Latest / Divorce Coaches Academy / You Don’t Need Cooperation to Reduce Parenting Conflict with Chrystal Fischer
Transcript
- Tracy Callahan: Welcome to Divorce Coaches Academy podcast, where we explore the role of divorce coaching in conflict resolution, decision making, and navigating divorce with clarity and intention. Welcome back to Divorce Coaches Academy. I'm Tracy. And we know one of our greatest frustrations for people navigating separation and divorce is the belief that conflict won't stop until the other person changes. Whether it's an ex-spouse, a co-parent, or another professional involved in the case, it's easy to become convinced that someone else is the barrier to peace. And while the other person may absolutely be contributing to the conflict, we also know that conflict is a pattern of engagement. Sometimes without even realizing it, we continue participating in patterns to keep that conflict alive. Right? So today's conversation challenges one of the most common myths in divorce that reducing conflict requires mutual cooperation. What if meaningful change doesn't begin when both people decide to participate? What if one person can create fundamentally different experience even when the other parent never changes? For so long, we have measured successful co-parenting by mutual cooperation. But what if that's the wrong benchmark? What if meaningful change doesn't begin when both parents engage? But when one parent begins engaging differently. So today's guest has spent years helping parents navigate exactly that reality. And I am so happy to be joined by our dear colleague and friend Crystal Fisher. Crystal is the founder and executive director at Parenting with Grace, recent author of Protected and Connected, a Parenting Educator. And yes, a DCA certified ADR divorce coach. Through her work, Crystal helps parents move away from chasing cooperation and instead focus on creating stability, emotional safety, and healthier patterns for themselves and their children, even when the other parent refuses to participate. So, Crystal, thank you so much for being here to have this conversation with me. Chrystal: Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. Tracy Callahan: I am too. And congratulations on your book. So before we sort of dive into talking about this, can you share with everyone sort of what parenting with Grace is and and how you came to this amazing book, Protected and Connected? Chrystal: Yeah. So we were opened as a supervised visitation center and safe exchange cent center. but along the way I knew we needed more, more support for families, ways to help families stop being stuck in the same systems, the same spaces. you know, the the There's services that become band-aids, but we I always tell people lovingly, I don't want you back here. Right. Like I want you to do better. I want you to have success in parenting. And as I've as we've since we opened and I've watched families and I've seen so much conflict. And I've experienced conflict in my own divorce. And it's just like there has to be a better way, a different way. And that led me to becoming a divorce coach and on learning that. side of things and becoming a co parent coach. Yeah. Tracy Callahan: Yeah. I I'm always astounded, right? One, I think it's an amazing service, right? To be able to provide this space for for parents who are struggling, but just it it's gotta be fascinating to also sit back and observe these situations and the dynamics involved in that. How does it how does it sort of feel like looking at it on the outside, right? I mean i it it obviously inspired you to To become a parenting educator, a divorce coach to understanding conflict dynamics and and we're gonna talk a bit about your book. But what was that like? What is that like sitting sort of, if you will, looking at this from the outside as parents and Chrystal: I think coming f from a coaching lens, from an outsider lens, it looks it's so different. Like it it's like you just start to see where the conflict is c you know, coming from and you start to see where these repeated patterns are happening and you're not in it. So it's easy to not easy always, but easier to see what's been going on and how we can make some moves to change that stuff, and get stuck get out of our stinking thinking, right? It's just one of my favorite sayings. My dad always said that. But you it's just that's thinking thinking. We can change the way we think about stuff and do better. So yeah, just looking at it and watching families for weeks and months and even over a year. and the the back and forth. And a lot of times we're the middleman in some of our services. So we just keep hearing we don't see the interaction because we they don't get interaction. And so Tracy Callahan: Yeah. Chrystal: seeing it from all those different Tracy Callahan: Yeah. Chrystal: aspects has been really interesting and yes, what led me to writing a book that was a tangible piece that people could reference when I'm not there to help or they don't have a different coach to help or they can have that on their own. give them some pieces to keep going and changing those mindsets and working hard to do better. Tracy Callahan: Yeah, to do better. So Chrystal: Yeah. Tracy Callahan: I want to kind of start with that sort of biggest myth that I think exists, right? And I often blame Gwenneth Patro and Chris Martin the whole ideological, amazing co-parenting relationship. And it's not that easy, right? And and some of your work challenges this belief that successful co parenting really requires two willing parent co-parents. Right. So so why do you believe we've become so attached to this idea that successful parenting actually looks like cooperation when cooperation may not be available at all? Chrystal: I think it's because that's what our system and society has taught us. Like the only way to co parent well is if you can almost be like friends, right? And that's not realistic. and I think sometimes we don't give ourselves no, this is Tracy Callahan: Yeah, sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you. I just had this I just had this vision, right, of parents and parents at Disney wearing the, you know, the shirts and the whole Chrystal: Yeah. Tracy Callahan: blue. So yeah, I think it's a false narrative, right? Chrystal: It is a false standard. And I don't think we give ourselves credit that we can make a difference for our kids on our own by our behavior, by us bringing stability Tracy Callahan: Mm-hmm. Chrystal: and peace to the situation. and not always, but sometimes by just doing it differently yourself, you start to see a change in the other parent. but yeah, this going to birthday parties together and or hosting every event together, it's not realistic. It's uncomfortable and it's stressful. And even in these spaces where you see these perfect co-parents, right? You're not in it. You don't know what all the conversations are. And people can put on really good faces sometimes. We don't know how those kids are actually being affected. Tracy Callahan: A hundred percent, right? You know, one of the things that I hear all the time, and I'm sure you hear quite a bit, right, the these phrases, if only they communicated better, right? If only they showed up differently. And as divorced professionals, I think one of the things that we often miss when we jump too quickly to supporting people and improving communication. Or focusing on how they're communicating, we're actually missing the boat, right? And we're we may be contributing to this idea that increased communication may actually create more conflict. What are your thoughts on that? Chrystal: I agree. I think so often less is more in co in communication outside of serious things, right? Medication, school, things like that. But I think that they're again this narrative, this idea that we have to be communicating all the time and we have to talk all the time in order to co parent well, you you're putting pressure on parents and they feel urgency around it and then they disrupt their they disrupt their their own parenting time, right? I tell people all the time, just because OFW or whatever parenting app or text or email dings, you don't have to respond. If your kids are with you, don't. That's your time. Get to it after bedtime or whatever, right? Because now you're creating stress and you're creating anxiety in the situation. Your kids feel that. So no, you don't have to hurry up and respond. And you don't always have to respond, right? Sometimes the most we say is say nothing at all. Tracy Callahan: Yeah. This is something we teach extensively at Divorce Coaches Academy, right? Where we view conflict less as a quote unquote communication problem and more a pattern of engagement where we're not sort of really truly or the individual's not really truly looking at what is that threat to them, right? That internal conflict that now is gonna bleed out into external conflict. And and communication can be both the sword and the shield at the same time, the very thing. that leads to conflict or enhances conflict when we're trying to utilize communication effectively to minimize that conflict. Yet at the same time, right, as you're talking about these ideas of communication protocols, right? Having a clear plan and what that communication looks like, both in some of that boundary work of when and how, but also whether it's needed. Right, whether it needs to be. So you you sort of developed the the idea in protected and connected about, you know, thinking less about changing that relationship and more about changing one parent's relationship with the situation. What was what's your I I I know connected, protected and connected is really a client. made for clients experiencing these situations. And I think you shared with me previously is also kind of a workbook, a journaling to get some ideas around it. So how how is that book support that in helping the client sort of focus on themselves and what they're experiencing? Chrystal: Well, I we there's throughout the book there's scripts, there's stories of made up stories, right, of possible situations, but very familiar situations to most co parenting situations. and then the kind of check yourself, you know, like w instead of saying this, what if you said this? And and I I want the journaling piece, it's a place because I there's you know, we have scientific research on writing things down that we retain it, right? just a given. And so write it down and ref reference back to it. but that again, s write your own narrative. You know, how does this work for your situation, not everybody else, or not what the professionals are telling you to do. And it is for the client, but I'd love to see more professionals use it as well in how they talk to their clients to s to set them up for more success. So they're not giving them this idea, this expectation that's really not fair. giving Tracy Callahan: Yeah. Chrystal: them more realistic expectations. And so the book just breaks it down a lot into different situations and possibilities and then being able to make those actionable moves. Tracy Callahan: Yeah. I I agree with you. I think, you know, there is a lot of research out there and how when we write something, we're anchoring it, right? It's this multi-sensorial process that then becomes more ingrained in our our thinking processes. I also think that it creates opportunities for self-reflection. Right. I I I I go back to thinking about editing. Papers, right? I write a paper, write something, and I can go through multiple edits, and it in itself creates opportunities for me to look at it from different perspectives, to engage differently, or also see how somebody else might be able to do that. So in these journaling exercises, I would have to assume there's opportunities in looking at this, even practicing and doing it, to then look at it maybe with a little different lens. Well, as they're becoming more clear about what is the intention there. Chrystal: Right. And being able to take the pause, right? I talk about the pause all the time, everywhere in my life. and and not just in co-parenting, right? And other relationships and and even for ourselves. Take the pause, write it down, and then pause and then look at it again and then reframe some things. What if I had said it this way? What if that had been said to me that way? How would that feel? You know, when I asked my co-parents that when we do co-parent coaching, there recently we had we have a parent who writes extremely long messages and emails, and the other one's very short. And it's been discussed that lots of communication is overwhelming and it starts to feel attacking, right? And so the other recently I said, what if? What if you wrote just like a third of that and you got really curious in there? That's the other thing, right? Get really curious. What did you mean by that? Right? What so you said this and it felt like, and 99% of the time I was like, that isn't what I was saying at all. I just asked you a question. I wasn't saying you didn't do what you needed to do to take care of our children. I was curious. Yeah. So Tracy Callahan: Yeah. Yeah. Chrystal: in the writing, you can do that too, right? What did I mean? Did is that the way I want it to come out? Tracy Callahan: Yes, yes. It it creates an opportunity. Again, I love to talk about William Uri about going to the balcony, right? Expand that lens or those perspectives in which and how information is communicated and how it's received. So we there's also this idea, right, about helping parents stop measuring success in co parenting by somebody else's behavior. So i if you are working with an individual How how do you help them define what progress is or or what does progress actually look like in a lot of these situations and these dynamics where there's ongoing conflict? Chrystal: I think s a lot I I tell people a lot, success is about how you and your kids are feeling. How Tracy Callahan: Hm, yeah. Chrystal: life starts to look when some changes happen. You know, we've we do experiments sometimes, like hey, we had you know, if exchanges are not done by us but outside and they're done very icky sometimes where we aren't communicating at all at the car. We're just like handoff, like we're belongings instead of children. And one of my my sets of co parents, they they practice changing some of that and it is crazy the difference in how those Tracy Callahan: Yeah. Chrystal: kids are as soon as they get in the car. Like they're lighter, they're airier, the the tension in their own bodies has relaxed, right? Like it's It's like you just feel your body. It's so amazing. Your nervous system calms down, right? It's not, it Tracy Callahan: Yeah. Chrystal: doesn't matter what they're doing. And maybe theirs isn't, but is yours? Is that behavior helping you and your kids? That's what it Tracy Callahan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Chrystal: says. The peace, the peace in your family is is the success. Tracy Callahan: Yeah. Immeasurable the not immeasurable, invaluable is that Chrystal: Yeah. Tracy Callahan: when you see that change in your children's experience, even if another parent is showing up one way, how we can change the dynamics in that exchange, right? By by setting some boundaries within ourselves, allowing some space in terms of that emotional experience. And I think also one of the challenges is helping change helping parents change the patterns, the the behaviors that they've been repeating that becomes so rote that they don't assign much weight to it. But as you just said, children experiencing it is so very different. So that success is what I'm hearing you say is really measuring that success by that impact. Chrystal: Yeah. And by yourself being open minded. You know, there's so much talk around s all the change in our world even right now and how it is more important than ever to be open minded to things. We all this stuff's changing so fast but our mindsets aren't. Our mind sets have to catch up, right? Because there's just too much change. And our kids need us to do that. And they need us to be open minded and set an example for them, right? I talk about that too. Like, how do you want your kids to handle this conflict in their life? They're watching you, right? So yeah, just being open minded, working on your mindset shifts. Sorry my button fell out. yeah. Tracy Callahan: Yes. Okay. Yes. So being able to sort of shift that and looking at the the children, you're modeling conflict engagement for children. And what do you want your children to experience in that? How would you want your children to show up in that process? Is a lot of what that parent can control. Right. So so What are some other things? Is there anything else in in the work that you guys do at parenting with grace that that allows clients to focus on themselves, things that they can actually change? not just in their behavior, but in their mindsets when we're they're kind of grounded in that narrative of I can't make my cooperate or I can't make my co-parent do this. What's that shift look like in in the work that you're doing? Chrystal: I talk a lot about the future, right? A lot Tracy Callahan: Hm. Chrystal: about the here and now and tomorrow and the days after. and getting out of the past, right? That didn't work. That didn't work, that didn't work, and that's why we're here, that's why we're divorced, right? Things like that. I think sometimes it what we were doing isn't working. So what can we do different? How can we look at tomorrow? How can we look at down the road and when our kids look back, what they remember? being more future focused like we do with divorce coaching, right? We're not therapists, we're not here to work through all the ick and the muck. we're here to move forward and how what do you want your life to look like? What do you want your time with your kids to look like? Tracy Callahan: Yeah. Chrystal: Yeah. Tracy Callahan: I think one of the challenges also is that parents unintentionally involve children or pull children into adult conflict. And and because, you know, I'm a parenting coordinator also and I hear from parents all the time, right? In my intake interviews, I'll meet with parents individually before we go into our first joint session and they share the same goals. They they will tell me, right? I just want my children to be well. I want them to be happy and successful and healthy and safe. And then their behavior is anything but contrary to that goal, right? So so what I do see is parents really wanting the best, but unintentionally are pulling children into those adult conflicts that have negative impacts on them that are actually contradictory towards. supporting the best for children. So how do you help in in the work that you did in your book, the work that you do at your organization of trying to help clients be more aware, right? Because I think they mean well. They just don't realize how that engagement in adult how they're pulling the kid into that adult conflict. Chrystal: Yeah, we I'm really real with them. I talk about the conditional space. I talk about you know, when you're when you're talking poorly about the other parent, how much that impacts them because they're half of each of you. I mean and I I feel terrible but I make my clients cry sometimes 'cause the it's hard. The realities are real go. And so, you know, when we're talking about you both have the shared goals, but you're he you're seeing somewhere that this other parent doesn't. Why are you seeing that? Right. And so some reality checking too. What are you what are you s what are you what are you believing and why? The other parents' intentions are the same as yours. So just like a lot of hard conversations, getting real, getting down to where some of this is coming from without getting too far into the weeds. but just that reminder, like, your kids are kids. Do you want them to be kids or do you want them to hold your feelings and your emotions? Well, I of course I don't want that. That's what you're doing, right? And just kind of calling some of those those moments out. Yeah, I probably had the hardest co parenting coaching I had of it s to date as of last week and and both parents were in tears and you know, I I tend to be pretty silly to kinda lighten stuff up at the end, you know, and I'm like, Do you want to come through the screen? But they both thanked me. You know, it's like, yeah, I just I they just weren't seeing what they were doing again. They just it's so easy Tracy Callahan: Yeah. Chrystal: to fall back into patterns. So just bringing them back to the realities again. Tracy Callahan: Yeah, that that real awareness about their behavior is is impacting their children and whether they intend to or not, how it is pulling Chrystal: Yeah. Tracy Callahan: them that force, right? That children ultimately want both of their parents to be okay. Right Chrystal: Yeah. Tracy Callahan: parents want their kids to be okay, but kids just need their parents to be okay. And as you share, you know, children see themselves through their eyes of their parents. They experience divorce and conflict, the way their parents are experiencing conflict. and they just aren't equipped or have the skills to be able to handle it. And, you know, often in these engaged conflicted situations, parents will be okay. I I always feel like parents will be okay. It's the children that carry that burden of parents' conflict for a really, really, really long time and impacts so many things for them moving forward. It's it's sad. Chrystal: And it's one of the things makes me really sad is people are always talking about how resilient kids are. Why do they have to be? Tracy Callahan: Hm, yeah. Why do they have to be? Yeah. Yeah. Chrystal: Why do they have to be resilient against stuff? They shouldn't have to go through it in the first place, right? So make it as easy on them as they can. They didn't choose it. They didn't pick this. Tracy Callahan: Yeah. All right. So let's talk about divorce coaches since we're on the Divorce Coaching Academy podcast, right? Chrystal: Okay. Tracy Callahan: Where do you think divorce coaches are uniquely positioned to support parents who are sort of navigating some of this chronic conflict, if you will? Chrystal: Yeah, I think it's back to the future focusing, right? And I you know, I think we all experience, especially in the beginning, with our divorce coaching clients, they want to really give us the whole everything story. But really, like, what do you want for your life with your kids? What do you want for yourself? What you know, what does this look like? and keeping them on that track to to the forward movement, and supporting them in resources when they need them and things like that, but just really staying. looking forward 'cause we can't go backwards. We can't change the past, right? Tracy Callahan: it. Yep, can't change it, but we can be informed by it. And that's being Chrystal: Yeah, yeah. Do better. Tracy Callahan: yeah, and being able to, you know, make decisions moving forward as to what just if it's always looked like this, what would we like it to be? And you know, I am a huge fan of parenting coaching and and co-parenting coordination. But We also recognize as divorce coaches, some of that work may have to happen individually. That, Chrystal: Okay. Tracy Callahan: you know, s joint work i is wonderful. I I'm all for mediative processes and f facilitative processes where parents can work together in in collaborating and negotiating. But I also recognize how significant it is to be able to be prepared to come into some of those processes. And the individual work that really is required and sort of that awareness and and looking beyond sort of that top layer of what's what's happening for me, why was that a threat to me that leaded to this external conflict? And then how can I change that? So I think as we look at all of these wonderful ways of supporting co-parenting dynamics, I don't ever want to. underestimate the value of individual work for both of those parents, whether in a therapeutic process or in a dispute resolution process of navigating that conflict and those patterns and that entrenchment that they sort of engaged in. So together Chrystal: Absolutely. I have I have a client right now that it's just just dad, right? And that's keep you Tracy Callahan: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Chrystal: know, it helps. It still helps. We don't have to have both of you and they're parallel parenting and that is what has to happen right now. And that is not my favorite, but it works when it needs to work. And when Tracy Callahan: Yeah. Chrystal: when the conversation becomes emotionally dangerous and causes more problems, then we're just not gonna do that, right? Yeah. Tracy Callahan: Yeah, yeah. Okay. So so I wanna I thought it would be fun if we can just finish some sentences. We'll just do and and get your your top thoughts of mind. Okay. So I'm gonna say something and then Chrystal: Okay. Tracy Callahan: you can just finish the sentence, all right? The biggest misconception about parallel parenting is Chrystal: That it doesn't work. Tracy Callahan: Yeah. Right? Or that it's a failure, I think, right? Chrystal: Yeah. Yeah. Or it's a failure, yeah. Tracy Callahan: Not a failure, right? That parallel parenting can work in certain situations and is not a barometer for success. Okay. Next one. One thing every parent should stop doing tomorrow is Chrystal: Talking about the other parent to their kids. Tracy Callahan: Defaming, right? It it it significant. Yeah. Yeah. Chrystal: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In a negative way. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Tracy Callahan: Yeah. That that children again see themselves define themselves as, you know, part mom, part dad, part mom, part mom, part dad, part dad. So i if if s the other co parent is saying something negative about that that child is experiencing, well then what's wrong with me? Right, if that's if that's if if mommy is a bad person, then am I a bad person. Okay. All right, next one. One thing every divorce professional should start doing is Chrystal: Stop putting so many expectations on communication for their clients. Tracy Callahan: Yeah, I love yeah. Yeah, it's just one component of it, right? Getting through some experiences they don't need anymore. I love that. Okay, last one. The most helpful thing I've witnessed in my work is Chrystal: The importance of looking at things through different lenses, different perspectives, meeting people where they are. Tracy Callahan: Yeah. Yeah. I I I would love to be a fly in the wall in your organization. I really I would love to see it because I do think looking on different things in different situations, right? Well often when we do see things from different positions or different professional head spaces, right? We see something different. It's our own biases and we place On it, but being able to look at some of these experiences, even as simple as an exchange or a supervised visitation, it's it it it certainly I think opens up lots of different opportunities, if you will. Chrystal: Absolutely it does. Tracy Callahan: well thank you, Crystal. I can't thank Chrystal: Sure. Tracy Callahan: you for joining us today. I I love that conversation sort of reminds us. But while we cannot cooperate, we can absolutely help clients experience conflict differently. And you are doing that day in and day out. And it is such a an amazing contribution to the work that you do with your clients and your organization. And honestly, it's sort of the heart of what we do in Course Coach. It's it's not about waiting for someone else to change. It's about increasing our clients. capacity to respond with greater intention, greater regulation, greater confidence, regardless, regardless of what that other person chooses. So if you guys would like to learn more about Crystal's work, be sure to check out her book, Protected and Connected. I know Crystal, you're hearing that love for some professionals to start incorporating using it with their clients. Yeah. Chrystal: That would be great. Yeah. Tracy Callahan: And if today's conversation has been with you and you're interested in becoming a conflict divorce coach, check out Divorce Coach Admin to learn more about our training for education programs. And I want to thank you all for listening and we will see you next time. Thanks, Crystal. Chrystal: Thank you so much. Tracy Callahan: Thank you for listening to the Divorce Coaches Academy podcast. For more insights and training, visit divorcecoachesacademy.com.