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Co-Parenting When You Hate Your Ex · 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 a split-up or any guests.
• 0:17
  Speaker: Launi and Robert are only licensed in the state of Arizona.
• 0:20
  Speaker: For legal or mental health concerns, please consult a licensed professional in your state.
• 0:25
  Speaker: Guest identities may be changed for privacy.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: Hi, welcome to Split Up.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Today we're going to talk about how do you co-parent with someone you hate.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: So we kind of wanted to go into this.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: We we know that there is a lot of uh dislike of the other parent that we go through.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: And in fact, we've seen some of that anger and frustration pushed onto us when we try and give advice.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: So um today we're gonna talk about that.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: I'm Launi Sheldon, one of the founders of Split Up.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: And I'm Robert DiCarlo, also a founder of Split Up and a licensed psychologist in Arizona.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm also a lawyer, 25 years.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: So um, all right, so let's let's go through this.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: I I wanted to talk to Robert about this today because um, you know, it's it's it's sometimes you have to love your kids more than you hate your ex.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: And there's a lot of people that I've seen that hate, literally hate.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: I don't use the word hate lightly.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: There's very few things that I hate.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: Um, but there are people who hate their exes and they are going to be required to co-parent with them and or parallel parent with them.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: But let's talk about that.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: Let's let's kind of talk about what you do in that position.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: So just before we get started, I like to do a usual reminder that this is general education, information, not legal advice.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: You're not, you know, you're not my client, you're not Robert's client.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Um, we're just kind of going through and trying to educate you guys.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: So um today's kind of even more important with that sort of disclaimer because we are doing some, we'll be talking a little bit about the the issues with domestic violence and trauma and how those situations could play into this.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: So I just want to make sure we give the double disclaimer.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and Launi, I'll add to that that if there has been domestic violence or forms of course of control, maybe stalking threats, child abuse, uh really serious substance misuse, retaliation, any other risk of harm, general co-parenting advice may not be appropriate in those circumstances.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: So safety planning and individualized professional guidance really come first before anything.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so so if you hate this person, let's say you just really, really hate this person.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: So now what?
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: And you know, you're not annoyed with the person, you're not, oh shoot, we don't get along.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: Um, the question is how do you co-parent with somebody that you genuine genuinely hate?
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: A person that you don't trust, a person that you despise, a person that you don't want to see, a person that you might actually get a physical bad reaction to when you even hear their voice or see them.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: Um what do you do with that?
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: Like, I you know, I used to tell so being in this business, um there's there's a psychologist that I used to say that that used to try and really get the parents together more frequently.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: Robert, you know who he is, um, who thought that it was a good idea to have parents sit down and have conversations.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, how many times do I have to divorce this person before I can quit talking to them like all the time?
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: Like I get that we have to discuss some things, but I don't need to be in the same room with this person.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: I don't need to, and I and I and I didn't even hate it, like I don't hate him.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: Um, but I didn't like him.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: And there was there was some some trauma in that in that marriage and in that divorce.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: So um given that, like, what do you do with that?
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the first thing I'd say is that we have to be able to separate what you feel from what you do.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: And Launi, like you, I don't use the word hate lightly.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: Um, but you can have extremely intense feelings about another person and still make thoughtful parenting decisions.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: So psychologically, the goal isn't not, it's not necessarily that I need to stop hating my ex or my co-parent.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: A more useful goal might be, you know, my feelings about my ex do not get to decide what role my child has in this divorce, because your child really shouldn't become your messenger.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: And we've talked about this in other discussions, Launi.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: Um, you know, you don't want to use your child as a spy.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: You especially don't want your kid to become your therapist.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: And, you know, your your children should not become the person responsible for punishing the other parent, um, you know, exacting some sort of revenge on your behalf.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: You know, these are things that we want to keep kids away from.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: So you're are are you telling somebody that they don't need to forgive their ex?
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: Uh no, they don't, they don't have to like them.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: No.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: So um that that's not a required part of this.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: You don't have to like your ex.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: You don't have to like your co-parent.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: You don't have to trust them.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Um, not I not automatically.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: Um, you know, you don't even really have to be um I I mean I you want to be friendly in your co-parenting communications, but you don't have to be friends.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: And I think it's a really important distinction because sometimes we set the bar in the wrong places, especially as it relates to co-parenting, or if you're in the the real heat of a co-parenting or family court litigation or conflict, uh, we make successful co-parenting sound like two divorced parents sitting next to each other at a soccer game, laughing together, having joint birthday parties.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: And, you know, you see the picture on Instagram divorced done right.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: And, you know, that's definitely admirable and it's wonderful when it's genuine and healthy, but that is not the only version of successful post-divorce parenting.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: Sometimes it looks much less impressive posting on Instagram.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: It might be, you know, we just had a successful communication about the child, or we followed the parenting plan, or we didn't put our kid in the middle.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: We don't interrogate the kids about the other home.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: And, you know, we don't make the kids manage our emotions.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: So you don't post those things.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: You don't get that sort of like story finish.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I I that brought up a couple of memories for me.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: Um one was I remember trying, and I think I told you about this.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: I tried to save a seat for my ex and his wife at one at my kids' performance because I had I got there early, I had great seats.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: Um my adult daughter was with me, my husband was with me.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: Um and I I had really great seats.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: So I saved seats and I was like, hey, do you guys want to sit here?
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: So the kids only in my mind, I'm thinking the kid only has to look in one direction and isn't searching for parents around the place, and they see, you know, they see that.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: I got in I got just I had a talking to from that from my ex um about doing that, saying that he thought I was being controlling.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: Um well, actually, I think what he said was, which you see as being nice, his wife um saw as me being controlling.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: So um I I mean they didn't have to sit with me, I just saved the seat.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: I thought it would be nice.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: So think about consider that people.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: Consider that you might think you're doing something nice and maybe you're not.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: So you know when you're talking about a legal side and just a personal side, you know, there's things that you can do.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: There's like I did that.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: Should I have done that?
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: I don't know, Robert.
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: I mean, what are your thoughts on on doing something?
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: Like from in my mind, I would see you doing that with your ex.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and we do, and and we regularly do events together, and that is one type of co-parenting that's highly collaborative, but it's not the only configuration for co-parenting.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: Uh in intent is very different than impact.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: So, your intent, Launi, was to be thoughtful and considerate and maybe putting your kids first, whatever it was going through your mind when you saved those seats, that doesn't mean your co-parent interpreted it that way.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: In fact, they interpreted it through a negative lens or through not giving you the most generous assumption.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: And now you have that information about how your co-parent uh thinks about you or is interpreting your behavior.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: And so I don't want to say there's a right or a wrong.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: It's just a matter of sometimes you need more information and you can respect another co-parent's boundaries if they're not willing to kind of give you a positive assumption or a generous assumption about what your intent was.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: And so, yeah, for for me, again, I was trying, I thought I was trying to be nice, um, but you know, that that didn't happen again because I knew he didn't want to do that.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: So don't do things that they say they don't want you to do.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: Let's start with that, right?
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: Well, there's another layer to your story, Launi, and that's that you have a third party, like a girlfriend or a a step parent who has their own feelings and and understandably, but they may be interpreting it completely out of context through their own uh you know life experience or maybe their own conflicts that they've had with with that same partner.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: And so that can get imposed on your co-parenting dynamic as well, for right or wrong, it it becomes an another layer and another challenge.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: So in in your if it's going to get bad, then you just if if people don't have a good relationship, just better to sit on opposite sides of the gymnasium, better to sit on opposite sides of the auditorium, whatever.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: Uh maybe, but you know, those are describing more, I would say, um, parallel co-parenting uh paradigms or or dynamics where you really only have the necessary contact uh contact to do parenting and do co-parenting.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: So you would generally do what you described, which is, you know, you would sit separately, um, you'd have really clear protocols and plans for how you behave at you know joint events.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: And, you know, maybe even your parenting plan outlines who can be in attendance and who can't.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: And it's important to refer to your orders.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: Uh, but if you don't know or it's not in your orders or it lacks clarity in your orders, I think simply asking your co-parent's preference can go a long way rather than kind of finding yourself in a conflictual situation that plays out in front of your kids.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: Interesting.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: Asking the co-parent, huh?
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: Um, I wonder how many people do that.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: Like, I wouldn't have.
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: I mean, I guess I could have sent a message saying, drop me a save your seat.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: Like, I guess that could have been that would have been an easy text.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: Um Yeah, that that's probably how I would suggest you do that.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: If, again, you're permitted to have those kinds of communications with your co-parents.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: In some of our cases, as you know, Launi, they've already been sort of sanctioned by the court or they've had some sort of other family court professional impose some sort of guideline or structure on their co-parenting, and you may not be able to just simply text your co-parent and say, hey, I'm at the game.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: Do you want me to save you a seat?
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: That could be a violation.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: So it's it's so context dependent, but you're gonna know your co-parent um probably better than a family court professional.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: You can kind of read the room, if you will, and make decisions in real time as things sort of play out.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I ag I agree.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: And I I think this is another time where you really have to have a good parenting plan.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: If you're if if you're thinking, now listen, I I we did our divorce pretty easily.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: It wasn't a big deal.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: Um I mean, it was a big deal, clearly, but it wasn't like we didn't fight.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: In fact, uh my law partner at the time laughed and said, You guys are the only people I know who fought after the divorce.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: Like we fought not at all during the process.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: Um but I I think I really learned that you definitely need to make your parenting plan crystal clear.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: And not because I think like my ex really cared about much of it.
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: I think it was more of when he got remarried that she cared about it.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: And so in order to make her happy, um he, you know, he sort of pushed the limits on the edge, you know, to on the um on the on the parenting time and the parenting plan.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: And so like we had to go see a parenting coordinator too.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: Um so your parenting plans are so important.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: And you know, it split up.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: We have a really good um, well, we we have a couple of videos, but we also have a link to a learn law video on parenting plans because um I had taught a class on that that was like my was like an hour and a half or two hour um continuing education class.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: And so just it's important to make sure you get your parenting plans done correctly.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: We've also talked about parenting plans uh with Annette Burns and Nicole Siquieros, who is my law partner, they wrote a book on it.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: So um maybe I'll link that too, because parenting plans are so important.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: And if even if you don't need the best parenting plan, and even if you think, oh, we're doing fine, that's that's fine.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: Make it a really good, really good tight parenting plan, and then that's your fallback.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: You can always agree other to other things, but then you know, make it a fallback.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: If if you're not getting along, where do you guys sit?
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: I mean, I did I think I'd have to do that.
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: No.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: Um, and you probably will never have to do that, Robert, because you guys get along pretty well.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I'm grateful in that sense, but you know, there's always new contexts and new situations where even if you had a very clear parenting plan that worked in one context, it may not apply to a new setting or situation, or as you mentioned, having a new partner come in.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: The other perspective is people just change and evolve over time too.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: They set their own new boundaries for themselves.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Um, maybe that co-parent that used to have a lot of tolerance and ability to sit with uh their co-parent and sort of have collaboration, maybe going through something emotionally, or maybe their grief from the relationship has evolved in such a way that it's more difficult for them and they're just simply setting a boundary.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: Hey, I can't, I can't be in your presence right now.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Ideally, if you had good communication with your co-parent, you can share that and they'd respect that perspective.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: But sometimes in more parallel co-parenting situations, you may just have to identify what the boundary is and not engage in a lot of back and forth conversation.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: All right, so let's jump to a kind of a different area where a kid comes home and they're like, We had so much fun with dad and his girlfriend.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: Um you know.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: So let's let's let's let's make this really uncomfortable and really address the people who've kind of followed us and gotten frustrated with us.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: Um husband and again, guys, I'm just using this for an example.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: Not all men cheat.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: Sometimes women cheat, sometimes probably maybe more women cheat.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: But we're just gonna use men for this specific example because I started it with we had so much fun with dad and his girlfriend.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: So um dad has an affair and he uh maintains a relationship with the affair partner.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: You're devastated.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: Um, you don't want that kid around that person.
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: Um and now she's around the person.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: So um the kid comes home and says, Wow, we had so much fun with dad and his girlfriend, and she took us to this place, and and um we did this and that, and we made pancakes, and she put chocolate chips in it, and we had strawberries on the side, whatever.
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: Whatever, in fact, might even be something you've done with the kid with your kids, and they didn't love it when it was you, but now they're loving it with another person, right?
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: Because they expect it from you.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: Um, and so, you know, do you have any tools in your toolbox for handling something like that?
• 17:01
  unknown: Yeah.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: It'll hurt for sure.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: This this one's gonna sting, you know, because you you hear those things and you have a like a visceral reaction sometimes, and and it's um it's somatic, it's bodily.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: Sometimes it's outside of your even conscious awareness.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: So the first thing to keep in mind is you do not have to celebrate that relationship.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: You don't have to say, oh my gosh, I just love her, or you don't have to pretend you're emotionally comfortable with something that was so profoundly painful and it may be showing on you.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: Um, what you can say and probably should say is something like, oh, that sounds like you had a really fun weekend, or I'm glad you had fun.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: You know, something really straightforward that you can say in a concrete way that isn't inauthentic in terms of, you know, it could be true, you know, that you you would feel that um, you know, that that it sounds like they had a fun weekend, but you know, that would be my suggestion on that one.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: So there's probably somebody like yelling at their screen right now, saying, So I'm supposed to be glad that my kid is is celebrating with the woman who, you know, wrecked our marriage.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and and I recognize that, I hear it.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: And it's sort of one of those situations that we often run into where two things can be true at the same time.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: So the betrayal to you may have been very real, and your anger may be completely understandable, and your child may still be allowed to have a really good weekend with that person.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: So those are separate things.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: You're not endorsing the affair, you're not endorsing the hurt, you're not even forgiving anybody, and you're not rewriting history.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: The part that I think parents forget to attend to is you're responding to your child's experience.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: So your child just told you I had fun, and you're essentially telling them you're allowed to tell me that.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: That is the message you're trying to communicate to them.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I guess you could treat it like they had fun, just as if they had fun with a friend that they were with for, you know, one of their friends from school went to the park, they had fun.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: Tell me all about it, you know, I got fun.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: And and you wouldn't, you wouldn't sort of deconstruct that in the same way because it wouldn't create the same sort of emotional charge.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: But sometimes the emotionally neutral response can be a huge success because you have to think about the alternative.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: If that child comes home excited and says, Oh, we had so much fun, and the parent's face just sort of like suddenly changes and becomes solemn or goes quiet, um, or the the parent says, she was there, or well, isn't that nice, or some sort of sarcastic quip.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: Um, or or even like attaching it to kind of how you're experiencing your life right now.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: Oh, I'm so glad everyone's having such a great time over there while I'm sitting here alone.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: Um, so in those examples, nobody is technically saying you're not allowed to like her, but kids are really, really good about learning emotional rules.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: So the child might start thinking, when I talk about dad, mom gets sad, or when I talk about dad's girlfriend, mom gets angry.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: So, what does the child do in that situation?
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: Eventually, they just stop talking and communicating.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that was kind of going to lead me to my next question.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: Might a kid start censoring themselves around a parent.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: And we see that all the time in the work that we do, working with families kind of boots on the ground.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: Um, sometimes adults interpret that that censoring as loyalty by the child.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: So, for example, my daughter doesn't talk about her dad around me because she knows what he did and how he harmed the family.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: The other possibility that parent may not be thinking of is your daughter may have learned that certain subjects create an emotional consequence for you.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: So she's in effect managing your emotional state.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: And that's a very different interpretation.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: Now she's monitoring mom or dad.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: Um, can I tell mom I had fun?
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: Can I tell dad I miss mom?
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: Can I say I like a stepparent or a new partner?
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: Will mom cry?
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: Will dad get mad?
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: That's a ton of emotional work and burden for the child.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: Well, let's kind of back that up if we can.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: Um you know, can you talk to parents about when a child says that they miss the other parent?
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: Because I can say from experience the opposite way.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: If my kids said that they missed me, um they they had kind of a talking to.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I always find it helpful to compare a situation that you're experiencing in a co parenting dynamic or a divorce situation that may be challenging to what would the same scenario look like if mom and dad or the parents were together?
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: And use that as a way to kind of gauge what an appropriate response.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: Would be.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: So if you were together with your spouse and you went away for the weekend or you had a work trip and your child said, I really miss you, how would you respond in that situation?
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: Again, it wouldn't elicit the same sort of emotional charge as what the scenario is that we're talking about now.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: But you can compare how a healthy response in that situation could be replicated in a situation where maybe you do have some emotional charge to it.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: And there's a valence to that that is really um challenging to work around.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: But if again, if you're if you're responding to the child's perspective and through their eyes, you're not kind of uh putting your stuff on them.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: You can have an appropriate response, which is like, oh, I'm I'm sorry you missed me, and I missed you too, right?
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is kind of where I think um the psychology and legal parts sort of split ways, right?
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: I think, and and we've talked about this.
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: I think that there's times where, and I think we'll talk about it further, you know, in a little bit.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: Um, but when you're when you're just parenting versus when you're parenting for litigation.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: And those are two things.
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: So like you might say, you know, don't make a child carry this.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: And I might say, you know, let's get the text messages, let's um let's see what you know, social media is out there.
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: Um and so I I think that you know, if and I've seen this a lot, you know, where a child's well, where a parent says, Hey, our daughter missed me when I was gone.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: Can we, you know, have an extra day?
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: Or can we not have seven days in a row?
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: Um, or if you take your if you take your two weeks, can I have more than just two days in between for vacations?
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: And again, a really good thing to write in a parenting plan.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: Um, because it's not a big deal that a kid misses you.
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think I think it's important that kids are acknowledged if they miss you, right?
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: But I don't think it's the like this is not a reason to change parenting time necessarily, right?
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: And I would just say not every problem needs a solution.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: So if your child misses you, the knee-jerk reaction when you're embroiled in family court conflict or litigation is, oh, that means then I must need to change something in my parenting plan, as opposed to multiple options, like a uh my child is allowed to feel some level of discomfort and sadness when I'm not around.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: And they probably feel the same when the tables are turned around and they're missing the other parent, right?
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: It doesn't logically lead to a conclusion that something is wrong with the parenting plan.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: Parents, I think, get really distressed when their children are distressed.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: In any other sort of environment or setting or context, you know, the solution may be much more clear and straightforward.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: Uh, but in a family court litigation scenario, suddenly everything gets mapped on to parenting time and legal decision making.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: And and those become sort of the the go-to solutions, is that those are the only two levers you can pull?
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: Okay, so let's say, let's let's kind of go there for a minute.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: Let's say child comes home, because this is where we're gonna differ.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: Possibly.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: Child comes home and says, Um, dad, I told mom that I missed you and I wanted to call you, and she wouldn't let me.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: Um what are things that dad should say in that moment?
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: And then I'm gonna talk about kind of the legal aspect of it.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: So we have to rely on some other conversations that we've had with with this audience, Launi, which is that you know, at the highest level, you want to keep the child out of conflict.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: You don't want to start interrogating them or um, you know, case building or collecting evidence just for your own evidence, right?
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: You're you're not putting your child first when you do that.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: The second layer to this is not making um quick um assumptions about what actually happened.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: Children present information in um what I what I view because I do this work in really like um expected and predicted ways, but for parents that aren't familiar with this and they're going through this for the first time, it's outright bizarre.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: How could my child possibly say something that's not true about something that's happening in the other household?
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: So I encourage parents to do what we talk about in the forensic work, which is keep multiple hypotheses open at the same time.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: One is one hypothesis is that the child really heard that and the parent said it.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: Another is that they're just trying to get a rise out of you so that you'll react.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: Another might be some version of that could have been said, but the child misinterpreted it and anything in between.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: So I think the parent's best recourse, especially if this is a first or maybe even second or third occurrence, is just to document the pattern.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: Any one particular statement, event, behavior is not going to indicate some pathology or major problem.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: But what you're looking for is patterns over time, themes over time, um, you know, things that are happening on a recurring basis that are creating a real negative outcome for particularly the child.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: Okay, so this is where we're gonna differ.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: I am also going to agree on the documenting, but I also like to set up a good case.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: And so um while I again we talked about the difference between parenting for litigation or parenting to parent.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: Um if someone's parenting to parent, do exactly what Robert's saying.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: If you're parenting to litigate, then you're gonna kind of lean over this way a little bit.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: Um I like to send an email to the other party in as not accusatory way as possible.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: Um and and maybe have you know Chat GPT help you write like a nice email or text about it because we don't want to accuse, but in documenting, we want to see what their response is.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: If somebody responds and says, Oh my gosh, yeah, she said she missed you and I totally spaced calling, I will talk to her.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: That was my bad.
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: Then you've got you know that this person isn't, you know, trying to do something.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: But if the person starts getting attacking and accusatory and says, you know, they're not calling you on they don't need to call you during this time.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: We have set up times to do it and that kind of stuff.
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: Now you've got more evidence.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: So I do agree with Robert that if you're just parenting to parent, um, of course, let's just document it, wait for a pattern if there is one.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: Um if you're documenting to litigate, I like to get more evidence and I like to see how that person's going to react to um to a text message or an email.
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: And again, just write it really nice, non-accusatory.
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: Um, even if you just say, hey, you know, little Lily said that she, you know, try she that she missed me and she wasn't allowed to call.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: Um and you know, I just want to see if we want to add that to the parenting plan where if the child wants to call, that's okay, they can call.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: That way it's even on both sides, like something like that, where it's it's even on both sides.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: You're not accusing anyone.
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: You understand that this is what the parenting plan says, and you're following it.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: So, but then if their response is a really crappy response, now you have more evidence.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: That's just my perspective.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: I I don't disagree with that, Launi.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: I think you know, sending a an appropriately worded uh communication to your co-parent is actually right within the realm of good co-parenting behavior.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: Because if your intention, and I'll just I'll shift it, if your actual intention is to parent uh and co-parent with with your co-parent, then the intended uh outcome of that communication is that you're trying to resolve conflict so that your child doesn't feel that that tension anymore.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: So maybe it is putting the other parent on notice that, hey, this is what came back to me.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: I don't know if it's true or not, but maybe we could work together so this doesn't happen again.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: Then to your point, if it devolves from there or you get a really defensive reaction or maybe an escalation in the unwanted behavior, you do have some evidence, if you will, for you know, whatever you're trying to accomplish in family court.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: But if the initial intent is to resolve conflict and resolve tension for your child, that should be really the first order before you get to those other areas.
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree.
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: And I I like to call this a win-win for my client.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: Look, you're either you're either gonna get what you want, which is a good answer that's helpful co-parenting, or you're going to get evidence.
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: It's gonna be one of those two things.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's gonna be evidence.
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: So let's let's kind of move on to the the this is this one I love, and um it it's we hear this so much, Robert.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: We hear this so much.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: I'm not bad mouthing him, I'm just telling my kids the truth.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we did a whole episode on on aspects of this type of thinking and this type of problem.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: But the first question I would ask is why does the kid need this information?
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: Not is it technically true?
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: Because again, as we talked about in that previous discussion, not every true fact is a child size fact or developmentally appropriate for the child.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: So imagine, if you will, saying to let's just say a seven-year-old, um, your dad had a two-year affair with his coworker.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: He lied to me repeatedly, he drained our savings account, and that's why this family doesn't exist anymore.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: Maybe every single word in that statement is factually accurate, but that doesn't automatically make it developmentally appropriate.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think that there's a lot of different areas that we can touch in because I I think you know, we really did talk about the the um the affair stuff, but I think this goes to everything, right?
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: Like I'm gonna give you an example.
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: Go into a parenting coordinator meeting because you want um one parent wants a child to do something and the other parent wants a child to do something else, and then one parent tells the other tells the kid, hey, we went to a parenting coordinator meeting because me and your dad couldn't get along.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: I don't think that needs to be told either.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I I mean I totally agree.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: I mean, that again, it's not it's not information that's useful to a child.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: It may be useful to the adult insofar as they believe that they're creating an alliance or validating their own perspective and wanting the child to sort of feel that same level of validation.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: Um, but it's it's not really child focused.
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: Okay, so let me then push back a little bit to on the on the affair thing.
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: And and again, I know we've talked about this before, but why does that the affair person get protected?
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: Like why and I mean I can see it, I can I can see it a hundred different ways, especially if one person is alienating.
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: Uh, especially if it's that person that's alienating, especially if somebody who had the affair is saying bad stuff about the parent who did not have the affair, then you want to go, dad had an affair or mom had an affair.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: So what about that one?
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, the bottom line is I'm not protecting the dad with this suggestion.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: I'm protecting the seven-year-old.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: There's a a really big distinction there.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: Protecting kids from adult details is not the same as protecting the adult who caused the harm.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: And I think this is an area where a hurt partner sort of conflates those two things.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: Uh, you know, if they did it to me, they did it to the family.
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: And certainly there's truth in that parent's behavior had a real impact on the entire family.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: But the affair and the sort of um uh betrayal really happened to the partners in the relationship.
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, that's that's kind of the distinction, right?
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: You're not you're not protecting that person, you're protecting the child, and um we're not bringing adult problems to the child.
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: They know that their their house is different now, they don't necessarily need to know more.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: And you know, honesty doesn't require recruiting the kid into the adult case or the adult issues.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: So, you know, for a younger kid, you know, the narrative might be something like there were adult problems in the marriage that we weren't able to fix, and none of this was your fault, and you don't have to choose between us.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: And again, we went over this in an entire podcast um on that topic.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: So certainly check that out.
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: But, you know, these are the the real issues that I think parents face when there's any sort of grievance or or hurt that happens, and and you can apply this same sort of logic to almost any problem that we see in a in a disrupted family where there's been this this big rupture.
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I I do think that um when there's an affair, there's more hatred than if you just said, hey, this is not working.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: You know, probably they should have if they're having an affair, they probably should have said, hey, this isn't working ahead of time.
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: But um there's so much more hate that goes along with that.
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: And it's and and let's kind of talk about this because there's hatred versus trauma.
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: And I mean, I don't want to say, I mean, it the cheating could cause trauma to the other person.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't want to just like exclude that.
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: So there's um my ex cheated and I hate him is one thing, but there might also be um like domestic violence and some other trauma.
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: So let's kind of switch to that.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, those can be very distinct issues in families, and we need to be careful not to put every difficult divorce under the label of trauma, um, but at the same time not minimizing genuine trauma that happens.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: So someone with traumatic symptoms can have a really strong uh physiological response to something that seems really small from the outside.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: So, for example, their phone lights up and they see their former partner's name.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: Suddenly their heart is racing, their muscles are tense, they feel nauseated, their attention gets really hyper-focused or narrow.
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: Um, and they may feel an immediate urge to respond.
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: Another possible response is to escape or shut down.
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: They may lean into appeasing the person or having to defend them, feeling like a really strong desire to defend themselves.
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: So this is the body responding to a perceived threat before the person has fully thought through what is actually happening.
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we hear that, we hear that quite a bit, um, especially with ProperCom, you know, people who don't ever want to see their ex's name come up.
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: So they know if it's gone through Proper COM, it's not gonna be a five-page essay telling them what a piece of crap they are.
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: Um, and they know that's gonna be taken out.
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: But yeah, that that response can be um tough.
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: But I I want to just break away from that for a second because it just reminded me of something else.
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: And I I like it when I get reminded of something else while we're talking.
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: Names saved in the phone.
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: Oh, right.
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: When you said you see the name saved in the phone, yeah, yeah.
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: I want so I what's the weirdest worst name you've seen saved in a phone?
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: Or and then I want you to talk about why that's not a good idea, and I'll then I'll talk about legally why that's not a good idea, but talk about I don't know if I'm allowed to say it on uh I think it might be too too awful to say.
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: Oh, really?
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: Over recording.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, just imagine the worst, most awful thing you could say about a man or a woman and make that the name that appears on your phone when they call you.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: And I mean, I hope it goes without saying, but uh I mean, even my phone sitting on my desk right now, anyone would see that when it pops up.
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: And that includes your children.
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: So, um, and especially if you give your kids your phone as sort of a pacifier at times, like some parents do, like here, play a game or something, um, and and suddenly mom or dad calls and you have like this awful picture of them and and a terrible name, that's gonna land on your kid.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: And and I'm sorry, there's really no way around that in sort of like justifying that kind of behavior.
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, you might as well just openly badmouth them.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: And so psychologically, that can be really harmful to your child, um, even if they already know that you're upset with them or even hate them, to sort of have that visual reminder and that that sort of um uh just nastiness sort of play out in front of them, that's gonna be really harmful to them.
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I've seen I've seen some bad ones.
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: I probably shouldn't repeat a lot of them.
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: Um but you know, sperm donors not abnormal.
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: Um it's not great, but I've I've seen that.
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: Um also here's one that I've seen that that I think is bad, but I want your opinion on.
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: And one was called, it was like the kid's name, like Billy's Dad.
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: What are your thoughts on that?
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: Oh, I've never encountered that actually.
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: That's interesting.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, age and development of the child is also relevant, you know, if if a child's old enough to read and understand and know nuance and things like that.
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's not the worst thing.
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: I I probably would recommend just having their first and last name.
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: Um, but I I don't know.
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: As I'm thinking about it, I don't know that there's much harm in that.
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: You're you're centering the child to the parent in a way that family court professionals refer to mother and father and child, and you know, as you become the label essentially.
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I didn't I I I was a little offended by it, but I I'm still not sure why, if that makes sense.
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: Like I still had an ick feeling, like well, like clearly nothing nice about this person.
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: And I that I just didn't like as a much as as much of a greeting, like, you know, like I just put my ex's name in.
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: But I just I I would have questions for the parent.
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: I would really want to know what they what their mindset was because I could see a parent really thinking that was something positive to do.
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: You know, again, like I'm centering the child, I'm acknowledging their um, you know, they have a parent.
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: And if my child saw it, I so again, out of context, I don't really know what to make of it, but it does kind of like leave that like, I don't know how I feel about this.
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: So yeah, that's how I was with that one too.
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: And I, by the way, there's the same thing with email addresses, right?
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: Um, you know, when you're when you're going to court, and although those are less likely to be seen by the kid, um, when you're exchanging emails and you know that the person has to write, like, you know, Billy's mom is a bitch, and that's who their Billy mom is a bitch at gmail.com, and that's who they have to address their communications to when it's them that you know, I mean, we see a lot of those.
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: Judges hate these, like judges judges will get frustrated and angry about it.
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: They they will you'll get at least a talking to um they may think that you're incapable of co-parenting if you can't even do something as easy as having a decent name for the person.
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: So I know judges don't like it.
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: I definitely have my clients screenshot them if they see it or um if the kid talks about it.
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: Um, you know, we definitely like that information.
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: Have you ever asked, do you ever be like, hey, you know, give me your phone?
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: I want to see what do you what do you call the other person in the uh in your phone?
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: Have you ever asked that in an evaluation?
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: No, I so usually the evaluations are driven by the parent concerns, and so that that helps me frame out what sort of information I ask for.
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: If it was brought up as a concern, like parent A said that parent B has this awful name in their phone and they refuse to change it and the kids seen it.
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: I may surprise them in an interview and ask them to show me their phone.
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: Um, but it's similar to like a home visit.
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: Usually in a custody study, people are prepared for the various tasks that encompass an evaluation.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: And so you're getting the cleanest version of them most of the time.
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: Um, but the really unhealthy parents, I almost feel like they have no filter and they don't even know why it's bad.
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: So they don't know what they don't know, and therefore they're breaking all kinds of rules.
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: And those are the ones that are more straightforward and and do those types of things, I think.
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: So what tools do you have for the person who who does sort of have a visceral reaction to a name popping up?
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: So actually, I want to jump back and talk a little bit more about what how we started this particular part of the conversation around trauma.
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: So, not every um relationship that That had some sort of abuse or domestic violence has to be present to experience some of those physiological reactions that I described.
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: And it's nothing that you can diagnose anyway through a checklist or a podcast.
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: Um, but but it is something that people often experience when they're in the early and even height stages of a custody litigation or or co-parenting conflict, is they present almost like they have a traumatic stress disorder because of that physiological response when they have to encounter their co-parent.
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: That does not mean that's evidence that you were abused in your relationship necessarily, um, but it but it does speak to an individual's stress response, their coping abilities, and just what's going on emotionally during a really time of heightened stress and and difficulty in their life.
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: And so our bodies react in those ways.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: So, you know, definitely be aware of what's going on in your body, how intense is your reaction, how long does it last?
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: Are you experiencing, you know, these sort of intrusive memories or feelings or previous threatening situations that are coming back to you?
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: Um, and then what are you doing in terms of your day-to-day life?
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: Are you withdrawing socially?
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: Um, are you not leaning into your resources and supports?
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: Is it impacting your sleep, your concentration, your work, your interpersonal relationships?
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: Um, these are all things that you'll want to check in with yourself.
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: And then certainly a mental health professional if you are experiencing them, because that professional can help tease out how much of this is a stress response because you're in a really high conflict, stressful situation, versus is this pushing into kind of more of a clinical area of you may have something that might need to be treated clinically.
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: So those are important things to kind of ask yourself and self-assess and then professionally assess.
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: Um, but we have all kinds of tips and tools that we work with with clients when they're having that.
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: One of the best ones I have that that seems most effective for people is to schedule um uh times to address your co-parent.
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: So if you have an expectation in your court order that you must respond within 24 hours, um, save for maybe an emergency situation where you have to respond right away, I usually recommend that people set aside a specific time during their day so that they don't have to ruminate and worry all day about when they're gonna respond.
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: You just kind of set the expectation that I'm only gonna respond to my co-parenting messages, you know, at 9 p.m.
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: Um, you know, maybe over a glass of wine or listening to some relaxing music or something to just sort of calm your nervous system so you can address the issues in a fair and balanced way.
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: Um, but if you don't have that 24-hour requirement, I love the once a week.
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: You just sort of plan a day, uh one day a week where nothing gets addressed until that particular day.
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: So that's one practical tool that I think really helps people.
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, could you imagine only having to deal with them once a week?
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: That'd be lovely.
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: Um I I don't but I think all I think all parenting plans have like a 48-hour at least, like like you don't want to wait a week.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, 48 hours for a response, but a response doesn't mean a resolution.
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: So you could respond and say, hey, I need more time to uh think about this or collect some more information, I'll get back to you by, and then you put the date.
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: So um you can kind of bulk your communications, and that really helps break up that behavioral pattern of that physiological response.
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: Every time you hear the phone chime, or you see a badge pop up on your phone and it's your co-parent's email, or if you're using a co-parenting platform like OFW or co-parenter, you'll get the little you know alerts.
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: These are all things that are keeping your nervous system kind of in overactive mode because you're constantly threat assessing as opposed to living your day-to-day life.
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: If you can schedule that worry time, and we use this in cognitive behavioral therapy as well of sort of scheduled worry time, um, you can just address it at that time and it doesn't have to bleed over into all your other activities.
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I think some people, um, not me, are good at um not responding right away.
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: Like if I see a text, I feel automatically like I have to respond right away.
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: Like I'm not that person who can wait like and I don't know if that's just like a a trained thing.
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: I don't know if it's more of a woman thing than a guy thing.
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: Like, I don't know.
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: But I always felt like I needed to respond.
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: Like if the message came in, I had to respond.
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: And I think clearly that was my own issue.
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: Um because you don't, you don't have to respond right away.
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: But um, I don't know, maybe even mute the thing and then set an alarm for when you have to look at it, right?
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, or recognizing that your co-parent's crisis isn't necessarily your crisis.
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: You know, they could be asking you a question or engaging you in a way because they feel a sense of urgency.
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: But when you really zoom out and look at the context, this is not an emergency situation.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: This is not an even urgent situation.
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: It's no different than maybe getting a business email that you have to address at the end of the week or within 72 hours, you know, like don't make their crisis your crisis because it also teaches something to your co-parent that you're not on demand.
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: You're not always going to be responding within, you know, a certain time set.
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: So um and so how do you do that?
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: Say they're blowing up your phone and sending 200 texts because they got a letter from school um about I don't know, like homework missing or something.
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: Um and they're blowing up the you're not doing your homework, you're not doing this, you're not doing that.
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: How do you how do you not?
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: I mean it, I guess in my mind, I know it puts an artificial amount of pressure.
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: Like I would feel the need to respond right now.
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: And and I think, you know, to your point earlier, you asked if this is like a woman thing or not.
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: I I think it's a cultural thing.
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: It's we have created a world in which we are always on and always on demand.
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: And so when you don't respond, whether it's to your boss or to your co-parent or your kid's teacher, it it sort of leaves this sort of lingering feeling of I'm not being responsive enough.
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: And that's a a cognitive orientation that you've taken on, right?
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: And it could be again cultural in our society right now, uh, but it could also be, you know, your personal, uh, you know, more of like a characteristic of your personality, right?
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: Of just always being available, people pleasing, etc.
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: So what I do in those situations is I just I notify the co-parent, uh, hey, I'm in work meetings all day.
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: I'll get back to you uh at the end of the day when I have time.
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: And then you put it on silent, uh, assuming you have another means to be contacted if there was a true emergency.
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: Um, but it sort of puts the other person on notice that I'm not gonna be on demand all day 24-7.
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: I have a life, I'm doing other things, I'm managing the kids, whatever it may be, just putting them on notice.
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: And I don't see what the what the repercussion there could be, other than your co-parent could just continue blowing up your phone and sending you messages, but it's the same issue.
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: It's it's on silence, so you'll get to it when you get to it.
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, with the with the trauma stuff, you know, I I prep a lot of people for trials um who've had trauma, who've had significant trauma.
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: And they do tend to parent different if the trauma is not resolved, like in a hyper-vigilant way.
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: And so they really they dislike this other person so much and they're afraid or they're worried.
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: And and my suggestion there is you know, you need to get help because the court really cares about how you co-parent.
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: And if you can't co-parent because of your trauma, even though you're the person who has the trauma, you could still be considered the problem.
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: Now, in Arizona, we've sort of addressed this um with some new domestic violence laws.
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: Um but I I'm not sure every state has has done that.
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: And I I think that if your if your body is still in trauma from abuse that happened however long ago, I I think you know, I always recommend you need to get help.
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: You need to get help resolving that issue so that you can be an appropriate co-parent and not bring the the kids into this mess if possible.
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: But again, now Arizona has a very strict um domestic violence law that that's pretty tough.
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: Um and so I I think that's gonna help these people who are super hyper-vigilant or have that visceral reaction and just can't stomach co-parenting.
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: But um, do you have any other thoughts on that?
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: Like in my mind, I always said you need you need to control you right now, or you're gonna be in trouble with custody.
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I'll I'll maybe either I don't know if this is simplifying or complicating the the question, but I'll remove it from the context of domestic violence.
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: You can have a trauma response from lots of different source traumas.
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: You could be, for example, a veteran who fought in a war and had combat experience and have PTSD.
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: Um, you could have witnessed something horrific and have a traumatic stress response, regardless of the origin or the source of the original trauma, be a DV or something external to that.
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: Um, your reaction because of perhaps a PTSD diagnosis or something similar is informing, as you mentioned, Launi, some of your parenting and co-parenting behaviors.
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: And so when I get these cases as an evaluator, it's interesting to see parents are often so eager to demonstrate how the other parent has some sort of mental illness or mental defect or psychological adjustment problem.
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: Yet they're in counseling or they've been in counseling or they're taking medications and doing things to actually address the behavior.
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: And as an evaluator, and hopefully the courts as well, we look at those issues as a resiliency factor, not as a negative or a sort of ding against that parent.
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: If you're in treatment addressing the issues so that you're not showing up that way as a parent or co-parent, that is going to be much more uh well received than you have those same issues and you're ignoring or deflecting or defending why you shouldn't have a diagnosis or have those problems.
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: So um for whatever that's worth, I think people um misattribute what evaluators are looking at or looking for in parental fitness and um psychological wellness and adjustment.
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think so much of this is is you know, I used to have to play like Jedi mind tricks on myself, right?
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: To make sure that I didn't like get frustrated when because listen there's gonna be times where your ex is really going to purposely try and piss you off, possibly like that happens.
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: That's not it's not nice, it doesn't always happen, but it it it's not uncommon that it happens, and in that case, you don't want to let them.
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: So for example, if there's a phone call that says, hey, can I pick the kids up at six instead of five?
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: Um and this person always does that, maybe they know you have a date, like maybe they know you know that you want that you have plans and that you always make plans at this time and you say no, I I can't.
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: You need to pick them up five.
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm I'm not able to.
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna pick them up at six, sorry.
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: Um what do you what do you suggest in that?
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: Now, legally, I can give a different argument because I'm gonna definitely, you know, you're gonna write that down, you're gonna talk about it because they're not following the parenting plan.
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: But what are your thoughts on that?
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: I see this a lot when I'm evaluating a family or doing therapy where co-parenting is a major component.
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: So what you'll see often, or at least what I see often, is you'll have one parent who's ex who may be extremely flexible.
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: You know, they'll trade time anytime the parent asks a request, they'll kind of really bend over backwards to help that that parent sort of meet whatever needs they're professing to have, whether it's personal or with the children.
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: The moment that other parent asks for an accommodation, it's refused.
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: And so it sets up this dynamic of, but wait, I'm always flexible.
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: Why can't you be flexible this one time?
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: And one way to look at it is the one time you happen to ask, maybe it truly didn't fit their schedule, right?
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: So you can't look at an isolated incident and draw many conclusions from it, but you can look at patterns and themes in your co-parenting dynamic.
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: And so I don't know, you know, as an evaluator how many times I've actually made a recommendation to not have joint legal decision making based on, you know, inability to be flexible on exchanges, because if it's following and abiding by the parenting plan, sometimes the answer is no, and you just have to accept it.
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: That's not a ding against that parent.
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: They're just electing to lean into their parenting plan.
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: And some do it because they believe and are probably correct in many cases, that that parenting plan and its structure that it creates helps keep conflict low.
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: Um, other families are very flexible and they don't need to sort of rely on the parenting plan to keep cohesion and peace in the family system across households, even with frequent exchanges.
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: So uh it could go both ways.
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and again, I do think that this is a difference between if you're parenting to parent and parenting to litigate.
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: Um, some people are so hyper focused on their parenting plan and won't change from it.
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: And that's okay.
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: If that's where you're at, that's okay.
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: And and you don't have to acquiesce if you don't want to.
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: Um maybe that's just the type of person you are.
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: I mean, some people, you know, just don't do well with change.
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: I I would suggest if if something like that's the only thing that's happening, you don't go start, you know, typing a letter to your attorney.
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: Hey, this person, you know, wouldn't give me an hour extra or wouldn't let me arrive an hour late, and this is impossible to co-parent with this person.
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: So, like you said, it could just be one issue.
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: When you start collecting um evidence if you're if you're if you're parenting to litigate or if you're preparing to litigate and having parenting issues, um one time is not gonna be enough.
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: Fine, write it down.
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: But it like Robert said, it might just be a time of day that they can't do it.
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: They might have had plans.
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: Um, don't read in to don't read the negative into something automatically.
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: Like give the benefit of the doubt if you can.
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: I I always think that's so much more helpful is if you can give the benefit of the doubt, um do it.
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: Like that it doesn't hurt you at all.
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: Um go ahead.
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: Well, and and also look at the context too, because sometimes one event can carry so much weight that it would persuade an evaluator like myself or a court to give it more consideration.
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: Like, for example, what if it's not your parenting time, but your parent just passed away and you have to have an emergency service or a funeral or you know, something to celebrate their life.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: And you ask your co-parent, hey, I know it's not my time, but we just had a death in the family.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: Can I take the kids, you know, to Nebraska or wherever?
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: And you know, it could disrupt that co-parent's entire week, but it's a reasonable request, right?
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: If that parent says no and they don't have good reason, that's gonna, I don't know from an attorney standpoint, Launi, but for me as an evaluator, that would carry a lot of weight.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: If that same co-parent said, Oh my God, I'm so sorry for your loss.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: I want to support you.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: I'm really torn here because we have plans to fly to another state because we've had this vacation plan for a month.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: Like, how should we, how can we resolve this?
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: Like, what do we do here?
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: And cooperate as co-parents because there's been a death in the family.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: So those are two very different approaches to the same problem.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: But if an evaluator or court is looking at them, they may give it more weight than just um, hey, you refuse a vacation that I wanted to do and and trading times.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so you know, we try and we try and work that into the parenting plans if possible.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: So we do have them, at least I put in emergency sections, and that's kind of how I've taught it in our um in split up and and learn law for all.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: We have we we talk about those kinds of things because there are going to be emergencies.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: And if you have a difficult co-parent, you want that in there.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: And again, by the way, when you're creating this this parenting plan, that that doesn't mean that you think that you're going to have problems.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: It just means in the event you do, you're resolving them.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: Like this is the this is the fallback.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: This isn't the this isn't what you have to um abide by every time.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: And so I think that's really important.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: I think that um I think this emergencies and weddings and stuff are some of the things that get addressed in there.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: I have seen people who said, oh, well, it was just your stepgrandparent, or something like that, where it's um, where they wouldn't let them go even though you know they'd been married for like 40 years or something, and um and it it was one that we we had to force them to to let them go.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: Um or you hear, well, you're the one that you're the you're the one that's making the uh the plans.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: Make the plans around your own schedule.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: Um we hear that.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: Sometimes you can't, and and you don't want to sit there, have a body sit there for an extra week until it's your parenting time necessarily.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: So yeah, um, you know, again, we're kind of we're talking about I hate this person and how do I co-parent um like a human being, co-parent like a human being who understands it and and and puts the kids first.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and similarly to kind of circle back to our original topic, which is like how your emotions are impacting your decision making as a parent and as a co-parent.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: And so if you have this hatred, this vitriol, this frustration with your co-parent, all of these decision points, whether it's an exchange or a way to respond to your child or um some other thing or decision that has to be made, your behavior is going to be impacted.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: And so it's a challenge to really reflect on how your feelings are impacting your behaviors.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: And the task here is to try to separate those a little bit, because just because you have a feeling or a hatred or an anger toward your co-parent doesn't mean you can't choose a co-parenting pathway that still reduces conflict and benefits your child.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: So, Robert, I kind of want to move on to parallel parenting for those people who really who know they hate each other and know they can't co-parent.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: Um, but I think there's such a a broad spectrum of parenting styles that I think, you know, co-parenting and parallel parenting, I think there's so much in the middle that you can do some kind of parallel parenting while still co-parenting over here.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: So let's kind of um let's talk about that and and not as like a failure, because I don't think that I don't think that if you're parallel parenting, that that means you failed as co-parent.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: You know, there's a reason people are divorced.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: You didn't get along, possibly, right?
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 2: You didn't maybe you didn't agree on on everything specifically, you know, with your kids.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 2: Um so you're not gonna agree on everything now.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: It is what it is, and and I think that that we kind of need to look at maybe some parents doing more parallel parenting than co-parenting.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I totally agree.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: And I I think one of the ways to think about co-parenting approaches is that it exists along a continuum.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: And so on one end of that continue continuum, on the positive end, or I should say on the most cooperative end, is you have collaborative co-parenting.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: And that is the families that we typically, it's rarely the families we see in our work, right?
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: Because they're the ones figuring it out.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: They're ultra flexible, they repair easily when there's a conflict.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: Um, and then on the other end of that spectrum, you have uh the opposite end of that spectrum, rather, you have uh parallel co-parenting.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: And that's the one in which we've recognized that the conflict is too high in this moment or during this season of the co-parenting, that we need a parallel structure where parents are operating more or less independently with communication that enables them to work together for whatever the task is for the child.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: Over all of that, that spectrum is we have to overlay the understanding that conflict will exist in every relationship.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: It doesn't matter whether it's a marriage or you know, a partnership, or a business relationship, or co workers.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: Um, conflict is going to ebb and flow.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: And so it's unrealistic to say that parallel co parenting today is gonna be the answer forever, right?
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: It's it's the tool in your tool belt that adjusts to the level.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: Of conflict and need in your co-parenting relationship.
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: So I think parents will often have this feeling that if we don't have this Instagram ready co-parenting relationship, that there's a failure here.
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: And to your point, no, Launi, it's not necessarily true that there's a failure here or that there's um a problem if we're using um, you know, a parallel approach.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, obviously it's evident that there's problems in in conflict resolution, but it doesn't mean it's a bad tool.
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: So there are situations where reducing unnecessary interaction can reduce the kids' exposure to parental conflict.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: And that's what we're ultimately about is is this the tool I need right now to reduce the kids' exposure?
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: So um again, you have to be flexible.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: Some things work really well in a collaborative sense, but it doesn't mean it will always be that way.
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: And so just be prepared to use the tool in your tool belt that works at the time of whatever it is you're dealing with.
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: And I agree.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: And I I think look, you might you might learn to hate your co-parent, right?
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: You might not hate them right away.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: You might you might learn to hate them later.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: Um, and so you might have to modify a parenting plan to be more like parallel parenting.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: Um, and that's okay too.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 2: Like you're you're just you're you're learning.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: You're you're learning new things.
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 2: There's um you're learning how to parent with this other person, away from living together possibly, um, or with new emotions, but you may have to change it and and going from a regular uh co-parenting type of parenting plan where there's it's it leans more to the co-parenting and less to the parallel parenting.
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 2: You may have to go away to the the parallel parenting.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 2: You may not uh be able to go to doctor's appointments together.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: Um you know, that's one of the things that I think we see pretty regularly, Robert.
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure if you do, um, but where the new spouses start going to doctor's appointments and all of a sudden, you know, you can't go together.
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 2: Or there's been a fight, there's been a fist fight between the the husband, the new husband and the ex-husband, or the new boyfriend and the the ex, and and or the exchanges are really tense now because um you know mom's bringing this boy new boyfriend that that dad hates and and there's tension there.
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 2: You might have to do different things.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: It's the it's not necessarily just gonna be like this straight line of parenting.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: You may have your your ups and downs, and you may have to change it.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: And that's okay.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 2: I I think that I think that you get to change it to some extent based on your emotions.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 2: What are your thoughts on that?
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: I mean, I guess I would just draw a distinction between, you know, the parenting plan itself doesn't necessarily imply the co the co-parenting approach, whether it's parallel or collaborative.
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: The the plan needs to be sufficiently detailed to address most problems should there be a disagreement.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: Your approach to co-parenting is the one that can ebb and flow.
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: So you can have the exact same parenting plan and you can apply parallel co-parenting to that framework, and you can also apply collaboration as long as it's sufficiently detailed.
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: But to your question earlier, I think, yeah, there's been plenty of cases where parents have been put on notice by the court or a parenting coordinator and an evaluator because of conflict uh playing out in front of a provider like a pediatrician.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: I deal that with that all the time in my therapy cases, where that becomes the fight is, you know, I wanted to be there and I wanted to say this, but I was blocked, or the co-parent said something awful about me to the doctor.
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: I mean, these are things that we see when when parents are in disagreement.
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: But, you know, just to kind of wrap up here, I do want to say, you know, sometimes success is just boring and surprisingly boring.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: You know, the kid isn't carrying messages, the kid isn't monitoring everybody's emotions, the kid's not, you know, choosing who is right or uh who they have to tell the truth to.
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: Um, the parents communicate as much as necessary and as little as appropriate for that situation.
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: So there's boundaries, there's predictability, you know, those serious concerns are addressed through appropriate adult channels, and the kid gets to just stay the kid, and that could be the sign of success.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: It doesn't have to look any different than that.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Robert, there's so many other things I wanted to address on this, and I and I know we're kind of running past time, so I think we might have to do a part two on this.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 2: I think we should.
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 2: Especially where we're talking about, you know, hating the new step parent, or you hate the new step parent, your kid loves the step parent, or you know, there's there's all kinds of fun dynamic, yeah.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 2: Oh, it's a treat.
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 2: It's a treat for all of us.
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: Um, so let's kind of pull back on that and we will we will address the rest of this later.
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 2: So um thank you for watching, Robert.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 2: Thank you again for all your insight.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 2: You know, I always appreciate it.
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: Um yours as well.
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: The legal input is always a helpful um perspective as well because it changes the approach.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I just I I think this is what makes split up split up, is that we get this this difference and this great insight from Robert, and then you get the legal stuff from me.
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 2: And I think that's um that's what's what can be so helpful because we get to give people sort of two sides of the same coin, right?
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: And if you remember nothing else from today's episode, uh remember this.
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: Does my child need to know this information?
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: Two, am I responding to today's parenting issue or yesterday's relationship injury?
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: And three, am I asking my child to carry something that belongs to the adults?
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: And if you can honestly answer the those three questions, I think you'll find the answer pretty intuitive on how you should respond to that.
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, really, and keep your kids out of it.
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 2: Keep your kids out of it.
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 2: Love your kids more than you hate the other parent and and think about why you're doing what you're doing when you do it.
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Launi.