This may not be the kind of advice you want to hear, but I promise you, you and your children will recover from the trauma of divorce sooner if you can:

1. Validate their feelings.

2. Children perceive time differently from adults. Help Your Child Perceive the amount of time involved in terms that they can understand.

3. Schedule something positive to take place together after the visit.

4. Acknowledge the effort your child is making to do what he must do in this situation.

5. Make sure they know that they are not hurting you or betraying you by going to the visit and that you will be just fine.

6. Don't pry for information from them afterward.

7. When they do want to talk, be ready for them, listen attentively, and respond.

There are 6 things you must lay down the law on with family & friends offering to star in the Drama of Your Divorce

Here, I will respectfully call family and friends by the loving acronym "F&F."

Divorce is a difficult process for everyone involved, including F&F.

However, you can not imagine how swiftly they can:

Make divorce and divorce recovery more complicated,

Make  the process even more stressful and difficult than it already is (It is possible!) and

Increase the level of conflict.

If you’re dealing with divorce meddling F&F, insist that they refrain from these activities in order to avoid the disaster.

1. Choosing

A common method of F&F meddling in a divorce is to choose sides. School them on the inevitable consequences.

F&F who choose sides in a divorce actually:

Make the process more difficult;

Prevent or delay conflict resolution, and

Keep the couple from reaching a settlement.

Insist that you will not condone the outward choosing of sides.  Thi...

Check out the live Q & A with Dr. Jodi Peary were she answers questions about narcissistic coparents and what to do when your coparent has their romantic interest move in with them.

 Enlightened CoParenting ™ provides a science backed road map to guide you in teaching and coparenting your child while promoting their confidence and self-esteem. Any parent can learn healthy coparenting if they have the right tools.

I want to be the first to know when the Enlightened CoParenting doors open again for enrollment!

Hey there. I'm excited to talk to you about inside-out and outside-in values and goals.

Our values and goals help anchor us into conflict free co-parenting and into being able to negotiate our parenting plan, as well as our differences. Co-parenting and figuring out coparenting in a way that's healthy for us and our kids is a huge goal. Obstacles are inevitable. One way to overcome obstacles is stay in touch with our values, particularly our intrinsic values. Pursuing internally rewarding, intrinsic goals, results in our ability to perform better and more persistently over time.

Our wellbeing is strongly influenced by the intrinsic values we have. Intrinsic values tap into our desire to grow and develop. Intrinsic values are freely chosen. We choose to act in line with the value rather than to act because another person expects us to. This choice gives the value so much power. Examples of intrinsic values include self-acceptance, authenticity and creativity.

Extrinsic values are follow...

Helping Your Child Adjust to Divorce

There's no doubt that a divorce can be a strain on every member of the family. Sometimes it's tough to look on the bright side and see that it can be the best choice for future happiness.

Children are usually hit the hardest by the divorce. If they're young, they may not be able to fully grasp the subject. Also, no matter what age they are, their first instinct is generally to blame themselves. The helpful news is that you can do a lot to get your child through this tough time.

Consider some of the following tips for helping your child cope with divorce:

1. Keep an open dialogue. Talk to your children about the divorce. Even if you have some pent up feelings about your ex, this doesn't mean that you should shy away from the topic with your child. The worst thing you can do is act like nothing is going on.

• Talk to your child about their fears.
• Allow them to cry if they need to do so.
• Make sure that you always have an ope
...

Seven Steps to Help Your Child Deal With Anxiety

The world can be a scary place, and many children have good reason to worry. After parents separate, children may experience uncertainty, which is often at the root of anxiety, a normal response to change.

However, many children worry much more than is reasonable for the situation.

 Anxiety isn’t always a bad thing. A person should be worried if they’re in a dangerous situation, for example. Anxiety is protective, but too much or inappropriate anxiety isn’t healthy.

Use these strategies to help your child overcome their anxiety:

1. Be supportive and patient.

It can be frustrating when your child is constantly worried about things that seem meaningless or silly. However, the anxiety they feel is just as real to them as your anxieties are to you. You don’t get to choose the emotions or fears of other people.

Let your child know that you’re sensitive to their feelings and are always there to support them.

2.  Avoid giving too muc...

Loneliness In Teens Increases Risk for Internet Addiction

Loneliness has increased during the pandemic, and it's prevalent among adolescents. Also the risk of compulsive internet use amongst teens. Teens look for belonging from the internet.  With the pandemic they're spending longer periods of time online.

There's been research, the findings: loneliness is a risk factor for adolescents being drawn into compulsive internet use.

 Internet addiction eases up as they grow older. The concern for internet addiction relates to impacts it can have right now on teens.

 Compulsive internet use is linked to depression, takes up time and disrupts sleep patterns.  It's related to poor academic success.

 In Enlightened Coparenting emotion focused parenting can make a difference. Children of distant parents had a higher risk of drifting into detrimental internet use.

The positive: parenting can make a difference. Be curious about what's going on in your teens heart and mind.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ABOUT CHILDREN'S WORDS SPOKEN OUT OF ANGER

A  note I received from a mom devastated by the news that her child said he wanted to live with his dad:

I am also very concerned that my son now wants to live with his dad. He hasn’t been very nice to me .......His dad won’t talk to me and I have given up trying. That would change everything. Each day just seems to be getting worse for me. 

We discuss this hurtful situation in Module 1 of the Enlightened CoParenting Course.

Here is an excerpt from the course:

When your child throws a temper tantrum, becomes angry, and blames you for ruining their life don’t take their behavior personally.

Realize that in many instances when children blame one parent or another for the divorce occurring their blaming is a way of coping and a defense against feeling overwhelmed by the many changes they are experiencing in the course of a short period.  It is often not meant against the parent personally.

It is not easy to refr...

Hey there!
I want to answer one of my most frequently asked questions:
Is it worth it for me to learn enlightened coparenting if I am coparenting with a narcissist?

Parents with pathological narcissism tend to engage in behavior that is damaging toward the other parent and children. It is not so much the loss of contact with the child that triggers them as their experience that that person should be available to them and is  not. They experience the loss of what the child provided to them.

These are the characteristics I see in these situations.

See if you recognize any of these characteristics:
Treat child as an extension of themselves, not as a unique individual with their own needs and feelings different from the parents.

Fighting over issues big and small.

Overreaction and drama to imagined slights.

When threatened with the loss of control over their own children, they look to the child to have their own ego needs for love and approval met.

Self absorbed and unresponsive to their...