Transitional Coparenting

Transition is a word we all know. It means that something in my life is changing and I am in-between what used-to-be and what is-to-come. It means I don’t know how long I will be in-between.
Stress is a word we also all know. And most people understand that there is helpful/positive stress, and hurtful/negative stress.

Some transitions are a normal part of life and there are social/cultural rituals that support those transitions and the people going through them:

1 Birth of a child and every single thing that child learns to do for years to come!
2 Child starting pre-school and each significant transition through the academic years!
3 Engagement and marriage
4 Death of parents and grand-parents

Some transitions are unplanned, unexpected, shocking, and traumatic. These are transitions that do not happen to everybody.
These are transitions accompanied by a sense of isolation, judgment by others or fear of that judgment.

Divorce, separation, the break-up of a family…this is one of those unexpected transitions that don’t happen to everybody.

This is a transition that changes everything in our lives. Just the logistics can be overwhelming.

1 Someone has to move.
2 The legal system gets involved.
3 Extended family and friends take sides.
4 The division of labor in the household no longer exists – both parents become single parents.

This list is endless and truly includes almost every single aspect of who we are in our home, in our families, and in our communities.
Regardless of the trigger, transitions have three basic components.

T rusting
R eal
A nxieties

The fears and worries you have a real. Others may want to minimize them, to reassure you. Find people who understand that this transition is going to last a long time and you need to be able to feel the fears that go with that.

N eeding
S pecific
I nformation

Seek information from many sources! Don't just take that referral for a go-for-the-throat family law attorney because you are feeling afraid. Take a deep breath and honor yourself and your children enough to do some research. Find out everything that is available. Don't stop exploring until you are sure you understand all of your choices.

T o
I dentify
O ur
N ext
S tep

Once you understand your choices, it's time to make a decision.
Don't try to solve everything at once. Just make a decision about the next thing you absolutely need to address. If you can take it just one step at a time, you will be less likely to make mistakes that will add to your stress.

Transitional coparenting often begins long before the household breaks apart into 2 separate homes. Tension, fighting, betrayal, fear – these feelings are usually part of the coparenting relationship even before the parents live in 2 separate homes.
Bad habits, automatic actions and reactions are created before either parent is even aware that it is happening.

Very few families break apart easily. New hurts occur in the process and intensify the old ones. This happens to everyone in the family. Unfortunately, the focus is all too often on the experience of the grown-ups. The parents are so focused on each other that neither is really protecting the children. More likely, the parents are competing to look as if they are protecting the children.

Sadly, both parents are probably focused on protecting the children from the other parent and not focused on protecting the children from the trauma of the parents not being friends anymore.

Transitional coparenting means:
1 keeping your own feelings about the other parent to yourself.
2 never saying anything negative about the other parent to or in front of the children.
3 reassuring children that both parents will always love them.
4 explaining that both parents have figured out that they just can’t live together anymore and it has nothing to do with the children.
5 saying “mommy” or “daddy” when referring to the other parent
6 communicating only about the children if the email or text is focused on coparenting
7 asking for support and change, rather than making demands
8 honoring the choices you made for the sake of your children.

Transitional coparenting is hard work. There will be many times when you want to explode or scream or rant in pain, hurt, or anger. You will have to delay, restrain yourself, and wait until the children have gone to bed or gone to be with the other parent.

Transitional coparenting means taking advantage of every moment you have when the children are not present, to take a deep breath and feel all the feelings about your marriage, your life, that other person who hurt or disappointed you.

Transitional coparenting means preparing for reuniting with your children every single time they come back. You want to be ready for them, welcoming, and as emotionally clear as you possibly can be.

You chose to create a child with the other parent…don’t hurt your child by letting them know that you have changed your mind. Reassure your child every day in every way that you love him or her just the way they are. Cherish the wonder of the child you and the other parent created and find ways to cherish the ways that child is like the other parent.

If you reject the other parent, you reject your child.

Find a support group for Moms or Dads of 2-home children. Start therapy. Take a coparenting class. Take a parenting class.

Bottom line: The transition of restructuring a family from 1 home to 2 homes takes a long time. And you are in this for the long haul, right?

Take care of yourself in some way every day, or you will not be able to take care of your children.

High Conflict Coparenting and Alienating Behaviors

High Conflict Coparents are quick to use the label "Parental Alienation, " and it is a controversial label. In part this is related to Dr. Richard Gardner's early attempts to create a diagnostic category of Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS). The attempt was well-intentioned and opened an area of discussion and inquiry that contributed significantly to awareness and understanding a critical dynamic in many Family Court cases. PAS itself was, not surprisingly, discredited. The reasons are complicated and varied, and relate directly to the extraordinary diversity of problematic family dynamics which present in families as they separate and then reconstitute in new formations.

Dr. Douglas Darnall, author of Divorce Casualties, further contributed to this important topic when he sought to differentiate PAS, the syndrome, from the alienating behaviors coparents use to diminish each others parental roles when caught in a struggle over custody of a child. His contribution was essential to ensuring that the dynamic itself did not disappear from our conversations with mothers, fathers, and other adults in care-providing roles with a child learning to live between 2 homes.

Dr. Richard A. Warshak, author of Divorce Poison, has also made significant contributions to our exploration of those parental behaviors designed to turn a child against his or her parent. His book is an excellent resource for parents who have been designated by the court system as "High-Conflict" as they try to understand how their own behavior may contribute to the stress on the children.

While there is still no consensus on the issue of Parental Alienation, most mental health professionals with forensic experience know that many parents compete for the love and favor of their children during difficult family transitions rather than working to shield their children from the stress and strain of the adult traumas. This fear-and-anger fueled competition leads to behaviors which hurt children, though often not intentionally. Few parents set out with the goal of hurting their own children as they work so hard to carve out a significant place in their child's life.

Rather parental behaviors which alienate the child from the other parent and, ultimately, from him or herself, occur out of a sense of desperation, powerlessness, or hopelessness. No parent knows how he or she might respond if the vital role of Mom or Dad is threatened in a profound and lasting way. Parents in that position are often quick to explain that they would never say anything bad about the other parent to their son or daughter. These parents don't realize that words are not required. The negativity toward the other parent is usually felt so deeply by the child that no words are necessary.

Losing time with and the opportunity to care for a child is painful for a parent. Losing a sense of safety and security in the world is terrifying for a child. The child's need for reassurance must trump the parent's need for self-worth if that parental sense of integrity comes at the expense of the child's innocence and trust in those who are supposed to ensure it. If you are struggling with your own sense of competence and worth as you make difficult family transitions, reach out for help. There are coparenting classes, support groups, and affordable therapeutic services for families in transition. You do not have to do it alone.

San Diego's Transitions Family Program at Hannah's House provides these support services and more. Email today TransitionsSD@gmail.com

Cooperative Coparenting - How Do I Get There?!

Most parents don't even think about "The Coparenting Relationship" when they are living in the same household sharing the parenting of a child. This shared parenting relationship exists, but it is often so interwoven into the fabric of the couple relationship that it is hard to separate it from all the other ways in which the couple are connected to each other. In fact, many relationships fail because the couple forgets to take care of each other as friends and lovers. Instead, gradually, they relate to each other only as parents.

So the transition from coparenting under the same roof to coparenting in different homes is complicated. Most people find it challenging to keep their feelings about the failure of their couplehood out of the discussion of issues dealing only with the child when they first make that transition. You will hear advice like "be cordial" ... "be business-like" ... "be civil." All good advice! But not so easy to do sometimes when the feelings you're carrying around are so intense and unpredictable.

While your child is learning the skills of successfully going back and forth between Mom's House and Dad's House, you are trying to learn the skills of coparenting with someone you may not trust or like or respect anymore.

Some of those vital skills include:
(1) scheduling regular coparenting meetings so both parents focus only on the child issues;
(2) defining and sticking to a clear agenda before discussions;
(3) establishing and following ground rules for good coparenting communication;
(4) taking a break when either person gets off topic or violates a ground rule; and
(5) holding ALL non-emergency issues for the next scheduled coparenting meeting! NO texting, emailing, calling between the regularly scheduled face-to-face meetings unless it is an urgent schedule change or illness of the child.

No matter how motivated a parent may be to be a good coparent for the sake of the children, far too often the impulsive verbal or written jab is thrown. Once those words are gone, it's too late to reconsider. Just that quickly, damage is done to a relationship already fragile and struggling.

Facilitated coparenting meetings are one of the tools offered at Transitions Family Program at Hannah's House to help parents make the transition to face to face meetings and ordinary child exchanges. A facilitated meeting is conducted by an expert in both child development and family transitions. Each parent completes a list of issues they would like to discuss in the initial meeting. The coparenting facilitator compiles a rank-ordered agenda based on the highest priority issues for the particular family situation and provides that back to each coparent. The facilitator also gives each coparent some basic ground rules that will be followed during the meeting.

Most coparents find that a once a month meeting works well for approximately the first three-six months following the initial family transition. The next step is usually every other month for about six months. Some parents are able to meet on their own fairly early on in a cordial, civil and business-like fashion, with the help of friends, family and professionals.

For those that are concerned about their ability to do that on their own immediately, the facilitated coparenting meeting is a resource available that can help parents avoid any pitfalls and land mines during the first meetings following the transition. Coparenting meetings, phone calls and emails are not the place to try to deal with your unresolved issues and feelings left over from your couple relationship.

If you have unresolved issues six months after the family break-up, it's time to get some help to move on. Start therapy or work thoughtfully with friends and family members who don't automatically endorse you and trash your coparent. Use a journal but definitely not a public blog!

Those adult issues have no place in the middle of a relationship that exists for the sole purpose of providing care for your child so don’t do it. If you can’t hold the boundaries, for the sake of your child, then admit it and let someone else - a neutral person - hold that responsibility for you...at least at the beginning.

Coparenting is a challenge but it does get easier. There really is a set of skills you can master, with time and practice.

Honesty and Forgiveness

These two ideas are partners in laying the foundation for a full and successful life. The ability or inability to embrace the partnership of honesty and forgiveness is at the root of many traumatic family breakups.

Parents justify their anger, bitterness, and pettiness by pointing fingers at the behavior of each other. Parents give themselves permission to be selfish and mean-spirited or judgmental and blaming.

Parents behave badly and children watch, listen, and learn. Then when children hit, kick, yell, whine, scream, and behave in ways that are selfish and mean-spirited or judgmental and blaming, parents ask them "Who taught you that?!?!"

Honesty means taking responsibility for our part in the breakup of the family. Honesty means admitting that we ignored or covered up the signs that our partner was not a good fit for us. Honesty means accepting that our family laws in the United States, for the most part, are No Fault laws.

The reason for No Fault laws is simple. Adults make choices that work for them. Then at some point those choices don't work anymore. People do their best with what they have at any given moment. Humans have a deep and compelling ability to grow and change and move in positive directions.

Self-honesty and self-forgiveness is critical to moving forward into a better life. As we get to know ourselves better, sometimes we find out that the partner we chose at age 20 or 30 is on a different timeline and different path from us. Sometimes we are able to work through those differences and sometimes we realize that staying with this person will change us in ways that cripple us.

Be honest with yourself, not your partner. Take responsibility for your own choices, don't blame your partner for his or hers. Then forgive yourself for creating pain, disappointment, and struggle for yourself and your family. Then forgive your partner for being human.

Bernard Meltzer, a radio host from the 1960s to the 1990s, offers this simple way of understanding the importance of forgiveness. "When you forgive, you in no way change the past - but you sure do change the future."

We can change our futures by being honest with ourselves and practicing forgiveness in our lives.

We owe it to ourselves. And we certainly owe it to our children.

Parenting Dilemmas: Why Does My Child Lie?

People lie.

Adults lie. Children lie.

When grown-ups are asked to record their own lies, they admit to about one lie for every five social interactions. Adults lie about once a day, on average, and college students are double that. Most of these lies are white lies. They are meant to make others feel good or to prevent others from feeling bad or to avoid embarrassment.

Our white lies help our children become comfortable with being insincere, disingenuous, dishonest. Most of us end up teaching our children -- through our own white lies -- that honesty can create conflict and dishonesty is an easy way to avoid conflict.

Children know the difference between a white lie and lying to cover their own misdeeds, but teaching and modeling how to tell a white lie lays the groundwork mentally and emotionally for lying. It gradually becomes easier for the child to lie to the parent.

So how do we handle it? How do we help our child tell the truth? Slow down. Listen and observe your child. It is a basic parenting skill: Listen Actively! Children freeze, or fidget. You can almost see them thinking.

Help your child to tell the truth. If they say something mean or inappropriate, does it really matter where they learned it? Most of the time, it doesn't. What matters is the parenting. Don't set your child up to lie by making demands that are a set up for a lie. If the child can tell you are really upset and you demand the truth, you have put them in a very scary situation.

Stay calm, tell them the truth. "Wow! That really surprised me when you said that. Let's talk about it." What matters is the teaching, the values, the lesson, the morals, the quality of the connection between two people.

Lies distance us from others. Too many lies cut us off from those we love. Help your child stay connected by exploring that urge to hide the truth, to be insincere and to be dishonest in their closest relationships. Slow down and talk about it. Try to understand. And do that together.

Pay attention today to your own truth telling. Challenge yourself to find ways to manage social situations in a more truthful and respectful manner. We are never to old to learn how to be more genuine, to discover more about who we are.

Parent Stress Limits Parental Warmth

Just for today: decrease the stress and increase the warmth.

Research tells us time and time again that parental warmth is the single most important quality that serves as a protective factor during times of stress for a child.

Parental warmth is almost nonexistent when Mom and Dad are caught up in the adult struggles with litigation, financial concerns, competition for parenting time and all the other distractions from being present to your child in this moment.

Wake up every morning and concentrate on making a plan for 1 hour over the course of the entire day focused just on your child. Then move into your day with the intention to be present to your child without distraction each time you talk to them or interact with them.

Concentrate and focus in the moment. Spend 1 hour a day just child-focused and playing.

What is parental warmth?
1 Calm behavior.
2 Kind attitude.
3 Thoughtful gestures.
4 Focused attention.
5 Loving and nurturing words.
6 Affectionate touch.
7 Genuine conversation.

We can only live one day at a time.

Our children can't wait until we do that one magical thing that will make it all better.

Don't wait to share moments of parental warmth toward your children. And certainly don't wait for those moments to magically appear. Make it happen. You are in control of your child's emotional and mental well being. You are responsible.

So if you cannot practice those 7 attributes of parental warmth, get some therapy or education or support! You deserve it and your child absolutely needs it for survival.

More on Resilience

The research tells us that exposure to even chronic traumatic events, like an entrenched Family Court battle, does not have to predict a negative outcome! What predicts a negative outcome is how we think about and talk about the event(s). For a child, what predicts a negative outcome is how parents teach them to think about and talk about traumatic events.

In other words, resilience can be taught. We can learn how to be less negative, less emotionally reactive and extreme. The key is in what we tell ourselves -- and our children -- about experiences, emotions, and thoughts in response to a potentially traumatic event.

When we are children, first we feel, then we act, then we talk, then we think. As adults, first we feel, then we think, then we talk, then we act.

Parents teach children how to respond to stress and to the unexpected. For example, parents who rush to the aid of a child every time they fuss or cry, who make every fall, bump and bruise catastrophic will probably raise children who are not resilient. The child learns that discomfort means emergency. Discomfort means threat, danger, loss.

Parents who hear the fuss or cry, or see the fall - - and wait to see what happens next - - are more likely to raise a resilient child. Why?

The first parent rushes to the child, stress on their face and in their voice and exclaim: ARE YOU OKAY? ARE YOU OKAY? ARE YOU HURT?

The second parent probably stays where they are, face calm, voice tone calm, waits a little bit, and says: You're okay. You're okay. You're fine.

The first parent has intervened in the child's own processing of the experience so quickly and with such intensity that the child probably didn't even have a chance to notice his or her own reaction to the event. Instead the child is likely to take on the parent's perception: I'm hurt, this is awful, I can't take care of myself, I'm not in control.

The second parent allows the child to have his or her own experience of the event. Hmmmm. What happened? How does that feel? Am I okay? Mom/Dad seems to think I'm fine. Am I fine? Huh! I guess I am okay. I can do this. This isn't so bad. I can figure this out.

In a difficult family break up and challenging family restructuring, parents have multiple opportunities to teach their children how to process chronic stress. Some high conflict coparenting struggles are so prolonged and intense that the child grows up in the equivalent of a war zone with armed conflict (intense verbal and sometimes physical battles between Mom and Dad) and IEDs (litigation maneuvers, CPS reports, disparaging declarations) as the back drop to life.

We cannot teach what we have not learned.

Parents must learn to frame adversity as a challenge, not as a disaster. Parents can then become more flexible, more likely to face the challenge, deal with it, learn from it, grow and move on with more skills and more depth and more understanding.