As a parent who is thinking about divorce, going through divorce, or divorced, you have more than likely experienced concern, fear, and anxiety about how your children will be impacted by divorce. 

You want to continue providing your children with a healthy and happy childhood and to give them the tools to build resilience. But how, amidst the lifequake that is divorce?

Enlightened Coparenting is a coparenting journey to improve your coparenting relationship, deepen your relationship with your children, and to reconnect with your self and engage in self care. 

All 3 relationships, coparent to coparent, parent to child, and parent to self, are important in Enlightened CoParenting, as all 3 are essential to healthy coparenting.

Enlightened CoParenting fits perfectly into every different type of family. For all families, divorce has simultaneous effects on every area of family members' lives. This is the source for the intense stress, uncertainty, anger,...

What is a child-centered divorce?  A simple question often followed by a very long, difficult to understand answer.

An Easy To Understand Definition of Child-Centered Divorce:

A divorce in which parents create an environment where both parents and lawyers respect the decision to place the children’s emotional and physical needs at the forefront of their minds when making decisions related to separation or divorce.

If we are honest, child-centered divorce is often what we say we want at the beginning of the divorce process and what we continue to want in our hearts throughout the process but what we are deathly afraid that to do because we think it means our soon to be ex will take us to the proverbial cleaners or leave us destitute.

Guess what?  A child centered approach actually helps us to find resolutions where both parents can live separately and yet live a good life together with their children.

To read my post about why a child-centered divorce makes good...

Over the next 2 weeks, each day I will be sharing the exact Enlightened CoParenting tips for holidays that are as peaceful and joyful as they can be, despite the pandemic.

Holidays are full of cherubs and challenges. The magic is in keeping the cherubs far from the challenges. I am often asked, "How can coparents avoid last minute holiday heartbreak?"

It is really important not to get too attached to a particular date for holiday rituals.  Holidays are difficult, especially in the first year post separation.  If the love you and your children have for each other is all you need to make the holiday season special, the date itself will not be what matters but rather what you do with the days you have with your children during the holiday season. Their is nothing innately sacred about the date you choose to wake up and have a holiday brunch and open presents.  The calendar does not make the day special, you and your children do.

When you are new to coparenting, you will...

In Enlightened CoParenting,™ we shift to a child-centered perspective.  It takes courage to make the shift when we have many different worries on our plate, but there are surprising ways enlightened coParenting™ and a child-centered divorce benefits parents.

What is a child-centered divorce? 

A child-centered divorce is one where parents clearly and consciously create an environment that supports their decision to place their children’s emotional and physical needs at the forefront of their minds when making life-altering decisions related to separation or divorce. We engage in emotion focused parenting and mindful parenting. Yes, this is still possible before, during, and after divorce.

For a more specific list of ways to incorporate enlightened coparenting into everyday life download my free guide 60 Tiny Tips for Healthy Coparenting

Child-centered implies it is good for kids. The underlying often quietly whispered truth is that child-centered divorce...

This Thanksgiving will likely be different in a number of different ways from past years. I hope your day will be filled with health and peace.

I wanted to share one of my favorite small things you can do to make a big difference in your life. It is called “Three Good Things.”

“Three Good Things” is one of the most well-known positive psychology exercises to increase well-being. It is so simple and yet research has shown it works. (For more Positive Psychology Tips in Self Care Download my Self Care Guide).

There is a short and a long term way of doing the exercise.

Short Version Instructions:

Each day remember and list three positive things that have happened in your day and reflect on what caused them. List specific rather than general things. 

Mine today as it relates to my work:

1. I am grateful for Zoom and to be able to see my clients even though we can not meet in person.
2. I am grateful to my clients for sharing...

Narcissistic abuse often equates with emotional abuse. It is difficult to find support when one is being emotionally abused by a spouse or ex-spouse, which makes the abuse even more devastating and isolating.

Why is it so hard to find support for narcissistic abuse? I have written before about the shame we may feel as victims of narcissistic abuse which makes it extremely difficult to ask for help. But there is another insidious reason that even when we have the courage to reach out for help, we may not be heard, even by the people who we are closest to.  

When we finally muster up the courage to share our experiences with a friend or family member, we relay the more recent incidents of cruelty and abuse that we have experienced.   We share with friends or family members the examples of the mistreatment not yet suppressed, and they may think none of the incidents were a big deal.

The friend or family member considers just the one or two accounts of emotional abuse...

One circumstance that entrenches co-parents in high-conflict is when a parent has acute anxiety over the safety of their children while they are at the other coparent’s home. Many of the things I suggest relate to helping  coparents minimize uncertainty and worry.

I encourage coparents to specifically agree in writing on safety measures inside each of their homes. I do so not just to maximize the children’s safety but also to minimize conflict between parents. Safety measures should include protections to both the child’s physical and emotional health.

An example from my client Marlene. 

Marlene didn’t sleep at night when her kids stayed at their other parent’s house.  Her eight year old had mentioned that the smoke detector was beeping and that her dad took it down and threw it away. 

 Two things. Marlene was so immediately enraged and frightened that she did not stop to think about whether her child may have misunderstood...

I have been a divorce coach and family psychologist for over a decade.  Before that, I was a divorce lawyer. I have also gone through divorce myself.  As such, I have had a rather intimate view of what divorce entails. 

While I knew many of the effects and challenges of divorce and single parenting before I divorced, being divorced made these experiences real in a way that changed what they meant for me and brought to life many aspects that I could not have known as a divorce lawyer.

The divorce terrain is tumultuous. Knowledge of the divorce process is not enough to guide a client through divorce.  To guide someone through divorce, one must have empathy and creativity as well as being non-judgemental.  I prepare my clients both for what typically occurs and for some heart-pounding surprises. I also prepare them for the task of solving problems in new ways, leaving them with a valuable skill that they will utilize in many different contexts over their...