Latest / It’s All Your Fault: High Conflict People / New Ways for Families
Transcript
- Megan Hunter: Welcome to It's All Your Fault on TruStory FM, the one and only podcast dedicated to helping you identify and deal with the most challenging human interactions, those with someone who may have a high-conflict personality. I'm Megan Hunter, and I'm here with my co-host, Bill Eddy. Bill Eddy: Hi, everybody. Megan Hunter: And we're also here with our very, very special guest, Susie Rayner, who is part of our team at High Conflict Institute. She's just flown in from Australia, and we're really excited to have her here. You'll hear a lot more from her and a lot more about why she's here and what she does with us at High Conflict Institute. But I want to give you a couple of notes at the beginning. If you have a question about high-conflict situations or someone that's causing a lot of trouble, just send those questions to podcast@highconflictinstitute.com or on our website at highconflictinstitute.com/podcast. You can find all the show notes and links at highconflictinstitute.com/podcast as well. Please give us a rate or review and tell your friends, colleagues, or family about us, especially if they're dealing with a high-conflict situation, we'd be very grateful. Now let's get on with the show. I'm just going to hand it straight over to Bill and Susie. They're going to have a great conversation about New Ways for Families and what Susie does and where they're going and all kinds of things, so you'll enjoy. Bill Eddy: Welcome, Susie. I'm so glad to have you here in the United States for a conference this week, we'll give you a whirlwind week here. But since you're our international coordinator for New Ways for Families, you're actually going to be filling people in on what we do, et cetera. First of all, greetings, and why don't you tell us a little bit what you do with New Ways for Families and what it is. Susie Rayner: Thank you, Bill. It's so amazing to actually be here in the United States. For our listeners, I flew over from Australia. I actually live in Melbourne. I flew over on Mother's Day. It was a long flight, but it was a good flight. I landed in LA and then onto Phoenix, which is where I am right now. It's been exciting, it's been a long trip, but I'm here. I'm really excited to then fly in the morning to Chicago for the actual conference. It's amazing. Bill Eddy: It's so amazing and great to have you here. Now, the conference, it's the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts, which has usually people from 80 countries, typically 1,100 or 1,200 people, all of who are focused on parenting issues in divorce and custody situations. You and I are going to be a couple of the speakers. Do you want to tell our listeners a little bit what New Ways for Families is and how it helps people in potentially high-conflict divorces? Susie Rayner: The New Ways for Families method, I guess, is different from just a normal parenting class, in that we focus on skill building. It helps parents, we hope, to stay out of court, or if they're actually in the court system, then it really helps them in the process to manage emotions, to moderate their behavior, to think a bit more flexibly. The online program that we have is a 12-module online course, which is taken in their own parents' time, which is self-directed. It's interesting and it's something that I believe we don't see very often. What do you think, Bill? Bill Eddy: It is really different. What's exciting is I developed this method about a dozen years ago and you're the person that's been working with us now for at least two, three years as coordinator, really helping coordinate getting it established around the world, which it really has become. But yes, it's skills focused, and you're absolutely right, that this is what really helps potentially high-conflict parents stay out of court, or if they're in court helps them calm the conflict. The judges tell us that their body language seems less adversarial when they come back to court after having been through this, if they come back to court. It also seems to help them implement what the court decides, if necessary. It's really for out of court and for in court families and cases. Susie Rayner: Yeah, I totally agree with you. I think the aspect or the way that we deliver the course being online, it gives working parents the time to sit down over a weekend, take some time out. It's not very long. It's 12 modules, which are about one hour each, so you could do one every day or one every week. It just depends on how much time the parent has, but it definitely is something that parents can do in their own time. There's no driving to a parenting class where they're getting stressed out, where they have to find a car park, where they're getting anxious about who's going to be in the room. It's all done in the safety and the privacy of their own home, which I think adds a lot when you are separating or divorcing, especially because they're stressed out, they're getting a lot from the other parent, or if they're in court there's a lot of other things to do, a lot of affidavits and writing and connecting with the courts and the lawyers. It's a lot for them, so this is something that they can use along with their co-parent and co-parent effectively and communicate better with their co-parent. Yeah. I also wanted to mention that you mentioned before, when we have the 12 modules, we also offer coaching sessions with the 12 modules online. That seems to be a really progressive method that's going around the world now. Bill is absolutely correct, launching in all different countries around the world has been super exciting for us in the last couple of months. I know, Bill, this is your baby, so I know this is quite exciting for you. But yeah, the parents will use the coaching sessions if they choose, it's optional to have coaching with the online program. We can cement the skills as a coach, that's what I do as well, along with being the program manager for the High Conflict Institute. The parents learn the skills, they can cement the skills, they can practice the skills with a coach with makeup scenarios, but also with their real life scenarios. They get to practice first with one of the skills, and we'll talk about the skills in a little while, they can practice exercises with the coach and ask questions if they're feeling not quite confident. Especially with a real life situation, they might have a drop off or a pickup that they're feeling a little bit anxious about, and we can go through them and they can get it out of the way, having practiced it. Then when they do it in real life, they've already done this with their coach so it takes away that little bit of anxiety for them. Ideally both parents would take this online 12-module course, but if only one of the parents does, then it's better than neither of them doing it. Wouldn't you say? Bill Eddy: Yes, absolutely. We designed the course for both parents and we ask the judges to order both parents without any bias towards one or the other. They could start a case before they understand if one parent's acting particularly badly or they both are, or maybe not as badly, that there's no presumption about that, that they're just really both learning these skills. One of the things that's different about this approach is it's really focused on the future. The parents don't have to be defensive about the past, we're not here to judge them about the past or talk about the past. What happens is we really help both of them think positive, think forward and practicing skills. It's interesting that research on online courses, well before COVID, was saying that it really helps to have coaching with an online course so that what we're doing is really practicing and implementing. Like you said, what if there's a pickup coming up that's going to be controversial, you can practice that with your coach. But also what's interesting is we originally started this as a counseling method, but a lot of families couldn't afford counseling because it's nine sessions for each parent in the way the counseling is set up, but by doing the online course, which I think it's under a hundred dollars plus coaching, coaching is not as expensive as counseling and it's coaches wherever they are. Now, I wanted to mention that you've been doing coaching and you've done it with one parent, you've done it with both parents. What's it been like, and maybe if you could give us an example of a successful coaching case. Susie Rayner: For me, personally, coaching the parents in the New Ways for Families online has been really quite rewarding. Originally, I started working with parents doing mediation. Mediation is where you have to be quite a fence sitter, obviously you can't side or be biased with one parent or the other, but what I found with doing the coaching and when you take your mediation hat off and you put your coaching hat on is that you can really implement some really strong change in the behavior of the parents by using the skills, which are managing your emotions, flexible thinking, moderating their behavior, and then checking themselves. They are four skills, they might seem very basic skills, but they're really powerful, not only when they're put together, but once parents actually learn how easy they are to put into practice and interplay in their real life, it makes a huge difference. Of course, when we are growing up, we don't get taught these conflict skills, so it's really difficult for parents to come on in and go, "Oh, okay, now I have to manage my emotions, but I've never had to do that in the past," or they don't know how to do that. This online program helps them in a way that is supportive with a coach, or you don't have to have the coach, that's absolutely fine, but the online program is repetitive enough that we do actually get parents that not only want to change, but they do end up changing their thinking and their behavior and they realize how much it has affected them in the parenting styles that they've been using in the past and how much they can actually communicate more effectively by using the program or learning the method. From my experience, it's been truly great to see the change in parents after they've learned the skills and that is a change absolutely for the better. I've seen it time and time again. They come in a little bit defensive because they feel they've done nothing wrong or it's not them that's got the problem, it's the other parent. Then once I work with them, and it's only normally three sessions of about one hour each, you can really see a big change. They can have more sessions if they choose to, but generally we offer three coaching sessions with the online program, but you can do more. Most of us, as I said, have not been taught resolution or conflict resolution skills, but once they learn these skills, they can apply them to almost all areas of their life, not just with their co-parenting life. It makes a difference across a broad area and makes it easier. Bill Eddy: What would be some of the types of other problems in life that they might bring in, besides dealing with their co-parent? Susie Rayner: Look, they've got areas where they might be working, they might be a single dad working full time, having to rush here, do this, do that. They might also have issues with families. These skills that they learn can be introduced and implemented in other areas, which will help them calm their stress levels. It helps them to focus on being a better parent or being that better work colleague and reducing stress levels in all areas. It's not only just with their co-parenting, especially in their workplace as well. That's not just to say that it's the fathers who are working full time, the mothers could be working full time as well. They can then, with each other, co-parent more effectively, reduce the stress levels around themselves and in front of their children, which is super important. How we deal with conflict is that we tend to do what our parents or carers did, and sometimes this is always not the right way, it can be, but sometimes it's a little bit like, "Oh, that perhaps should be done another way." Once we give parents these skills and they see the difference it makes, it's like if you hadn't learned these skills yet, then once you learn them, then you wish you had have learned them earlier. Bill Eddy: You know, we hear that all the time. People say, "I wish I knew this last week," or last month, or 10 years ago I remember somebody told me. Susie Rayner: Absolutely. Bill Eddy: Yeah. It's the ability to work together with people without it having to have a lot of conflict, a lot of intense emotions. You can have emotions, but managed emotions is how it's taught. Susie Rayner: Absolutely. You've got parents who are separating and divorcing have got children of all different ages, and whether they're little babies or toddlers or primary school-aged children, or for the Americans, I think it's elementary, I'm not sure, but I think they're the little ones. Bill Eddy: Yeah. Yeah, the five to 12-year-olds, pretty much elementary school. Susie Rayner: Yes, that's right, and if you've also got your teenagers, these skills help with that. They help in a way that reduces your stress level, as a parent, or the parent's stress levels to role model good parenting skills and to teach their children how to manage their own emotions if they're upset or if they're angry or if they're frustrated. It's sort of a double edge really. It's great because the parents get to learn the skills, but they also then can introduce them to their children, which then, in turn, makes for a really much less stressful home life. Bill Eddy: Absolutely. In all of this, one of the things I wanted to mention is that the way we designed New Ways for Families was to help parents not just co-parent and work with their kids, but to be able to make big decisions, like what happens when they get divorced. Helping them have skills to make a general parenting plan when you go through separation or divorce, you end up with a parenting schedule and plan around bringing the kids, returning the kids, all of that. Have you noticed that when you're doing the coaching it's mostly people who've already made the big decisions in their divorce, or is it in some cases before they've made those big decisions and hopefully will help them make those big decisions? Susie Rayner: Yeah, it's probably 50/50. I do see a lot of parents that are either perhaps in the court system, they've got their supervised visits or access happening because of something that they may have done negatively, which in hindsight they wish they hadn't have, but they're in this situation. I find that this really helps them not only for themselves, but when they're in front of the judge as well. They want to be a better person after all of what's happened to them in the past and they see the changes and they see how much of a positive impact it makes on themselves and on their children and their co-parent. Look, I've seen it time and time again, and like I said, it's very rewarding to see not only how much they change, but they actually want to. They're learning, they want more and they always say, "Oh, maybe I'll have a couple more sessions." Sure. Bill Eddy: Excellent, excellent. Susie Rayner: See how they go. But one thing I wanted to say is that you asked if I had a bit of a story and I do have one particular story that comes to mind. I worked with a dad who was a little hotheaded. He was from San Diego and I was coaching. The beauty about the coaching, for anybody else who's out there listening to this, is that you can coach, thanks to COVID, there has been one good thing about COVID, is that you can coach now worldwide. I live in Melbourne, Australia, and I have coached people in Canada and America, even in Australia, but the beauty of COVID is that we've done it all via Zoom. Because the method is not necessarily law-based, then we can coach anyone, anywhere. It really works. Bill Eddy: Let me just mention what you're saying about law-based, is a lawyer can't practice law in a different state unless they're licensed to practice in that state and a counselor can't practice counseling in a different state unless they're authorized to do that, which with COVID there have been exceptions made, but coaching isn't as deep as, say, counseling and it's focused on teaching skills going forward, so it doesn't have the kind of regulation state to state that you see for those other two professions. I just wanted to clarify, coaching is allowed to be done from around the world. That's the beauty of having you be able to do people in Denver, people in San Diego, people in Toronto and worldwide. It's very exciting that way. I guess you have to adjust for the accents a little bit. Susie Rayner: Yes, I am asked if I'm from England a lot. Bill Eddy: Yes. Susie Rayner: Which I think I sound very, very Australian, but to somebody who hasn't really heard the accent, then it may sound English. I'm not sure. Bill Eddy: Yeah. Susie Rayner: Anyways, I had been coaching this dad from San Diego. He had landed in court because of his behavior, or negative behavior I should say, towards his son and his former partner. At that time, he was having supervised visits with his son at a supervised center, a contact center, which he wasn't happy about, but he understood the reason why he was there and why it had to happen. But he said, "I'm a good person. I just want people to see that about me." I said, "Well, that's okay. We will need to use these skills so then you can go to your court case, which is coming up, and you can show the judge how you've changed, what you've learned. You can take your certificates so you can show him exactly what you've learned," which was great. We spent three sessions together, and over those three sessions, which were about one hour each, the thing with this dad was that he was really, really willing and he really wanted to get to see his child again, unsupervised, so he had something that was driving him and he was wanting to do everything and anything. He was wanting to absorb any new skill that he absolutely could to become a better person. Working with him was really good, I guess, yeah. In the end, he was wanting to learn the skills, he wanted to change, and he actually did. In the end, we finished the three sessions and he used the skills as best he could in his interactions with the supervised visits, even with the people that were the supervisors. You asked me before, Bill, where can you use these skills? Well, he used the skills with the supervisors, because he didn't like when he was told, "You can't say that to your child," or, "You can't do that," or, "You can't bring in that water bottle, you have to pour the water down the drain." He couldn't understand why he had all these stipulations. I said to him, "You are in a supervised contact center, you have to play by their rules. You'll get some positive notes being taken and then the supervised visits will hopefully get less and less over the time, over the next few months." He said, "Okay, I understand, I understand." He took a little bit, but he was using the skills. Every time we would talk about them and talk about an upcoming situation that he was going to get nervous about and we'd go through a practice scenario, and that really made a big difference because he'd already been through the situation with me as a role play. Then when he got through the real life situation in the supervised visits, he was able to think back and go, "Oh, that's right, Susie and I had this." We would debrief after we'd come back and he would tell me what happened in the next session. It was really good. Anyway, I finished up the sessions with him and after a few months I did wonder how he was going. Then one day I got an email from him, I think it might have been six months later, that the judge had seen a big change in him and that he was excited to let me know that he no longer had supervised visits and he actually had been given overnights again with his son. He was just ecstatic and he couldn't thank the coaching and the online program enough because he learned so much about what he had done and how his actions and his thoughts and his emotions had landed him where he actually was. I was so pleased for his progress. When I got his email, it reiterated to me how much this works. Bill Eddy: That's such a fantastic example. I really think one of the key things is with this approach, it's really focused on learning skills and applying them and practicing them rather than talking about the past and what you shouldn't have done and you should never do that again and never do this again, and how are you feeling and getting over things. What we really try to do is steer away from how are you feeling to what are you doing, what can you do now. This totally positive aspect of it, sounds like he absorbed that and felt excited about the positive future. Susie Rayner: Absolutely, he did. Like you said, Bill, the program or the method is a no shame and no blame approach. We don't go into the past about why you did this, why you did that, what happened. We're not trying to bring out all of the past and sort all that out. We're focusing on the future and then implementing these skills from straight away. The first session we implement one of the skills, so it's there instantly for them to even start the minute after they finish their hour session with me, they can go along. If I see them the following week, they come back and they say, "Oh, I used that skill and it was great." Yeah, I've seen a big change. Bill Eddy: Excellent, excellent. I'm so glad because you're right there face to face, or at least Zoom to Zoom, being able to really get into this. I'm so excited that the balance of an online class where you learn about skills and just three coaching sessions could make that much difference. Research tells us it's this combination, you really can use online learning as long as you have a human being to practice it with. Susie Rayner: That's right, yeah, absolutely. For sure, I agree. Bill Eddy: Now, I wanted to go into one last area, and that is you developed the New Ways for Life method. Tell us a little bit about that, what inspired you to do that and who it's for and how it works. Susie Rayner: This is quite an interesting story. I guess a little short backstory is I had been going through a personal situation with a family member who was going through a pretty horrific divorce that separation in the Australian courts here, not here, back home. It sparked something in me to completely change my career and go into family dispute resolution and thought there's got to be another way to help these parents without being in the court system mediation. I went back to uni and studied, finished that, but within that course, I did the New Ways for Families coaching method with you. It was about three and a half years ago now. It sparked something in me that I thought, if we're teaching parents these skills, we've got to catch them in the net earlier. We've got to catch them before they're in the court system, going through horrific divorces and get them earlier so that hopefully they don't end up in this terrible situation. I thought, why are we not teaching teenagers these skills and adapting the New Ways for Families to teenagers, or for say 12 to 17-year-olds. After I did my initial training with you, I emailed, I think it might have been yourself maybe. I said, "What do you think?" It just went from there. It's been an amazing journey. We've called it New Ways for Life, which is for the 12 to 17-year-olds, which we've basically adapted the New Ways for Families method, but taken out all the divorce bits and pieces and then we've changed the language to suit the 12 to 17-year-old. An example is my younger sister took my white jumper and didn't ask me if she could wear it and that you go crazy at your little sister and how to manage your emotions in that sort of situation, or in your school life with your friends, or with your parents, if you're a teenager. I know right off the back that I've got two teenagers, 17, nearly 17, and 18 years old. When we first did the New Ways for Life, they were a lot younger. I can tell you now that I use it every single day with my kids. It's brought us all onto the same page of language. When I say to them, "Are you using moderate behavior?" they look at me, they roll their eyes, and they go, "Yes, Mum." Bill Eddy: That's great. The hands on approach. Hey, if it works with your own kids. Susie Rayner: Yeah, exactly, exactly. Bill Eddy: That's wonderful. Susie Rayner: Yeah. You and I then, we went and we wrote and we wrote. I know you love writing, so we wrote. Then we've got a New Ways for Life instructor manual for the coach or the instructor to teach the teenager, and we've also got a New Ways for Life teenage journal, where the teenager will write their responses to some of the questions that we've got in their journal, which they get to keep the journal. If they would like to read over it, they can, if not, but at least we've got the chance to teach the teenagers a few skills. Bill Eddy: Some of the people that have picked up on that have been people that work with children. You could have sports coaches might help with that, school teacher. We've had trainings, we had a training for New Ways for Families and explain the New Ways for Life. I remember someone who said, "Well, I also work with teenagers in our agency, teenagers from difficult situations, and we're going to try that there. We're going to teach that there." We've really found it's applicable. What's so sad, in a way, is right now we're hearing so much about teenagers and mental health problems because of COVID, the isolation, et cetera has just triggered so much depression, in some cases suicide attempts and some successes, sad to say, but I think teenagers are facing more challenges today than the prior generations, of just being so isolated and not having community extended family support. When you think about it, it's just been recent generations that have only had one child. People used to have many kids around, used to have extended families, you think of farming culture and you all have stuff to do and contribute. Now, with things like the pandemic, people being alone in their room with a computer, just isn't the same as being around people who like you, a lot of people who like you. Your parents might, but you need to be around kids and stuff too. This teaches the same four big skills and I thought we should probably wrap up by just repeating what are the four big skills that we teach, and then we'll sign off and head out to the conference in Chicago. Susie Rayner: Indeed, absolutely. I'll let you start. Bill Eddy: I think of the four big skills and maybe we could touch on the specifics, but first, as you mentioned, is the managed emotions. That really helps people actually feel better, by knowing they can manage their emotions. Susie Rayner: Absolutely. When we talk about managing emotions, it's that intense upset emotion that just takes over. That just creates a whole lot of other problems if they act on those feelings. By managing those emotions, and we've got skills that we teach to manage those for the parent. Then obviously in front of the children, it's ideal if they can manage their emotions and teach their child. Bill Eddy: Yeah. Then the flexible thinking, that people get stuck, it has to be my way or the highway, you're doing it wrong, it has to be my way. What do we teach to help with that? Susie Rayner: Well, it's either parents get generally stuck, as Bill said, so it's all or nothing thinking, it's black and white thinking, but what we teach is making some proposals to parents, "Okay, what could we do instead? If you don't like that, then what else do you suggest?" It does shift them from that blame game of, "Well, no, it's all her fault," or, "No, it's all his fault." It's a bit of a roadblock when there's a, "No, it's all their fault." Bill Eddy: Yeah. Then, this may be one of our most exciting and favorite skills, is to help moderate behavior, we teach people how to write emails. Susie Rayner: Yes. Your listeners may have not have heard, but we teach the BIFF response, which is B-I-F-F, BIFF response. It is amazing, it works. You can even just Google BIFF response and Bill Eddy will come up and you can have a read, but if you haven't heard of the BIFF response, then I suggest you hop onto our website, have a look. It's amazing. The third skill is teaching parents how to respond to hostile texts or emails or social media. Parents are all always on social media, so we've, we've helped them with this BIFF response to calm the back and forth text war that I'm sure your listeners, being judges or lawyers, have seen the texting that goes on and how lengthy they are. Bill Eddy: Yeah. Then to sum them all up, we have checking yourself. Susie Rayner: The checking yourself for parents is where they get to stop and think before they act on their unreasonable thoughts or their unmanaged emotions or their extreme behavior that they might slam a car door or throw something at a window. Checking themselves just gets them to stop, take stock of how they're feeling, what they're thinking and what behavior they're doing. Then they can usually calm down before they write that horrible text message. They can take some time out, go for a walk around the block just before they end up making or creating more things that they have to fix in the long run rather than dealing in a calm way, I guess. Bill Eddy: Yeah. Well, that really sums it up. I want to thank you so much for being on our podcast with me and Megan. Susie Rayner: It's amazing, thank you. Bill Eddy: Great. Susie Rayner: It's been great. It's been great. Bill Eddy: Now we'll look forward to heading out to Chicago for that conference this week. Hopefully we'll meet some of the people that we've worked with from around the world. I just want to mention, we've got people we've worked with, like you said, in Canada, the United States, Australia, Scotland. We've trained some people in China. Susie Rayner: Well, we've got South Africa. Bill Eddy: South Africa. Susie Rayner: Italy. Bill Eddy: Italy, yeah. Susie Rayner: It's certainly gaining momentum worldwide. It's been absolutely amazing to see the growth. Only since my short years with the High Conflict Institute, the growth that we've had has been phenomenal. If you are listening and you're interested, we would love to chat with you. Bill Eddy: Great. Well, thank you so much. Susie Rayner: Thanks, Bill. I really appreciate your time, and I will see you at the conference. Megan Hunter: Thanks, Bill and Susie. It's just been absolutely lovely having you here in the US, Susie. I'm sure you listeners loved hearing her accent and also her information about New Ways for Families. You'll find a link to the New Ways for Families training for professionals and the New Ways for Families online course for parents in the show notes, along with some articles and some books that are pretty good. Next week, we are going back to our Q&A lab, where we will answer your questions. You don't want to miss it. Send those questions to podcast@highconflictinstitute.com or submit them to highconflictinstitute.com/podcast. If you like our podcast, please leave us a review and a rating, it would be much appreciated. Until next week, enjoy each and every day and keep using your skills so you can keep enjoying the peace. It's All Your Fault is a production of TruStory FM. Engineering by Andy Nelson, music by Wolf Samuels, John Coggins, and Ziv Moran. Find the show, show notes and transcripts at trustory.fm or highconflictinstitute.com/podcast. If your podcast app allows ratings and reviews, please consider doing that for our show.