https://www.listennotes.com/e/af0a849ac57b417a9ec55a7904162958

Welcome to Finding Noble, a podcast where we climb into the world of young people's mental health and where we provide support for the adults who support them. I'm your host, Carly Redd. Welcome to another episode of Finding Noble. I'm your host, Carly Redd, and I'm with Dr. Skinner. Hello, Dr. Skinner.

Hey, Carly, how are you today?

I am doing great. It's good to see you and be with you.

It's good to be with you as well. I'm looking forward to today's topic.

Yes, today's topic we are discussing helping children of divorce stay attached, healthy and happy. And before we dive into that, I want to preface our discussion today with divorce is really, really hard. on every individual inside a family system. The parents, the children, every individual, even outside the family system. Every single individual in divorce will experience disruptions to life. They will experience pain and they will experience loss, maybe even grief. And also there are entire podcasts, even podcast subjects covering divorce and co-parenting. So in one episode today, we are not going to cover the entire gamut of what it means to be a good parent. Going through divorce. But today our focus will be on five key steps to helping children of divorce stay attached and mentally and emotionally healthy. Do you have any thoughts, Dr. Skinner?

Yeah, I think this topic is really important because if we look at our culture, just putting it in perspective, we understand that from first marriages, 42 to 43% of first marriages end in divorce. so if we're just looking at numbers, so first marriage, you know, people say one in every two marriages end in divorce. First marriages, it's about 32 to 44%, and that's been pretty consistent over the last decade or more. So we look at that, and then we look at second marriages, that's a higher divorce rate, somewhere between 60 to 66%. Third marriages, we go all the way up to 70 to 75% of them end in divorce. So if you just combine that together and putting it in perspective, how many divorces are there every year in the United States of America? So I'm going to I'm going to tell you that five states don't report the number of divorces. One of them is California. So that's obviously going to make things higher. But over the last five, six years, every year, somewhere between 725,000 to 800,000 divorces occur in 45 states.

Wow.

So that's going to be probably likely over 800 to 900,000, maybe even up to a million divorces every year. that's in the United States.

Wow.

So now let's take that and say, okay, how many of those couples had children? Because a single divorce still is two people, right? So that's going to be 1.5 million people. If we say 750, 000 people are now divorced every year. And then if we add two, that the children, let's say that every family had two children, let's average that. Now we're talking. millions of individuals are being influenced by divorce. When I was getting my PhD, I did research and I continue to track it. I actually wrote an assessment to help people who've been betrayed, look at how they're adjusting to life after divorce. Early in my career, I taught a class called Life After Divorce and created a course on it. And it's just something I've stayed on top of because our culture is struggling. And so next month, I actually am presenting at ITAP on helping betrayed individuals deal with PTSD symptoms post divorce.

Wow. Yeah, I'm curious about your findings. What did you find about betrayal trauma post divorce?

Well, so just putting in context of reasons why people divorce. So if you look at the reasons that people divorce, researchers are finding that somewhere up to, not, I don't know if this is completely accurate, up to 60% of divorce, one of the reasons that they're listing is infidelity or sexual betrayal. So if you take the numbers of 725,000 and you take 60% of that, 400 plus thousand of individuals are going through a divorce related to sexual betrayal. So what happens, they've got PTSD symptoms, now they're going through a divorce. What happens to their PTSD symptoms? What happens to the way they deal with their ex-spouse? This unaddressed market, and that's why I'm actually doing that presentation. based upon the assessment that I wrote. It's an important topic because the healthier the parent, the healthier the person, the better the parent can be.

Wow, that's neat. Oh, you're doing really great work. I hope you feel that.

I just, I love what I do.

It's important what you do.

So again, that the topic is really important from my perspective because if we want to help society, we've got to understand how to help children and parents how to go through this difficult experience.

I really appreciate you pulling back and showing us that perspective that if you are a parent experiencing divorce or trying to raise children through divorce, you are not alone. There are a lot of people in our nation and outside our nation doing the same thing. And like you said, that means we should probably be talking about it more and how to do it well. Right.

And especially knowing how to do it. because there's not a manual. Okay, when you go through divorce, this is how you help your children through this. I mean, it's already hard going through your own emotional stuff, just the loss and the grief and the pain of it. So it's really important to really understand our own stuff so we can be present with our children.

Okay, so get emotionally, mentally, physically healthy the best that you can. Now, I loved this from Christina McGee. She's internationally recognized divorce parenting expert. She's a speaker and an author, but she says this, divorce doesn't make you a bad parent. It makes you a parent going through a bad time. It's about helping parents get their family through that hard time. Here's what I know right now. You are your children's best chance for making it to the other side of this big family change and being okay. I just loved that because I think whether we're conscious of it or not, if you're a parent, parenting in divorce or through divorce that you may feel shame and guilt, regardless of the variables that cause the split. But I think really today I want to talk about the children, that we aren't here to talk about the potential subjective and anecdotal points of divorce. We aren't here to talk about who is right and who is wrong or who's at fault. We are here to talk about how to keep as much love inside the family system as possible so children can feel safety, belonging, and attachment. We are talking about our kids. And I know, Dr. Skinner, you often talk about a child's, well, any human's inalienable rights, but could you maybe discuss the basic human needs, outline those for us and what those are and why it's so important that our children really do deserve that attachment, that safety, that belonging?

You didn't use the word there, safety. So the foundational principle of all human connection, I think I've said this in many of our podcasts, but the foundation of every healthy human connection is the principle of safety.

Right?

So arguing, yelling, putting down, criticizing, belittling another parent in front of a child is, is not healthy for the children to experience. So I'm maybe a little bit more direct today, Carly, because I care a lot about our children because they're the next generation. And the healthier them, the healthier our society.

Well, and I do think under girding this with that reality of it's hard, you're going to have a lot of emotions as the parent. You're going to feel a lot of triggers, maybe things that you didn't mean to feel when something came up or an interaction you had with your ex-spouse in front of your child, but learning how to control that and to find a way to make peace in front of your child.

And even if one parent is acting inappropriately, it's appropriate to create a boundary and say, you know, I would like to talk about this, but right now the children are here. And so let's set up a time where we can talk about this, because this is obviously an important topic. Right now, in front of the children is probably not the best way to handle this.

Right?

So just examples of even if you're going through a divorce, respect your children enough to keep them out of the argument.

I love this. My husband Eric, we've had him on the podcast before. He's really into stoicism. He's reading lots of books on the Stoics, Marcus Aurelius and all the books by Ryan Holiday. And he shares them with me. And one of the quotes that has stuck with me that he's read from one of Ryan Holiday's books says, our kids don't owe us anything. After all, they didn't ask to be here. It is we who are obligated to them by virtue of our choice to bring them into this world. So they didn't ask to come to this family. Your children don't owe you anything. They deserve as much love as possible. They deserve to feel safe. They deserve to feel healthy love. And when there is so much emotion and pain and trauma, divorce brings out our most vulnerable side, cutting through all of that. It's really important to maintain that perspective that our children didn't ask to come to our given family, and that is their right as a human being to feel safety and to feel attachment. And that's hard to do, but it's so important.

And so if I add to this, right? Yes, it is absolutely essential love critical part. So how do we manifest that love? Again, the most basic needs that children need are eye contact, healthy touch, a facial expression that's positive, and a tone of voice that is usually as we talk, it's not going to be in a angry pitch, right? An elevated pitch, higher pitch, whatever term you want to say, it's usually going to be a softer tone. So healthy touch, eye contact, tone of voice, facial expression, these are the things that the research shows actually helps us feel safe and present with other people when we don't have healthy touch or eye contact. I mean, you show me somebody who hasn't had healthy touch in days or weeks. I'm going to show you somebody who's probably depressed or struggling just to feel something because there's going to be an internal loneliness. We long for healthy touch.

Man, yeah. So simple. All those things that you just listed off are very simple, easy things. And yet so many of us are lacking the ability to feel those things or to give those things. Eye contact, soft tone of voice.

And when things are difficult, Carly, when there's fighting or arguing with an ex spouse, you're going through a divorce, you miss it.

Right?

I mean, people don't talk about the loneliness associated with divorce. But if you ask anybody who's been through or going through a divorce, it's a loneliness decoupling is hard. and then it requires more energy in terms of finances because half of what you had is half of what you had. And then the children, their needs going back and forth and some of their emotional needs because they're not going to go through a divorce the way you think they're going to go through the divorce. You may think as a parent, they're going to be just fine. But my experience has been actually you can't predict. That's one of the things you have to be very cautious of. You can't predict. how your child's gonna respond. You may think you know your child, but it's not predictable.

Wow.

And if I can add to that, every child will go through divorce in their unique way.

And probably according to age as well.

Age, information, friends, support, and one child might be humming along and they're adjusting just fine and something happens. A parent remarries, something happened or said at school and about their parents, and all of a sudden what was humming along is now an issue. This is my own life experience. I went through my parents divorce and I found relief with sports. I loved playing sports. I always had a ball in my hand. That was my therapy and I didn't know it was my therapy, but it's how I worked through the emotions that I had as a boy. But I didn't know my issues that would really manifest actually until I was married.

Interesting.

And if I look back, it would have been manifest before then in just how I, my fear of relationships and not knowing how to communicate.

So it may come later than you imagine.

So the aftermath is not predictable. That's one of the things what needs to be predictable is your children need to feel constant love and support so they can turn to you when they're struggling.

Yes. Before we go deep into that, I would love to list off the five key steps that we have here to helping children of divorce stay attached and mentally and emotionally healthy. Number one, is the environment inside the homes of both parents? Number two, our transitions between homes and parents? Number three, the language we use about our ex-spouse? Number four, how much do we share about the personal relationships? And number five, the parenting styles, co-parenting going through that. So let's go back to this, the environment inside the homes of both parents, talking about the safety, belonging, attachment, the checking in, the word attunement that we use often on this podcast. knowing what your child is experiencing. Tell us how we can better assess how our child is experiencing the divorce and where they're at.

So what's interesting here is if you're listening to this podcast, you've likely been through a divorce or you know somebody who's going through divorce. What you're going to experience here, you can't control how the other parent parents. And so It's almost one of the more difficult things you have to let it go, let go that part that you want to have structure, you want them to study, you want them to focus, and you might find that you can't influence the outcome. And that's a really hard part of divorce because now you feel it's out of your control. I can't protect my child. And so the thing you can influence is the environment or what we call the climate. in your home.

Yes, yes, I like that.

So children gravitate, this is just a general concept that I teach, children gravitate to safety. They come to a place that's safe, they feel, they relax there. And so having an environment that they feel comfortable in, that there's some common structure, guidelines is very important. And so if I go to say one of my parents homes and I'm always on video games and there's no structure and it's doing whatever I want, chaos. That may feel great for a child. I'm empowered. I don't want to go, you make me do chores, you make me do this. And that's a common theme. It's like you're asking me to do homework and this and that, and I can go there and play video games and do whatever I want. And so now you've got parents enmeshing or bringing a child triangulating a child into the conflict.

Right.

And so if we're going to help children through this, We need to create a structure. Ideally it would be both homes would have common expectations. But couples often fight because that's how they extend the fight post divorce.

That is a very fascinating point. I haven't thought about that.

And it hurts the children.

Right. Right.

But am I connecting with the child? Am I going back to the most basic needs, tone of voice, are we soft, eye contact, healthy touch? those things still matter. They don't go away. But also children need structure. And this is when we look at parenting styles, children do way better. And if you want to help your children, the best outcome is having structure. And that means that you're not so permissive that they can do whatever they want. That is ineffective parenting.

I think that's nice to hear because I think there may be a parent out there who doesn't have an equal amount of time with their child. And when they do get their child, they do not want to instill rules or they want to be the fun parent. I mean, that happens in my marriage all the time with one of us that's been gone and the other one comes home and they say, I haven't seen the kids. The last thing I want to do is be a disciplinarian. I don't want to do that right now, but to know that's creating safety with your children. There's a way to do it that connects with them, that makes them feel safety, that makes them feel love, but still creating a scaffolding to their life where they feel like they have structure on both ends. in both homes.

That's absolutely ideal.

Scaffolding supports us. And so it is nice to hear that if you're deliberating between the two to lean towards a side that holds your kids accountable.

And again, if we just look at effective parenting, there's different styles of parenting. Permissive parenting is basically letting your child, basically they do what they want.

Right.

In contrast with authoritative parenting, there's some structure, there's guidance, and there's love. And children do better when they understand the structure. Like we clean up the house, we do the dishes, we clean our bedrooms, we do our homework. There are things of functioning that help children realize there is a structure to life and this helps me. I feel better when my room is clean. I feel better when I'm actually turning in assignments and getting things done because it's not fun to go to school When everyone else is turning in assignments and you're like, I didn't do it. Cause I was at mom or dad last night and we watched a movie all night long. And it was great spending time with.

Dad or mom, but I didn't get this done. You've often said, what is the message we're sending our child? When we're doing that as a parent, we're sending the message, I care how you feel. So when your room is clean, I care that you'll probably feel a little less chaotic. I care that you do your homework because I want you to feel success. I want you to excel. I want you to Rise to the occasion. And when we hold kids in certain parameters or hold them to certain standards, we're telling them, I care about you. That is the message I'm sending you is I care. When there is a free for all, you're telling them, I don't care how you turn out or how you end up.

And again, that's something that as we parent our children, whether we're divorced or not, it's just effective parenting to have some kind of structure that our children get comfortable with and expectations. so I guess if I was to summarize a couple of Concepts here, the first is when we parent through a divorce, ideally we're going to be on the same page. Rarely is that the case from my experience, because I think that the continuation of the fight that often leads to a divorce, people continue that battle and sometimes they'll use their children. So we gotta remove that. The next part of that is, if you can find a way to agree on common things, getting homework done. as an example. To me, that's a pretty big deal.

Yeah.

Can you come home to my house and tell my kids that? Roger Skinner says homework's a pretty big deal. We're going to transition into this next point, transitions between homes and parents. I hadn't considered how important this key point is in our discussion today, the transitioning, dropping off your kids to the other parents house, different things that I have read and heard about. you want this to be a contention free drop off or transition that this is not the time to have a heated discussion around arrangements. They need to stay smooth and it needs to stay focused on the kids. It's an emotional time for a child to go from one home to another home when they have currently been in a singular home. So you want to stay focused on the kids and that you want to sort of hit a rhythm is what I've read that you want to inform your child so they feel like they're part of this plan. I've even heard that maybe hard copy calendars so kids can see maybe a color coded schedule where they can see where they're going to be on their birthday or for their parents' birthday. They like to know where they're going to be at what time, and they want to feel like they're a part of it. So that sort of rhythm, that ability to predict what's coming, really important to a child. It makes them feel like they're not out of control.

Yeah.

And what you're describing here is often in many divorce decrees, there is a set time. So often it's one night a week and every other weekend, depending on the, you know, if it's 60 40 or 50 50 split throughout my career, I've seen so many different variations on this. But this concept of the transitioning between homes and parents, one of the interesting things is, as you said, sometimes parents will take and they'll talk with each other, that's really confusing to a child because they're trying to interpret what it means. And if they see their parents fighting, it's even more because now they've witnessed this conflict and it's like, oh, that's not a great way to start any new interaction that you maybe haven't seen your child in a few days. So we want to remove that for sure. The transition of predictability, as you said, it really is important, Carly, because children need predictability. And it's hard because let's say on a Wednesday night, that my friends are playing games and now I can't go because I'm going over to mom or dad's house. That's a hard thing for the child. And so we have to also understand the challenge that the children are going through in this adjustment. Their friends are hanging out playing games and I'm going over here.

Right.

That's rough.

And so then the child can start to resent that time because it's taking them away from peer play what they're used to. And so again, being sensitive to that as a parent, maybe we transition evenings or we do something to help, but flexibility is really important here according to the child and their situation and circumstances. Because if you don't have flexibility and you just are so rigid, you can also create some resentment in your children because they have to do things when they've got other things that they would probably rather be doing.

It is important as a human being, as a parent, to make sure your needs are being met, to make sure you're doing okay. But I think it's easy to fall into the trap of this was my time, or this is about me, I'm dropping them off, or this is when I'm supposed to have them. And the parents make it about them when it's not about them, it's about their child. And that can be a hard reframing, I think.

Yeah. If you have something you need to say, find a way to talk at a different time. Send an email, send a text message, send it through your attorneys, whatever it is. But don't try to resolve issues in front of your children. when it's highly contentious or conflictual.

It's really important to understand it's very normal to have disputes. They're happening in healthy marriages all the time. They're going to happen in a divorce as well, co-parenting. And I think recognizing it is going to happen, you're going to have conflict, you're going to disagree on how to co-parent or different styles of parenting. Maybe creating a set plan for when disagreements arise. How are you going to handle that? Is it good to have A third party involved, a mediator, a trusted family friend, or like you said, some sort of legal mediation involved. But remember, this is going to happen and to let it spontaneously combust in front of your children is failure to plan, a failure to plan for those kind of disagreements to come up.

And it's gonna be hurtful, right? I mean, if we just, the most simple thing, it's going to hurt you, it's going to hurt your children. And then children begin to turn away from both parents because what they're witnessing is a high level of conflict. And we typically, it's not safe. And so I'm going to, I'm going to leave, I might disassociate, or I might not trust either one of you because I've witnessed how angry or upset you are. So it's really important to take into account you're going to have difficult conversations. That's where you talk about the planning. And then the other part of that is if you can't do it together, get that third party.

Yeah.

Because again, they have found that violence in between couples is elevated during divorce proceedings. And so again, just preparing for that high level of conflict, that's a really important thing to do.

Yeah, that's good. That's good advice. I also think it's important to know that your kids are watching everything you do. It is what One of the hardest realities for me as a parent, they're watching what I do, not hearing what I say, but they will learn healthy and unhealthy behavior from you. It's really hard. It's really not easy, but I've heard this said, be the person you want your children to be when they grow up. If you want your children to learn how to speak kindly, to handle conflict well, you're gonna have to learn how to do it yourself. Otherwise your kids will struggle themselves. Yeah.

At some point, we have to develop the relationship skills to go through difficult things. And that's not always easy because sometimes people really hurt us. And our natural defense is to fight back and get angry and. Right. I don't. I'm not going to accept that. And so it's really hard to take a position of, I'm going to be a person who chooses not to hurt another person. I'm going to create boundaries. But what you're not going to see is the anger and the hatred. What you're going to see is somebody who is creating boundaries with kindness. And that's a hard thing to do. And I experienced that, Harvey, right? When I was growing up, my parents are divorcing and there's obviously a reason why my parents are divorcing. At that point, my dad had been unfaithful to my mother and my mother could have easily turned me against my father. It would not have taken too much. to my mom's credit, I will forever, ever be grateful for her, for the way she approached this. She encouraged me to have a relationship with my dad. She encouraged me to contact him if you want to spend time with dad. And so she was extremely supportive of that. When I'm sure it wasn't easy for her, but she encouraged me to maintain a relationship with him and then to his part, ashamed for sure, embarrassed by what's happened. He stood in and still was a parent. he participated, he was active, he was loving, he was there. And so I applaud my parents for the way that they protected me. Now, again, that was me in this. Now, my older brother might not have had that experience.

Right.

But that was my experience.

I'm sure they appreciate how gracious you are towards them. That probably means a lot to them. That goes to our next key point that the language that we use about our ex-spouse How we talk about the people that our children love is really important. I read this recently, what yout Child Wants from Mom and Dad During a Divorce. And a couple key points on language here. When talking about my other parent, please say only kind things or don't say anything at all.

Right?

That rule. If you don't have anything to say that's nice, don't say anything at all. When you say mean unkind things about my other parent, I feel like you are expecting me to take your side and this too. Try to agree on matters related to me. When you fight about me, I think that I did something wrong and I feel guilty. Please communicate directly with each other so that I don't have to send messages back and forth between you. Please support me. This is what you're talking about. Please support me in the time that I spend with each of you. If you act jealous or upset, I feel like I need to take sides and love one another. or love one parent more than the other. And if you really think on how a child loves freely, they are very forgiving, they're very humble, they're very loving, and is a great example for us to watch our children accept love from a parent that may not be perfect and maybe accept their love for that parent that may not be perfect to you in your eyes. But how can we do that? How can we learn to be comfortable and even appreciate a child's unconditional, unearned love?

So before I answer the question, I want to say one thing that I say to all people. If you want to turn your children away from you, criticize your ex-spouse.

That's hard not to do.

Okay. The reason why is children pick up your energy. Yes, you may be hurt. But when we criticize an ex-spouse or as we're going through a divorce, if we are critical, children, they then are, how do I make sense of this? Do I have to choose between the two of you? What if I love both mom and dad? And so as a parent, if you want to create that going back to that environment or that climate, let's say that your child's having a hard time with what your ex-spouse is doing. Mom or dad, they're doing this or this. that feels like it's really hard on you. Would you like to talk more about that? And you're not, oh man, yeah, of course they're that way, right? Man, that sounds like it's hard. Did you get a chance to talk with mom or dad about, no, I don't dare. Well, let's talk about how you could share that with them. And again, if you need me to, I could say, I've had this conversation and I just want to share it with you. So I could do it in a non-attacking way. I might need to help the child have a voice if they're not of the age or they're scared to. I might need to help them have that voice. So there's so much complexity in there, but don't bash your ex spouse in front of your children. That's the general rule. Don't do it. I mean, if you want to turn your children away from you, that's the most effective way to do it.

Really powerful advice. Our children do deserve as much love out there as possible. And so to deny them of any love that's there, whether it's a love that is minimal and it may not feel as vast and as whole, as you want it to be from the other parent, that if there is some form of love there and it's safe, then denying that child of that love may not be as helpful as you think it is.

You know, and Carly, there's something I have to bring up here. There are some times where ex spouses are doing things that are dangerous, that are risky, that are driving drunk or doing things that are really inappropriate. We're not talking about cases like that.

No.

There are times where you're, yes, mama bear or papa bear is going to come out and protect those kiddos. you do that in those situations because putting your child at risk and doing nothing is actually harming them.

Well, and even introducing them into situations or allowing other people into that home that is not safe or they're not familiar or you don't even know that well, it's really important to, yes, make sure that safety comes first for them.

And that's so hard, Carly.

Yeah.

I mean, because in my career, I've seen so many times where people are like, what do I do here? How do I help here? Because I don't want to turn the, I don't know what to say. And my children are coming to me and they're scared or they're afraid to go to mom or dad's place because of XYZ.

Right.

And that's where you probably need to talk with a professional therapist. You might need to get some legal counsel in situations where it's very destructive and hurtful and harmful. And in some situations you might need to call the police because of things that are actually being said or done that are inappropriate. And all All of those things I've seen. Divorce is complex and it's really sticky and ugly and it's hard. And yet there are some people who, even though they have been through this, they do create an environment where their children feel loved and accepted. It can be done. It just requires work.

I would imagine more often than not, the person listening to this podcast is a person that is vying for a great environment of safety and love. and trying desperately to create that for their child. So we are very grateful to people who care, who really do care.

Yeah.

Now, this is an interesting key point. How much to share with our children about our personal relationships. I know the age likely matters here, but I think it may be tempting, especially if you felt you were wronged or if you felt like the other parent is the primary cause of your divorce to easily come out to your children and say, this is what happened. This is why we're getting divorced. How do you have that conversation? I feel like we could do a whole podcast episode on this, but maybe you could give us some key takeaways.

Yeah, it's a great question and there's no way I can answer this in really, I mean, it's very complex. Age of child matters. The reason for the divorce, parents often won't agree on the reason why, what they're telling the children, they both will have their stories. I often say when you go through divorce, you have two different stories. And really it's probably more than that. You have the person who is hurt in some way and is filing for the divorce. You have the other person who is maybe not wanting it, or maybe you have two people wanting the divorce and they're just World War III combat zone fighting and they're gonna have very different stories.

Right.

So what we're communicating to the children, ideally, ideally the children know that it's not their fault. that they are loved, that their parents are committed to creating a safe environment for them, ideally. And yet in many situations, children have questions. In some situations, they already know. In fact, the children understand maybe more than the parents think they know. And so it's important to understand what my child knows, what they don't know. It's important to understand what are we going to communicate. Rarely do we put our children in the weeds of our behaviors. In other words, we're not giving them a ground level mom and dad did this and this and this. That's too much information. And so, generally speaking, you're going to go to a higher level conversation of there are things that have occurred where XYZ has happened and that's leading to the end of our marriage. And so it's not in the detail, it's a broader maybe 10,000 foot view so the children aren't, oh, well mom or dad did this or this. again, you're trying to protect the children. If they, as they get older, they have questions, more information will come out and more information will come out. But age appropriate conversation, don't throw your ex spouse under the bus. If your children say, well, did they do this or did they do this? In, in some situations, it is appropriate to say, yes, that did occur. And that's one of the reasons for divorce.

That's tricky because I imagine just belting out, well, this happened because they did this and this. They broke up this family. That would be my initial response. to something that caused me pain. That is so tricky to not come out and say, I was the one that was hurt by this. They are the problem. They're the ones who did this to all of us. Man, that's hard. I'm probably going to cut this out of the episode, but wow, that is...

But Carly, you're right. You're absolutely right. It's so hard because, I mean, I work along with betrayal trauma.

Right.

And so, yeah, your dad, your mom cheated. oh, okay. So that's very different, right? Children typically are going to understand that.

Right.

But to say, oh, your mom or dad had multiple affairs. Now I'm giving too much information. So again, we're trying to stay at a level where there can be a conversation that's appropriate. And ideally the parents are going to talk about it in front of the children together. We're divorcing and we're going to talk about a shared story. That would be the ideal. Again, I'm talking about ideals. , where we could actually come up with a joint story. And sometimes the person who has created that, the cause of that, if they take accountability and say, look, I've really hurt your mom or dad, and I need to own it through my, because I, of this, we're not gonna, we're not gonna be able to make it. And I feel bad because it hurts you guys too. And that would be a mature person.

Right. And probably unlikely.

I've seen it. I've seen it. And again, it's those types of people. who are growing, even though the relationship is not going to make it. Those individuals are the ones that I say, that person cares about their child. They're not blaming, they're explaining. And so in those situations, I see a maturity.

I like the word maturity here. I think that's something to strive for maturity when we're dealing with these issues. And I think even as you're talking, is it more important for your children to know how you are feeling or is it more important you know how they are feeling? that maybe pick them up either literally or metaphorically ask your child, what are they thinking? What are they feeling? How can we or I be a support to you? I think that might even be more constructive.

Well, and even allowing them to express emotions, you know, here's some of my things, the feelings I have. I'm scared.

Right.

There's a lot of uncertainty. How about you? Or we might turn around and say, you know, this is really hard on all of us. Do you mind, you know, what are some of the things you're going through? And some children are going to talk and some aren't. And we'll often hear, I want to address one thing that's really important. Children will often say, whatever you and dad want or whatever you and mom want. Sometimes parents feel like they're getting authorization. It's okay. Right. Really what's happening there is the child saying, I don't want to make this decision for you. The idea that whatever you want is almost a child's way of saying, okay, but now I've got permission from a child and now I think they're going to be okay. that's a false, erroneous way of thinking. They may be saying that because they don't want to witness the fighting.

Very true.

Right?

So the complexity of this is that the children may be saying one thing and feeling something completely different. They may simply say, I just don't want you guys to fight. So whatever you want, if you have to divorce, divorce. Well, what does that mean to me? What does that mean on weekends? What does that mean on visitation? And what does that mean in how I talk with my friends and what does it mean?

Really hearing, seeing, attuning to them. We talk about this often that we always want to have the right answer. We always want to have the correct response to everything. We want to solve everything. But sometimes the best balm, the best thing we can offer our children is seeing them, hearing them, listening to them, actually hearing what they're saying and feeling what they're saying, being with them, being a witness to what they're experiencing. echoing back to them so they know, I heard you. I can hear you. I can see that this is really painful. In that, there is great healing. That's why you're a therapist. There's healing involved when someone listens and hears.

And if I could add to that, sometimes the children will talk and sometimes they won't have a language for what they're feeling. If my parents had told me, what are you feeling? I wouldn't have had any clue. I was eight.

Right.

And there's no comprehension. But if I look inside in hindsight, I was scared. There were nights in Idaho where the wind would blow and without dad there, it was scary. Those are real experiences, right? So that boy, he felt fear.

Yeah.

But I could not have said, I'm scared, Mom. I'm scared, Dad. Yeah.

Right.

It's not, it's hard not having you here. So they're going to have the emotions, but they're not going to necessarily know how to describe or talk about them. And so sometimes we go back into those core things. They need healthy touch. They need to feel like you care. They need those basic things because the basic needs never, ever go away.

Ever. Not even with age.

Or with divorce.

No. Okay, onto the next last one. We've already touched on it a bit, parenting styles. What if my co-parent parent's so different than me, which is most often the case? I mean, I'm experiencing that all the time in my current marriage. Will we parent differently? We've done podcasts on parenting differences. How do we navigate parental differences? We even had Eric on the podcast and we even got into it a little bit with you. So it's very probable that's going to happen. So what if my co-parent parents so different than me? Is it a good idea for both parents to regularly talk about evolving issues and goals surrounding their children? Basically, should you try to co-parent?

If you can. if you guys can agree on common standards of like we do homework both places, right? We have an expectation of help with dishes. We have commonality. Then the child has a common structure. But rarely are we going to see that because even you say even in the best marriages, you know, we have some differences. But commonality is very helpful. The other part of it is it's okay. They may parent a different way. And we also can say, look, that's good. That's a good learning experience for you. to a child, you're going to see that we have our differences and there's nothing wrong with differences. When you're at my house, this is the structure that I want us to have. And I want to spend time together and I want to have fun. And I also encourage you to do the things that we would normally be doing, homework and tasks. And the truth is you want to have friends over and let's have some friends over. We're going to do the best we can. And this is a critical part to create as much stability as we possibly can. because we know children do much better when there is a common friendships, their friends aren't all of a sudden changed. Ideally, children can stay in the same school district or same schools, so they have similar friends because having to go make new friends on top of going through a divorce, that's not easy. So the research suggests we want to have as much similarity as possible. Some of the best research shows children need stability. through the chaos of a divorce.

When we talk about how can we keep the peace or communicating with less hostility about co-parenting, about our children, maybe the question we ask ourselves, is this more about me? Like you said, we carry on the fight of the divorce into the co-parenting, because that's your touch point still. Is this about our relationship? Is this about me and you, or is this about the child? assistant participating more on social media and their behavior started to shift a little bit, maybe not so much for the positive, or they seem a little more self-conscious, or they seem a little more volatile. And you, as one of the parents, has noticed this. Would it be appropriate to call the other parent and have a discussion about this? This are things I'm picking up. This is what I've been reading. I've listened to this and this podcast. I listened to Carly read and Dr. Skinner's podcast on finding knowable about safe tech use.

Just chewing.

Yes. But what are your thoughts on this? How do we handle this and do that together? Does that ever happen?

Yes. In fact, I just had a conversation a couple of weeks ago where this couple's been divorced for years and they were concerned about one of their children. So what they did is they sat down and they had a conversation about how do we both support? What messages are we sending? So yes, yes. It can be done, but that goes back to the concept that's maturity. I'm more concerned about my child's wellbeing than I'm about the conflict between us.

Yes. Okay. That's well said. I'm, will you repeat that? I'm more concerned about the child's wellbeing than the conflict between us.

Yes.

That's good.

And so moving forward, we're gonna have this conversation and some people are threatened by that. It's like, it hurts. I mean, divorce hurts and I say this and nobody likes it when I say this, but it's generally true. Divorce is something that never truly ends.

Oh, what do you mean by that?

Okay, let's say there's no children. Maybe it could end. But the moment children come into a home, holidays, anniversaries, your children get married, grandchildren are born, activities and events around that, you will almost always, until you die, you will have some kind of interaction. with your ex or former spouse. It's just a reality. So you will be reminded, my parents, when my children have big events or activities, they both are there with their spouses. It's just a reality. Either we're going to learn to do this in a mature way, or we're not going to be able to be in the same place. And so I'm going to miss out on grandchildren's key events because we haven't solved something that's now 10 or 20 or 30 years old. So maturity for the grandchildren and the great grandchildren really matters, Carly.

And that's- Is it ever too late?

No. We don't have to fight. Put down the swords. Yeah, they may have been, again, I was hurt. My mom, like I said, she's just an incredible person. A few years, in fact, a few couple decades after their divorce, my mom bumped into my dad and She said to me, I just feel bad for him.

Wow. Compassion.

The other side of that, 20 plus years after that, my dad pulled my mom aside and apologized for his behaviors. So maturity, yes, you can mature, but you've got to understand why you're doing what you're doing. Why am I carrying this anger, this animosity? That is a level of forgiveness. I need to let this go because it's creating pain in me.

When we talk about the stoic's view or the locus of control, what do I actually have control over? I think grief is holding on to something or feeling pain for something that we wish was different. And that when we have trauma, that's what we experience. We wanted it to be different than what it is, and we're holding on to what was and letting go of what we thought it would be or what our expectations were. is the challenge of a lifetime to be able to move forward in saying, this is where I am now. This is my circumstance. But I think we've heard this before, and this is definitely a stoic's view. Our circumstances don't define our level of happiness, but that it is our perspective, the way we are looking at it, and that there is great healing involved in a variety of mediums to where you can experience happiness once a relationship ends and your children can too, that this isn't the end of happiness. Divorce is not the end of Amen. But it's hard.

You know, there are certain times where, and I'm not an advocate of divorce, but I've seen it at times where it is essential.

Right.

Nevertheless, many people don't have the relationship skills, Carly, that are needed, right? When we grow up in homes where we haven't seen it modeled, then we have to learn how to have healthy relationships. And the greatest gift you actually give your children, at some point, we all have to learn how to have healthy relationships.

Oh, good. That's so good. At some point, we're all gonna have to learn how to have healthy relationships.

So why not now?

Even better. Amen, amen, amen. I have been reading a book called Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. She writes about indigenous belief systems and practices, and she's a botanist. She's talking about the communication between trees, but she says this. If one tree fruits, they all fruit. There are no soloists. Not one tree in a grove, but the whole grove. Not one grove in the forest, but every grove. All across the county and all across the state. The trees act not as individuals, but somehow as a collective. Exactly how they do this, we don't yet know. But what we see is the power of unity. What happens to one, happens to us all. We can starve together. or feast together. All flourishing is mutual. I'm going to repeat that. All flourishing is mutual. And so moving forward, whether you're a child of divorce, you are a parent parenting through divorce, moving forward, finding peace, becoming better as time goes on, believing in a growth mindset, believing that time and practice and progress and love can heal a lot of wounds. and that the end all isn't meant to be a disparate, hungry experience for us or for our family, that we can have a flourishing family to allow all of us to grow even if it looks different than we expected it to be.

I agree a hundred percent.

Did that make sense? Yeah.

So let me add one part here. When we succeed at this, even though it's been difficult, our children are more resilient. When we go through hard things, we realize that we can go through hard things. so even in the process, we're teaching our children, look, this has been very painful and very hard for me. That kind of transparency can be very effective parenting, not bringing them into all of the pain and all the problems, but saying, yes, it's honesty, it's hard. And I'm striving to figure out how to get through this in a better way, because I want you to feel safe and I want you to feel loved. And I'm not going to handle this perfectly. I'm not going to do this exactly the way. But what I need you to know is that you're always loved. if you ever need to talk about a concern or worry, I want to be a place where you can come to at any time. One thing I'm going to commit to you is I'm not going to speak ill of your mom or dad. You might have feelings that you don't like. I'm going to tell you I'm not going to do that. I might be frustrated with them, but I want you to know that's normal. I still, most important, I love you. You matter. Come to me anytime. And I realize that this is going to be a journey over time. It isn't just, we talk about it now in a year or two, there may be other concerns or questions you have. We'll adapt and we're going to adjust because we're going to be strong through this difficult time.

What if you haven't been involved? What if you haven't been a part of your child's life? Or what if you have been volatile? Or what if you have created a lot of contention with your ex-spouse? What can we do?

Mature up. Deal with your stuff, right? Why wasn't I there? Why wasn't I involved? What was happening? , was I so engaged in whatever it may be work or my own self that I didn't see this beautiful thing that I've brought into this earth and given them the love that they deserve. So own it. You know, you may say to your child, I haven't always been there. I, in fact, I've struggled and I need to acknowledge that you deserve better from me. That's a humbleness.

That's powerful for a child to hear.

That is a humbleness and being humble matters.

I think a parent would fear, I've stayed away too long, I've already messed this up. There's no way my child's going to be able to heal from all the wrongs that I've done or the way I've handled this hasn't been perfect. Will my child be able to heal? Will this breach be repaired? Can I do this differently moving forward? And will that even matter if I shift now or is it too late?

If you think it's too late, that's on you right now. No, the answer to the question is it's never too late. There was a great book many years ago written by Judith Wallerstein and it's called the Unexpected Legacy of Divorce. In the early 70s, there was a 1973 California passed the first laws, what they call a no-fault divorce. And after that, the divorce rate increased significantly because people were no longer listing the reasons for the divorce. And it is almost like a escalation. So 1979-1981 the divorce rates were probably the highest that they've been in the United States of America. So 79-81 and she said, in essence, I'm not sure that the children are going to be okay. And everyone said, well, if the parents are happy, the children are going to be okay. And she rose her hand and said, give me some funding and let's prove what you're saying. So she tracked over 100 families for 25 years. And she wrote five years, the children aren't doing as well as we anticipated, you know, 10 years, they're still struggling, 15, 20. Now she's looked at a generation of what happened to these children of divorce, their relationships, their families, their parenting. And one of the common themes, and this is fascinating, after a divorce, it's not uncommon for the parents and the child to kind of diverge and go in separate connecting ways. And so there's not as much connection as there originally was. But what she found in many cases of those 100, they actually came back into a connection, even with some cases where there was no connection, there was no bonding. In fact, some cases, abuse and neglect that some of those children and their parent reconnected. It's never too late. And that's based upon real life anecdotal stories that were researched by Judith Wallerstein.

It's beautiful. So beautiful. It's never too late.

And even in my own life, my dad, after what happened, he pulled me aside and he acknowledged it and he said, son, I'm sorry. So I don't care how old you are. If you own it, your children will listen. At least they may not want to come closer. They may be frustrated, they may be angry, and they might not initially come towards you, but you Do your part to make reconciliation and make amends for the pain you've created.

That's a very vulnerable thing to do, and it's hard to directly go towards the pain. I think it's really easy to move in a direction that feels like it's forward without acknowledging what's happened. I think a lot of us are guilty of doing that. Like, we're okay, right? Everybody's okay. Everybody seems to be okay when there could be a lot of resentment that's been stirring underneath. A family foundation, but to be able to go to the pain, to the root of the pain, and to say, I'm sorry for this pain that you experience by something that I may have done or not done through neglect. That's hard to do. It takes courage, but it goes a long way for them to feel validated.

Absolutely. Ultimately, at the end of the day, going back to the question, it's never too late. And if you feel like you've let your children down, It's okay to say, this is something that I regret. I feel bad that you've had to go through this. Acknowledge their pain, acknowledge their fears, acknowledge their worries, and let them know that.

You care and you love and you support them. I like that word acknowledge. Acknowledge all those things. Yeah.

That's relationship skills, relationship building. Yes.

We need better relationship skills. Okay. Well, thank you so much for being with us today, Dr. Skinner.

Is there anything you want to add before we wrap up? no other than if something that we've said today makes you feel like you're a failure or that you're not enough or you're not good enough, just know that we care and we believe in you and you can make a difference in your child's life. Even if you feel guilty or embarrassed or ashamed, you know what? Your children, they need you and our society needs you.

Going back to that earlier quote, you are your children's best chance for making it to the other side of this big family change and being okay.

Yeah.

But you being there, you, not some outside source, but you might be the best hope that they have. So yes, we believe in you. That's beautiful, Dr. Skinner. Thank you.

You're welcome, and man of what an interesting topic. Not easy.

Not easy. Not easy at all. Hope we did okay covering it today.

That's the hope.

You'Ve been listening to finding Noble. I'm Carly Redd. Follow finding Noble on all available podcast directories and find out more on our website findingnoble.com. that's findingnoble n o b l e.com and if you or anyone close to you are looking for further resources on young adult and adolescent mental health, Dr. Skinner and a host of other leading professionals working in the mental health world, share courses and even answer your questions all on parentguidance.org that is parentguidance.org brought to you by the Cook Center for Human Connection.