder why this is happening, right? Speaker 2 (33:51): Yeah. Speaker 1 (33:52): So there goes, there's to flexible thinking, right? Is let's explore this a little bit. If you're a parent listening to this or a professional, think about that first before you just start throwing around or even entertaining the thought that this is alienation or estrangement or he's turning the kid against me, she's starting the child against me, Speaker 2 (34:13): Child whose brain is not fully developed, who is in the of adolescence or early adolescents who one day they adore one parent and the next day they adore the other. And it depends who's got tickets to Beyonce next month, exploring it with a child who's changed. I don't know about you guys, but I vaguely remember being a teenage girl and it's not easy. It takes a lot of openmindedness Speaker 3 (34:44): And I think there's, like you said, a level of education for even the parents. I have absolutely seen cases where I don't believe that the parent who may be making statements or doing things that may have caused some of this resisting behavior in the child knows they're doing it. I believe that it's not always deliberate, and it's maybe because they don't know any better and they need that education. And that I think is a part of it too, is maybe looking at it again, maybe this is a question of do they even know this is happening? Speaker 2 (35:19): I'm not divorced, but do you think I ever said anything nasty about my husband to my children when they were growing up? I'm betting I did. Speaker 1 (35:26): Well, I've known you probably, I don't know what, 25 years now. I'm guessing you might have. Speaker 2 (35:33): I bet I did, but I wasn't trying to alienate and in fact I did not alienate. That's the other interesting thing. You can have two children who are fairly close in age and one will refuse to see a certain parent and the other one goes just fine. And then the question becomes, well, what's that about? It's not the environment. The kids are in the same environment. It's about the individuals, Speaker 3 (35:55): The kids, and how they deal with maybe the conflict they're seeing. Maybe they feel they must align where others are like, that's their problem, not mine. Speaker 2 (36:03): Exactly. Exactly. Speaker 1 (36:05): So all in all right, if you think this is happening, if you're feeling some jealousy or if you're feeling some like, ah, it must be something happening in the other parent's house to turn this child who doesn't want to spend or talk to me about certain things, you just have to think about, I got to give, let me think about the history of this other parent. Has this other parent done this before? And maybe think about a 10% margin of grace, just 10%. If it's really there, then do something about it as far as trying to understand it and talk to people who also understand it and aren't going to. Now here I am, I'm supposed to be the interviewer, and I'm just going off on a tangent. Speaker 3 (36:51): So I think you're right. I mean, I think it's also remembering that there are several factors. The book talks about a bunch of them, different factors that could lead to this, and it's looking at those and if you need help understanding what's happening, then seeking a mental health professional to help you. Speaker 2 (37:09): Well, and also I think it's important to explore what would be a success in trying to work with some of these cases. If the court has ordered equal parenting time and this child is to go back and forth between households every week, some children can't do that. They just can't do it. Maybe a success is not forcing the child to go back and forth every week, but to see the estranged parent twice a week for dinner and an overnight on Saturday nights, you really have to define, if you're trying to rigidly enforce court orders, that may be the wrong approach. But if this child will have frequent contact with the other parent, just doesn't want to live there for a full week at a time, that could be a success and get rid of the stigma of alienation. Speaker 3 (37:56): And this is very much sort of an on-trend or topic that I think is in the news. I mean, there've just been recent laws passed about ways that you address alienation or resistant refuse dynamics. This is an area where also there is a lot of education because of that, because of it being so much in the media and in the news and in the loss. And that's something to rely on too, is kind of understand it a little bit more before you say it. I think, I don't know how many clients I have that will say alienation right out the door, and I'm like, hold on, let's talk about it. Speaker 1 (38:34): That's good. There's caution flag. Hey, let's talk about this, explore this a little bit. Well, let's switch this now into together. You have a lot of experience individually, you have a ton of experience, but I know you've spent so much time with parents, with other lawyers, with family law professionals and CLEs going to all kinds of conferences and speaking at conferences and training students. So you have such a wealth of information. So what advice or words of wisdom would you share with either other family law attorneys or new attorneys that are considering entering the family law? I have to tell you this already, right? That when you meet someone and they say they're a lawyer, and you ask what kind, and they might say, oh, I had choices between this and that and the other thing, and I definitely didn't want to do family law. Or I did my stint in family law for a year and I got out of that very quickly. Right? So what are your thoughts on that? Speaker 2 (39:32): Well, I would always tell young attorneys, when you do tell someone what you do, like you just mentioned Megan, often the response back is, oh my God, how could you do that? Or I bet you have good stories to tell. Oh, yes. And of course the answer is they're not good. You don't want to hear 'em on that issue. I was actually talking to my hair salon person the other day and told her about this book. She's just a member of the community, and she's like, oh, we have to hear about my neighbor. And she immediately tells me a story, which we hear every day of the week about how the parents don't agree on the child's extracurriculars, and so on mom's time, the child goes to football and on dad's he doesn't, and it ends up a mess. So everyday people know about all our stories, they just don't know them to the extent we do, and they have no idea how to deal with them. They just see these things going on in families and know it's a problem and figure, oh, these people are crazy. Well, they're not crazy. These are normal conflicts. But I'm getting off the subject now too. We're talking about what to tell the attorneys. Speaker 3 (40:43): I would say that family law I think is incredibly complex and dynamic. We're dealing with people, and that's what people are incredibly complex and dynamic, and it's incredibly important. The work that family law attorneys do or people who work in the family court is, I think, and I've said this, the most important work because you're dealing with children and families, and I think that is the most important thing. That's my priority. So I think one thing that I would tell people is understanding that because of that complexity and the dynamic, you've never stopped, you can never stop learning, and you can never stop getting help and having your colleagues around you and mentors in your life, and I think that's really important to help you be a good family law attorney. I have not been doing this as long as Annette, but I will say that for the years that I've been doing it almost 20 years, there's not a day that goes by that I don't reach out for help if I need it, and that I don't look in my rule book or reread a case or go to ACL E. That's a good part of being a lawyer, is being a good family law attorney is recognizing you don't know it all and recognizing that there are these resources available to help you in doing that. Speaker 2 (42:08): When I talk to younger attorneys, my biggest advice would be don't isolate yourself. Go to every continuing legal education you can on various family law topics, practice self-care, which to me, I'm not just talking about getting enough sleep and meditating. I'm talking about social interactions, good relationships with colleagues. I think we need to stay together with colleagues and have periodic, whether you call them peer review meetings or peer consultations, you need to know other people in this same business and know that we all have the same pressures. Do not isolate yourself. Some of the attorneys I can think of right now that are the biggest problems in family law, they're relatively isolated. They are not out there giving and receiving continuing legal education programs. They're sitting in their offices and working their tails off, and they're not pleasant to deal with sometimes. So get out there and be part of the community because we are a family law community. Speaker 1 (43:15): Yeah, it's a tough job, and I admire the work that both of you do. It's incredible work and to take it so seriously and you just bring such a wealth plethora of helpful information and wisdom to parents and to their families. It's very, very important work. So we are grateful and we're so grateful that you've written this book, Co-Parenting by Design. We'll put the link in the show notes, and we want everyone to buy it before it publishes in October, because pre-sales are everything in publishing for the success of the book. So if you're a parent out there, you're going through this or getting ready to go through it, definitely read this book in advance or at any point along the way, like both Nicole and Annette said, it's going to save you a lot of time and a lot of money by just taking a few hours and reading this book and keeping it on your shelf so you can refer to it in those times when you don't know what to do, where you're stressed out or ticked off or wondering what's going on, this will bring you back to a sense of calm and steady and decision-making and problem solving. Speaker 1 (44:26): So the information is, it's just packed full of very helpful practical tools. Speaker 2 (44:32): What I would love to see is clients being proactive and reading parts of this book and challenging their lawyers and saying, why does my parenting plan say this about vacations and Christmas? I think this would be a better idea. That was part of our purpose in writing this, Speaker 3 (44:48): And even lawyers to say, I have never seen a situation where there's a holiday that's based on a lunar calendar that changes every year. How do I handle that in the parenting plan? I Speaker 1 (45:03): Love it. I love it. Exactly. So yeah, it's call this the Common Sense book, and it's kind of like the healthcare system. The older we get, the more we know we need to be involved in our own medical care and decisions and not waiting for the healthcare system to tell us what to do. So be proactive as a parent, in your own case, in your own co-Parenting dynamic, and learn what you can from a book like this and take from it and share it with your attorney. Share it with your parenting coordinator and knock it out of the park. That way. It'll all just be the absolute best for your kids. You want them. You have so much impact on your children during these very, very important years. And why waste their childhood fighting with the other parent or worrying about what the other parent's doing instead of just being proactive about doing the best you can and impacting and influencing that child's life. So there we have it. Thank you both, Nicole and Annette for joining me today. Very, very pleased to, and I'm honored to get to publish this book, and I was really happy to have you on here today, and I know you'll be very helpful. To our listeners, Speaker 1 (46:20): Next week I'm going to be talking about conflict influencer class that's coming up starting in September, so it's actually kind of interesting about influencing conflict and what that really means, and is it possible. The week after that, we're talking with Kevin Chapin about parenting teams in the co-parenting relationship. So in the meantime, send your questions to podcast@highconflictinstitute.com or submit them to high conflict institute.com/podcast. Until next time, keep learning and practicing skills. Read the book, be kind to yourself and others, and don't forget to set limits along the way, connect and set limits. While we all try to keep the conflict small and find the missing piece. It's All Your Fault is a production of True Story FM Engineering by Andy Nelson. Music by Wolf Samuels, John Coggins and Ziv Moran. Find the show notes and transcripts at True story fm or high conflict institute.com/podcast. If your podcast app allows Speaker 4 (47:28): Ratings reviews, please consider doing that for our show.