Latest / Divorce Coaches Academy / Skills That Outlast the Case: Celebrating Divorce Coaches This Conflict Resolution Week
Transcript
- Tracy Callahan: Welcome back to Divorce Coaches Academy Podcast. I'm Tracy. And if you are listening the week this episode drops, we are in the middle of Conflict Resolution Week, October 18th through the 24th. Some of you know it as ADR week or mediation week, depending on where you practice. It's a week to recognize that people who help us resolve disputes without escalating them. Yeah, mediators, collaborative attorneys, arbitrators, parenting coordinators, conciliators. Every one of those rules deserves the recognition. But when we picture conflict resolution, most of us picture a process, right? Two parties at a table, a neutral in the middle. And every one of those processes depends on something. The process itself cannot fully control the people in the room. That is who divorce coaches work with. So this episode is, yeah, a thank you and also an explanation. Because I think a lot of people, including some professionals who work right alongside us, still do not fully understand what a divorce coach does or why this work belongs in the dispute resolution conversation. So I want to change that today, or at least try. So let me start with a question I often hear. Isn't divorce coaching just emotional support? It's a fair question, and I understand where it comes from. Divorce is emotional, right? Coaches do work with emotions. So it can look from the outside like support work. But here's the distinction: a divorce coach isn't there to make someone feel better about their divorce. A divorce coach is there to help that person engage the conflict in their divorce more effectively. That is conflict resolution work. It's just applied to the individual rather than to the dispute between the parties. And this isn't my only framing, right? The American Bar Association recognizes divorce coaching as a form of dispute resolution. I scream this from the mountaintops all the time. And that recognition matters because it places divorce coaching where it belongs on the dispute resolution continuum alongside mediation, collab practice, and the other processes we are celebrating this week. Not as a replacement for any of them, as part of the same work. At DCA, we describe what divorce coaches help clients build as conflict capacity. Conflict capacity is the ability to recognize, regulate, and engage conflict in a way that supports better decisions. Three verbs: recognize, regulate, engage. So I want to take them one at a time because each one is a skill a divorce coach is trained to help a client develop. So first, recognize. I believe recognizing conflict is the hardest step in divorce, harder than resolving it. It is why, in our resolve framework at Divorce Coaches Academy, recognize conflict is number one. Because what looks like a fight about the schedule or a text message or who gets Thanksgiving is very often driven by something internal. A threat to someone's sense of status, security, certainty. identity, right? Their role as a parent, internal threats drive external conflict. Until a person can see that, they keep living the same conflict over and over again with just different details. The holiday changes, the text changes, the topic changes, but the reaction is the same because the filter they are seeing the other parent through has not changed. A divorce coach helps a client slow down and ask better questions. What am I actually reacting to? What does this situation threaten for me? What do I need as opposed to what am I afraid of? That's the first gift a divorce coach gives, right? Clarity about what the conflict is really about. Second is regulate. And here's where people sometimes get confused about scope. So I want to be precise. Feelings influence thinking. Thinking drives behavior. And in divorce, behavior has consequences, legal consequences, financial consequences, consequences for children. So emotional regulation absolutely belongs in conflict work. Not to process. The past, not to heal it. That's clinical work and it belongs with clinicians. Divorce coaches do work with grief and betrayal and trauma, but at the level of recognizing how those feelings are shaping the decisions that are happening right now. Regulation in divorce coaching is in service of the decision in front of the client. A divorce coach helps someone name what they're feeling, build their tolerance for distress, and settle their stress response enough to be able to think clearly. William Urey, my dear friend, calls it going to that balcony, stepping back far enough to see the whole picture before you react. When a client can do that, they make decisions from their interests. Instead of their fears. And that changes everything. Now, the third verb engage. And engaging conflict well starts with something that's uncomfortable for almost everyone. Owning their part. Not taking the blame, that's different. Blame looks backwards and asks, who caused this? Ownership looks forward and asks, What is mine to change? In high conflict divorce, or what I call escalating conflict, almost everyone is convinced the conflict is coming from the other side. And sometimes, yeah, a lot of it is. But even when the other parent isn't cooperating, there's still a part of that pattern that belongs to you. Your timing, your tone, what you choose to respond to, and what you let go. And know what? That's actually great news. Because the part that's yours is the part you can change. You don't need the other person's cooperation to reduce conflict. You only need your own capacity. And here's what I want every listener to hear, especially those professionals. Conflict engagement is a skill. It can be learned. And that matters because it means divorce coaching isn't about fixing someone, it's about teaching them. A divorce coach helps a client build skills they didn't have before and practice them in real situations and real time while the stakes are real. And this is exactly why divorce coaching strengthens the work of attorneys and mediators rather than competing with it. Think about it from a mediator's chair, right? A client who has done individual conflict work arrives more prepared, more focused on interests, less reactive when the other party says something provocative, better able to actually use the process the mediator has designed. Now, from the attorney side, it's a client who calls less in crisis, makes fewer decisions out of anger, and is better able to hear legal advice when it's given. Coaching doesn't replace anyone at that table. It helps the person show up to the table ready to use the processes that were designed to accomplish those goals. So to the attorney and mediators listening, We see divorce coaches as your partners in this work. The goal is shared, less escalation, better decisions, families that come out the other side with less damage. And here's something I want to name directly for co-parents. The divorce decree is not the end of the relationship. It's just the beginning of a new one. One that can last decades. And that's when patterns show up. Right, the same argument at every exchange, the same text that sets out, the same response, the same tension every December. Let me give you an example. And this is a composite, not one specific client, right? A mother comes to divorce coaching because every Sunday exchange turns into an argument. Her ex is always 15 to 20 minutes late. She's standing in the driveway with the kids' bags, and by the time he pulls in, she's furious. She says something. Right? He fires back, the kids are watching from the back of the seat. Ick. She's convinced the problem is his lateness. And yeah, no one's no one's debating whether he's late or not. That's real. But when she and her divorce coach slow it down. coach is helping her recognize what's underneath. It isn't really about the 15 minutes. It's that the lateness feels like a message that her time doesn't matter, that she still isn't being respected. And that's that internal threat we talk about. Once she starts gaining some awareness about that, guess what? She has choices she didn't have before. She can regulate before he arrives instead of after. She can decide what's worth addressing and how and when. Maybe it's a calm written request through their co-parenting app on a Tuesday, not a confrontation on the driveway on a Sunday. Maybe it's simply not waiting outside anymore. He didn't change. But she built capacity thanks to her divorce coach. And the handoffs change anyways. That's what we teach through our stop, drop, and roll approach. Most of us learned it as fire safety, and it works the same way when conflict heats up. Stop, right? That's the pause before the reaction happens. Drop. Drop below the surface. Get curious about what's really driving the pattern in you and in the situation. And roll. Wrote with your options. Choose the response that serves your interests, your children's interests, your family's interests. Repetition in co-parenting isn't failure. It's information. And conflict capacity is what turns that. I want to spend a few minutes on a practical question, right? Especially for the attorneys, mediators, and parenting coordinators listening. When does it make sense to bring a divorce coach in? So I'll give you four signals I would like you to watch for. First, Is when a client keeps getting in their own way. They know what they want on paper, but in the moment they react, they send the email at midnight. The other, they reject a reasonable proposal because of who it came from. Their legal strategies sound, but their conflict behavior keeps undermining it. That gap between what somebody intends and what they actually do under stress. is exactly where divorce coaching works. The second is when the client is stuck, not in the legal sense, but in decision making. They can't choose between options or they keep reopening issues that were already settled. Often that is an indecision, it's fear that hasn't been named yet. A divorce coach helps them sort what they need from what they're afraid of so they can actually decide what is it that you need? What are you afraid of? The third is when you're spending professional time on things that aren't your role, right? An attorney fielding emotional crisis calls at an hourly rate. A mediator who spends half a session de-escalating before any negotiation can actually begin. A parenting coordinator who sees the same communication breakdown at every check-in. Those are signs the client needs skill building that your role is not designed to provide. And the fourth is the one I care about most as a parenting coordinator. When the conflict is going to outlast the case, if they're young children, years of co-parenting ahead and patterns already forming, that client needs capacity they can carry with them. No order or agreement can do that work for them. So now word about timing because I hear this question a lot too. Is it too early? Is it too late? Divorce coaching can help at almost any point on the continuum before someone even acknowledges or says the word divorce, before filing a divorce action, right? It can help someone think clearly about whether and how to proceed and choose a process that fits their needs. During the process, right? It also helps them show up prepared and regulated. And after the decree, it helps them navigate co-parenting, the stage when cough conflict often lives the longest. And what matters more than timing is fit. Divorce coaching works best when the client is willing to look at their own part and build the skills. It isn't. The right fit when someone needs clinical treatment, when there are active safety concerns that call for other protections, or when the person is looking for someone to simply validate their position against another parent or a spouse. A well-trained divorce coach screens for those things and refers out when divorce coaching is not the right service for that client. And if you're the professional making the referral, Here's how I'd frame it for a client. Not you need help, but something closer to. Divorce asks you to make big decisions during one of the most stressful times of your life. A divorce coach can help build the skills to make those decisions from a clear place. Think of it as preparing for one of the hardest negotiations you'll ever have with someone you're used to share a life with. Most clients hear that as respect, not judgment, because it is. So now I want to speak directly to my fellow divorce coaches listening, including all of the ADRDCs who have come through our program here at Divorce Coaches Academy, and those of you who are thinking about this work. Thank you. Thank you for sitting with people at some of the hardest moments of their lives and not trying to rescue them. For believing that your clients are capable of building skills even when they themselves do not believe it yet. Thank you for holding your scope, for knowing the difference between conflict work and clinical work, and referring out when it's needed. That discipline protects clients and it protects the integrity of this entire profession. Thank you for the work nobody sees. The prep before a mediation session, the text a client almost set and didn't, the parent who took a breath in the driveway instead of starting a fight in front of their kids. Those moments don't make it into any court record, but they absolutely shape a family's future. And I want to say something about what makes this work a profession. A divorce coach is defined by scope of practice, standards, competencies, and ethics, not simply by the background somebody brings into the role. Many divorce coaches bring rich interdisciplinary experience from law, mental health, finance, education, and that is certainly valuable. But interdisciplinary expertise and professional identity are two different things. Competency isn't something we purchase, it's something we develop, demonstrate, assess, and uphold. That's the standard we hold ourselves to. And it's the standard that earns a divorce coach in its place in conflict resolution week. So let me bring this back to where we started. Processes end, agreements get signed, cases close. But conflict doesn't stop at the courthouse door. It follows people home. And the skills a person builds to recognize, regulate, and engage that conflict, those follow them home too. That is the quiet power of divorce coaching. Long after the attorneys have closed the file and the mediator has written the memorandum. Drafted the agreement, the client still has the capacity they built. They get to use it at the next exchange, the next holiday, the next card conversation for years and years to come. So this conflict resolution week, I hope you will celebrate the mediators, attorneys, parenting coordinators, and every family professional helping people through their hardest conflicts. And I hope you will make room in that celebration for divorce coaches. The professionals who follow the client home. If you happen to be a professional, someone who wants to bring a conflict-informed, ADR-grounded divorce coaching work into your practice, we'd welcome you to check us out. You can learn more about the ADR Divorce Coach certification program at DivorceCoachesAcademy.com. And all week long, we are sharing one conflict informed idea day on LinkedIn. Come find us there and follow along. If this episode meant something to you, share it with a colleague or with a divorce coach you want to thank this week. I am Tracy. Thank you for listening and thank you for the work that you do.