Latest / Children, Divorce & Family Psychology with Dr. Bill MacLaney / THIS Co-Parenting Strategy Stops the Fighting [Your Kids Will Thank You]

Transcript

THIS Co-Parenting Strategy Stops the Fighting [Your Kids Will Thank You] · Children, Divorce & Family Psychology with Dr. Bill MacLaney

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: If every conversation with your ex seems to turn into an argument, even when you're talking about something small, there's a good chance the fight isn't really about what just happened.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it starts with a pickup time, homework, a doctor's appointment, or who signed the kids up for what.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: But somehow, five minutes later, you're both angry and you're talking about things that have nothing to do with the original issue.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: That pattern is incredibly common after divorce.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: If it keeps happening, it can make co-parenting feel almost impossible.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Dr.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Bill McElaney.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a clinical and forensic psychologist, and a lot of my work involves divorced parents who keep getting pulled into the same kinds of fights.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: There's one shift that can make those conversations go very differently.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: And most parents don't realize they need to make it.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: You're not just reacting to what happened.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Let's say your ex is 20 minutes late picking up the kids.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: On paper, that's pretty simple.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: They're late.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: But if you spent years feeling like this person never respected your time, 20 minutes can become something much bigger.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Now you're thinking they're late.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: You're thinking, here we go again, my time doesn't matter.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe your ex changes the schedule without asking you first.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: That may be something you need to address, but if you spent years feeling like they always had control over everything, you're probably not just reacting to the schedule change.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: You're reacting to everything that schedule change reminds you of.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: And psychologically, that's important.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: We respond to the meaning we've learned to attach to those events.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: Once that meaning gets activated, your emotional reaction is no longer proportional to the event sitting in front of you.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: You're reacting to the event plus 10 years of history.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's where the fight starts to get bigger than the problem in front of you.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because you're no longer dealing only with what happened today.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: You're also dealing with what this person came to mean to you during the marriage.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: And the other parent is often doing exactly the same thing.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: The same fight keeps showing up in different places.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: This is why divorced parents can feel like they keep having the same argument even though the subject keeps changing.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: One day it's because somebody switched weekends without asking.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Another time it's about how late your teenager can stay out.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Or whether your child should miss a family event to go on a trip with the other parent.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: On the surface, those are completely different disagreements.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: But somehow you end up in the same place.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe during the marriage, one person felt ignored.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe the other felt controlled.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe one person felt like they had to take care of everything, while the other parent felt like nothing they did was ever good enough.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: So the circumstances change, but both of you already know where the argument is going.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Those patterns do not automatically disappear because the divorce is final.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: So now a parenting issue comes up, and both people already know the role the other person is supposed to play.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: He never thinks ahead.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: She always has to be in charge.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't care unless it affects him.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: She turns everything into a fight.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Once you're looking at the situation through that lens, it doesn't take much to confirm it.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where confirmation bias becomes important.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Once I've decided dad's irresponsible, the other parent starts noticing the evidence that confirms the irresponsibility.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: The forgotten Socrocleets count.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: The 20 things dad remembered that week don't.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: If mom's story is he has to control everything, she's going to notice every request she makes that feels controlling.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: Pretty soon the mom is not evaluating individual parenting decisions anymore.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: The mom is collecting evidence for a conclusion she reached long ago, years ago.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: Dad forgets the Socrocleats, and now it proves he's irresponsible.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Mom asks to switch weekends, and now it proves she's controlling.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: And once the conversation becomes about what kind of person your ex is, rather than what needs to happen with the kids, you're usually headed for another fight.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: The shift is to change which relationship you're having.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: This is the shift I want parents to make.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: Your ex is no longer your spouse.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: That relationship is over, but you still have another relationship with this person because you share a child.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: And those two relationships need different things from you.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: You may have needed emotional support, trust, intimacy, loyalty, or partnership from your spouse.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: You do not need all of that from your co-parent.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: You really just need enough of a working relationship to handle the things that affect your child, getting important information back and forth, making decisions when both of you need to be involved, and dealing with the normal scheduling and parenting issues that come up.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: That is a much narrower relationship.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: And the more you can stay inside that relationship, the easier a lot of these conversations become.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Solve the parenting problem, not the marriage.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: So when something happens, one of the most useful things you can do is make the problem smaller.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: If the other parent is late, what actually needs to change?
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you need a rule that if they're running more than 15 minutes behind, they send a text.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: Fine.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: If the child keeps coming back without homework or school materials, what system would make that less likely?
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: If one parent keeps scheduling things during the other parent's time, maybe you need a clearer agreement around scheduling.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: Those are parenting problems.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: They have solutions.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: What makes them harder is when the response becomes, you never respected my time.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: You've always been irresponsible.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: You always think your schedule is more important.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: You still have to control everything.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: Now the conversation has left the parenting problem and gone back to the old relationship.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: And at that point, it becomes much harder to solve anything.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: If this pattern sounds familiar, give the video a like and subscribe to the channel.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: I've got a lot of good content coming your way so you and your kids can thrive after divorce.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and then now another piece of the puzzle that can be a little harder to accept.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you're still trying to get something from your ex.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the parenting issue is getting mixed up with something you never got from your ex when you were married.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you want an apology.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you want an acknowledgement.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you want them to finally admit that you were right about something.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you want to understand how much you did for the family or how much their behavior affected you.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Those are very human things to want.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: And there's nothing pathological about wanting them.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: The problem is that unresolved needs from the marriage can attach themselves to current parenting disagreements.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Now you're arguing about an orthodontist appointment, but emotionally you're still trying to get your former spouse to acknowledge something that happened 10 years ago.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: And because the other person doesn't experience the conversation that way or has an entirely different version of the marriage, you almost never get what you're looking for.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: So the parenting problem remains unsolved and old marital injuries get activated again.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: But if every parenting disagreement becomes another chance to finally get that answer, you can stay stuck in the same conflict for years.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Let's say your ex forgets a medical appointment.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: The parenting problem is that the appointment was missed.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe what you really want is for them to finally admit you were always the responsible one.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: I left too much to you.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: You may deserve that acknowledgement.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: You may also never get it.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: And the orthodontist appointment is probably not where that old argument is going to be resolved.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: So when you feel the conversation expanding, I would bring it back to one question.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: What does your child need us to solve right now?
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: That usually gives you somewhere more useful to go.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: Make your co-parenting relationship smaller.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: You probably don't need to fix the whole relationship.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's where people can make this harder than it has to be.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to become friends again.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: And you may never really fully trust each other the way you once did.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: You may also have completely different versions of what happened in the marriage, but none of that has to be settled before you can function as parents.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: What you really need is a working relationship around the child.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Can you get important information back and forth?
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: Can you make the decisions you both need to make?
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: Can you work through a schedule change without it turning into much a bigger fight?
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: That may be enough.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: And for a lot of divorced parents, that's a much more realistic goal than trying to repair a relationship that has already ended.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: And now I want to give you one of the clearest signs that the conversation is starting to get away from you.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: The moment the fight changes, there is one clue that tells me you've probably stopped dealing with what just happened and started arguing with the whole history of the relationship.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: Listens for words like, you always, you never, this is exactly what you used to do.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing has changed.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now, sometimes there really is a pattern.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying there isn't, but there is a difference between saying this has happened four times this month and we need a different plan, and you have never respected my time.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: One of those is about a behavior that needs to change.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: The other is about who you believe this person is.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's an important psychological shift.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: We've moved from describing behavior to making a character attribution.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: And once the conversation moves there, the other parents usually stop thinking about the problem and starts defending themselves.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's when the original issue gets lost and your child feels the difference.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: By the time some families eventually reach our Compass Family Reconnection program, these patterns may have been going on for years.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: The original fights may have been about schedules, communication, or ordinary parenting differences.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Eventually the child has adapted to the conflict itself.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes we're dealing with resistance to parenting time or a seriously damaged parent-child relationship.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's why I care about catching these patterns early.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: The reason I care about this is that kids notice when every small issue between their parents turns into something bigger.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: They notice the tension around the schedule.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: They notice when one text changes the mood in the house.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: And eventually some of them start being more careful about what they ask for, what they bring up.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where I'm watching a child's adaptation.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: And some children become emotional meteorologists.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: They're constantly checking the weather in each house.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Is mom upset?
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: Is dad irritated?
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: Is this a safe time to ask about switching weekends?
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: Should I mention that mom wants to change soccer practice?
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: Or is it going to start something?
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: Eventually the child may begin modifying their own behavior to keep the adults regulated.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: They don't ask for things.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: They leave information out.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: They tell mom one version and dad another.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: Not necessarily because they're dishonest, but because they've learned that certain information creates conflict.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's when an adult relationship problem has started, becoming part of the child's psychological environment.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: So when you get better at keeping a parenting problem from becoming a much bigger fight, your child gets something very practical out of it too.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: They get a calmer, more predictable family.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: The question I'd want you to ask, obviously, some problems are real and serious.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: If a parent repeatedly doesn't show up, ignores medical issues, violates agreements, or there are safety concerns, those things need to be dealt with directly.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: The point is not to minimize the problem, it's to stay focused on the actual behavior instead of turning it into a judgment about who your ex is as a person.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: So the next time something happens with your ex and you feel that immediate reaction, stop for a moment and ask yourself, am I responding to what happened today or am I responding to the person I was married to?
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the answer will be both.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: But even recognizing that can change the way you respond.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: You may still need to disagree.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: You may still need to say no.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: You may still need to set a boundary.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: But if you can keep the parenting problem inside the parenting relationship rather than reopening the marriage every time something goes wrong, a lot of these conversations become much easier to manage.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: And your child gets to live with fewer situations where something small between the adults suddenly becomes something much bigger.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: If you're in New Jersey and the conflict between you and your co-parent is starting to affect your child or one of the parent-child relationships, this is the kind of work we do at Compass Psych Service.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: We help families understand what keeps these patterns going and what needs to change before they become much harder to repair.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: You can reach out to our office if you want help figuring out what makes sense for your family.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: And in the next video, I'm going to talk about how we can actually predict whether a child is likely to struggle after divorce because the divorce itself is only part of the story.