Questioning Children in Supervised Visitation: Guidance for Moms and Dads

Supervised visitation can be a challenge in a number of ways. One of those is figuring out what questions are okay to ask your child and which ones need to be avoided.

The purpose of supervised visitation to to ensure that the parent-child relationship is safe and protected and as nurturing as possible for the child.

Part of protecting the child is making sure they are not put in the position of feeling caught in the middle in any way between the two parents!

Questions should be asked in a way that does not limit the Child’s response to giving only specific information OR require the Child to provide details about the other parent's life/home!

Some of the examples below are based on the parent already having information about the child.

OKAY (general & child-oriented)
How is school?
What is your favorite subject?
Did you have a good week?
Are those new shoes? They look really nice!
Did you have a nice vacation?
Did you get a haircut?
Have you had lunch yet? If not, let's eat together.
Did your doctor’s appointment go ok?
Did you have fun with your friends at school today? (On a school night)

NOT OKAY (specific & detail-oriented)
Where do you go to school?
What is your teacher’s name?
Who brought you to the visit?
Are those new shoes? Who gave you those shoes?Where did you go on vacation? Who went? How did you travel?
Who cut your hair?
Have you had lunch yet? When and where did you eat lunch?
What doctor did you go to?Who are your friends at school?

Children in supervised visitaiton can initiate any topic they want, including information they should not give!!

If the other parent has sole legal custody, do not allow the Child to give any details about school, dentist, doctor, coaches, troop leaders, teachers, etc. even if the Child is the one initiating.

Either the parent or the Supervisor should gently but quickly interrupt the Child to prevent the disclosure. If Child discloses info, the Supervisor will write a note to the other parent about it and pass it at end of visit. This is done to protect everyone in the situation.

By the way, it is equally important that the child not be grilled with questions by the other parent once the supervised visitation is over. Children need to be greeted with a warm smile, hug and an invitation to reconnect and move on with the day.

Cordial and Business-Like: How to do Coparenting Meetings Without Losing Your Mind

Most parents don't even think about "The Coparenting Relationship" when they are living in the same household sharing the parenting of a child. That relationship exists but it is 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. 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 both 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 skills include: (1)defining and sticking to a clear agenda before discussions; (2) establishing and following ground rules for good coparenting communication; (3) taking a break when either person gets off topic or violates a ground rule; and (4) holding all non-emergency issues for the next scheduled coparenting meeting.

No matter how motivated a parent may be in this situation, too often the impulsive verbal or written jab is thrown and cannot be taken back. Just that quickly, damage is done to a relationship already fragile and struggling. Facilitated coparenting meetings are one of the tools offered at Hannah's House to help parents make the transition to face to face meetings and 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 then 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. Do that in therapy, with your friends and family, or in your journal. 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 take 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.

Children Need Relationships with Both Parents

Coparenting is a critical aspect of all of our lives. All children are conceived by at least two parents. In the case of adoption, surrogacy, and other family constellations some start out with more than two.

Research over the last 30 years has pushed and pulled family professionals toward the understanding that virtually all children will be coparented and virtually all families coparent.

Coparents who compete with each other by trying to have the child become an ally with one parent against the other provide an unsafe family structure for the child.

The child is left with few options except: (1) to become a go-between, (2) to choose one parent over the other, or (3) withdraw from both parents at least in any genuine sense of connection.

A coparent who tries to eliminate the competition by alienating or estranging the children from the other coparent risks alienating or estranging the child from parts of him or herself as the child struggles for a sense of identity in an unsafe and unbalanced family system.

Children need a protective family structure and coparenting is especially important in providing the safety, security and continuity so critical to the child's healthy development.

If you can't respect and cooperate with your coparent, then shift your perspective and try respecting and cooperating with the part of your child that needs his or her own experience of that other parent in order to develop a strong, clear and autonomous sense of self in the world.

When you find yourself thinking negative thoughts or saying negative things about the other coparent, try inserting your child's name and face instead.

Cooperative coparenting is about valuing the needs of the child and respecting all of who your child is, not just the part that you contributed.

Navigating the aftermath of the break up of a family is difficult for everyone. At least the grown ups have tools and resources to find their way. The children do not. They are relying on us, the grown ups, to support them in finding their way.

High Conflict Coparenting

High Conflict Coparents become locked in conflict that significantly impairs the child and his or her development. The adversarial system contributes to conflict. One or both parents may have a personality disorder.

Once two parents become actively engaged in conflict with each other, it is certain that the child is living in an environment of hostility, revenge-seeking, and emotional reactivity.

The adversarial legal system is where high conflict coparenting begins for many parents. There is a winner and a loser, and it’s a Winner-Takes-All system, all too often. Sole custody has been shown to create conflict and to exacerbate conflict. Limiting a parents involvement in a child’s life increases hostility between the parents. And research has demonstrated that conflict between parents increases in sole custody arrangements.

Research has also demonstrated that the conflict decreases over time with a shared custody arrangement. This makes sense. If loss of a child is not at issue, fear and anxiety and anger and conflict will go down.

The personality of the parent plays a significant role in many High Conflict Coparenting relationships. Parents who have significant deficits in the development of healthy narcissism during his or her own childhood will not cope well with the challenges of the adversarial court system. These are people more likely to experience failed relationships so, of course, they are more likely to end up in a family break-up.

Parents who were raised with unhealthy narcissism are not able to feel good about him or herself unless there is an overall negative approach to relationships, both with one’s self and with others. Healthy narcissism is at the heart of normal self-esteem, positive feelings, appropriate self-regulation, and the positive investment in good relationships.

The combination of an adversarial approach to resolving family tensions and parental deficits in the area of healthy narcissism prove to be deadly for the children. The children in these High Conflict Coparenting relationships become collateral damage as the parents engage in mutual self-destruction using each other and their little ones as weapons.

There is an assumption, based on decades of research, that shared parenting is in the best interest of the child. Most family law cases will eventually reach that goal. Some will not, and some should not. If a parent is unable or unwilling to even try to understand that a child cannot grow up healthy when a parent literally hates half of who that child is, and is intent on destroying that half of the child, the parent needs to be removed from the child’s life.

Fortunately, most parents love for their child is larger, deeper, greater, than their hatred for the other parent. Over time, most parents learn how to put the child’s need for wholeness and healthy self-esteem above the need of the parent to be right, to be the best, to be the winner – no matter the cost.

Parents are often shocked to discover that they can be removed from their child’s life as a result of accusations made in open court without any presentation of evidence – at least not Law & Order or CSI evidence.

Most parents come to family court expecting American-style justice:

1 Innocent until proven guilty

2 Systemic commitment to justice for litigants

3 Ability to face the accuser

4 Beyond a shadow of the doubt

Coparenting decisions in family court are made based on some basic considerations:

1 Best interest of the child - laws are crafted to protect the child, not the parent

2 Shared parenting - preference will be given to the parent who demonstrates the ability to share the child

It can be impossible to find a peaceful resolution to a family conflict when litigation in open court occurs. The family will never know what post-break-up life could be like if the war had not occurred. Some parents will get there as they move through the process. Some will not.

If parents are still as emotional and reactive at 1 year, post-break-up as they were at the beginning, it’s safe to assume that 1 or both of them are actively engaged in High Conflict Coparenting. It does not mean they are both doing it. It does not mean it is mutual. It may be, but it is very difficult to coparent with a High Conflict Personality.

We need to make a distinction between High Conflict Coparenting - both parents are initiating the conflict and coparenting with a High Conflict Personality - one parent is initiating the conflict and the other parent is reacting and managing the conflict poorly.

There are hallmarks of the High Conflict relationship:
1 Using the child as a weapon, a messenger, a companion, a best friend

2 Hostility, mistrust, blaming, anger, dishonesty

3 Rules and expectations that are competitive, confusing and create chaos between the two homes

4 Scheduling and exchanges are chaotic and unpredictable

5 Power struggles occur in almost every point of contact between the two homes: clothes, haircuts, tooth brushing, diet, backpacks, toys, trimming of the finger and toe nails, cleanliness of the ears and hair, strip-down searches for any mark of any kind on the body of the child, and on and on and on and on

6 Parents focus on manipulating the child rather than nurturing the child

7 The child is torn, insecure, caught in the middle, anxious/withdrawn, sad/angry, acting out, focused on the parents

If you or someone you care about is in the midst of a High Conflict Coparenting relationship, do something, say something, take action. There are resources for these families in every community. It is possible to intervene and help all of the family members.

The child only has so much resilience. There is a limit. Once that limit has been reached, the results for the child are devastating for a lifetime.

Parallel Coparenting

Parallel coparenting is a model where the two homes -- just like parallel lines -- do not intersect. The only intersection is the child moving back and forth between the two homes.

This model is beneficial to a child when the unresolved differences between the two parents create chronic tension for the child or when the conflict flares in front of the child.

The goal of this model is to reduce the chronic psychological and emotional tension for the child (also known as child abuse) and to eliminate exposure to parental conflict (also known as Inter-Personal Violence (IPV)).

Some people object to the use of the words child abuse and violence because they believe that only the use of physical force to inflict pain should be called abusive or violent.

Child abuse includes any form of deliberate and/or ongoing infliction of psychological or emotional pain. For over two decades, researchers have documented the radical impairments that occur in the brain development of children who live with chronic hostile psychological and emotional abuse.

Parents must get the child out of the middle when contact between the two parents is hostile, whether that hatred and hostility is silent and cold, or loud and hot.

Parallel coparenting is the model that will protect the child caught in the middle. This model allows the child to experience calm, a sense of relief, and the ability to use his or her energy for being a child: exploring, experiencing, learning, growing, and just being a kid.

Unresolved differences occur for many reasons but here are some examples.
1 Unplanned pregnancy
Parents had a brief or superficial relationship when the child was conceived. Not only do the parents have nothing in common, they actually hold radically different world views and beliefs about people.

2 Deceit
Sometimes parents have led a double life with their intimate partner during a relationship. Depending on many factors, that deceit may have inflicted such a deep wound that healing is very difficult.

3 Domestic Violence (DV) / Substance Abuse (SA) / Mental Illness (MI)
When there is a specific pattern and problem which has led to the break-up of the family, the restructuring process can take anywhere form 18 months to 3 years. DV, SA, and MI are three such situations. Children cannot be exposed to the high emotion of parents with this kind of history. It’s just too much pressure for the child.

There are many other situations where parallel coparenting is the best choice, sometimes for a period of time that allows cooling down, healing and moving on. For some families, this model will be long term.

Parents who practice this model rarely have communication between the homes. Both parents take equal responsibility to be on time and at the right place for pick-ups and drop-offs. Parents only make direct contact in an emergency situation so there is no uncertainty about the nature of or reason for the contact.

Specific and non-negotiable parenting plans work best for these families.

Contact between the two homes is via email or Our Family Wizard (OFW) or Talking Parents. Communications are direct, brief and respectful. All communication is child-focused.
Parallel Coparents have separate and clear rules in each house. Children cope extremely well when they know what to expect.

Both parents take equal responsibility for clarity in their own home and neither parent disparages the rules in the other parent’s home.

Decision making is made in each home and conferring is rare. If there are shared expenses, parents establish a specific method to deal with that and do not deviate. Some parallel coparents attend all of the child’s appointments together, and some take turns.

Parallel coparents have clearly defined boundaries for transitions between the homes and for any joint activity that may occur with the child.

Facilitated coparenting meetings are the only way that Parallel Coparents engage. There is a clear agenda for the meeting and the facilitator manages the communication.

Parents who choose parallel coparenting are unable to achieve basic respect and cooperation, usually due to significant, unresolved relationship issues. They choose to parent the child separately in each home with very little contact with the other parent because they understand that the child needs peace and calm and permission to love both parents.

Cooperative Coparenting

Most parents eventually adopt a cooperative model of coparenting. Over time, they are both able to adapt to the dramatic restructuring of the family. They each learn to navigate the strong emotions, and slowly begin to move on with their lives. Each parent makes changes within him or herself, in direct response to the changes without.

Cooperative coparenting takes courage because it means taking risks and making yourself vulnerable. The other parent may not change, at least not right away. The other parent may take advantage. The other parent may exploit your openness.

But your children will see you change. Your children will see that you continue to be a good person even when you are treated poorly. Your children will see that you care about your own behavior, you take responsibility for your choices, and you try to make good choices.

Somebody has to have the courage to start. Parents who move from the anxiety and uncertainty of transitional coparenting to the calm and peace of cooperative take risks. They take those risks because their love for their children is bigger than their desire for revenge or holding onto resentments.

Motivation for change is unique to each person.

For some, it’s a matter of economy of resources – all of them! “I only have so much time, energy and money, and I don’t want to invest any of it in negativity.”

For others, it’s a matter of a change in perspective. “I need to take control of my life. I need to stop blaming and start taking responsibility.”

For still others, it’s the children. A day comes when a parent really sees or hears the hurt and pain that the adult conflict is causing in the child.

Making a choice to be cooperative begins a process that can change everything again.

The act of making a request instead of a demand creates uncertainty that can begin a positive change in the coparenting relationship.

Saying “yes” instead of “no” creates good will in the relationship.

Offering important coparenting information, without being asked or demanded or required, creates an opening to rebuild trust.

Apologizing for your bad behavior opens the possibility that you will be given the benefit of the doubt next time you make a mistake.

Cooperative coparents are able to have frequent and direct communication. They strive for uniform rules and expectations between the homes. They engage in joint decision-making and practice flexible scheduling between the homes for the child’s needs.

Cooperative coparents have informal meetings without the child present to make sure the lines of communication are open. Decisions are child-focused and parenting plans can be general and negotiable.

Cooperative coparents learn to achieve and maintain respect for each other.

Cooperative coparents appreciate the importance of the other parent for the well-being of the child.

Cooperative coparents value regular communication about the coparenting needs of the child because it makes the child feel loved, cared for, and secure in the world.

Parents don’t start out being cooperative coparents immediately after the break-up of the family. Some parents know they want that. Some parents know they will achieve it. But most parents gradually find their way to cooperative because something motivates them to make that choice.

Remember that cooperative coparenting is a choice. But some parents will not make that choice. They won’t make it because they cannot forgive and move on. Some parents try very hard to make that choice but find that some acts are unforgiveable. Some choices are hard to accept. The pain fades with time, but the act does damage.

Sometimes, there needs to be a period of parallel coparenting while time passes and the hurts heal. Tomorrow we’ll look more closely at the choice of parallel coparenting. Making the right choice at the right time is important because trying to be a cooperative coparent with a coparent who can only respond with conflict, can be detrimental to a child.

Self-Soothing and Self-Control - Let's Do It!

The two primary parenting tasks critical to raising happy children and good citizens are: (1) teaching self-control, and (2) teaching self-soothing.

These tasks require Mom and Dad to be attentive, listen actively, and guide the child toward experiencing the consequences of their own choices and taking responsibility for their own behavior.

The motivation for growth and development is part of the human condition. It doesn't need to be taught, but it can be stifled. Most parents instinctively help their children reach for toys, practice sitting, learn eye-hand control, and so on.

However, parents also do things for their children sometimes long after the child is able to do it for him or herself. Mom or Dad feeds the child because they don't want to clean up or they don't have the time. Parents carry children who are capable of walking because it's easier for the parents and requires less patience and concentration. Parents respond to demands and whining as if it was an appropriate way for a child to ask for what she or he needs.

Each of these situations is a natural opportunity to help guide the child's motivation towards learning self-control. Coming up against a limit or redirection from Mom or Dad may then lead to a natural opportunity for the child to practice the skills of self-soothing.

Discipline is about self-control and self-soothing. Discipline is about learning to manage impulses and desires; it's about learning to handle frustration and delayed gratification. This is the challenge of parenting. Teaching discipline to a child requires maturity and discipline on the part of the parent.

Teaching self-control and self-soothing is hard to do when we haven't learned it very well ourselves. It's one of the reasons that sometimes our children teach us that we need to grow up, too! Very few of us reach adulthood having completed all the tasks of adolescence. So reparenting ourselves, learning to heal the deficits from our own parents is just part of the process.

There is no such thing as a perfect parent because life is full of uncertainty and the unpredictable. It was true for our parents and it is true for us. Accept that and do the best you can. And reach out for help. It's easy to find. Learning about the research and techniques of parenting can be fun and very rewarding.