Most separating and divorcing parents maintain safe, healthy, and positive relationships with their children.This is also true in families where parents have never resided together. However, this is not the case for a small percentage of families. There is a risk to children when parents have polarized perspectives on parenting, particularly when polarized perspectives lead to parent-child contact problems.

Children are at greater risk when family law professionals and others echo and intensify the polarization within the family.

Children also respond in a very different ways to animosity between parents. When considering the child's behavior when assessing conflict between parents, their behavior should be considered in the context of what is normal for a child’s age, developmental stage, and the family socio-cultural-religious norms.

Very often children act out and their behavior is an expectable, adaptive reaction to stress or change.

Children should have the opportunity to...

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...

Five simple mindfulness practices that you can employ today to shift from high-conflict to Enlightened CoParenting:

1. Remain attuned to subtle changes in your children’s behavior.

Responding to a highly emotional child with patience is much easier to do when a child is not completely overwhelmed by what is bothering them.

By noticing subtle changes in your child’s behavior you gain the opportunity to address the challenges your child is experiencing before those challenges become overwhelming to them. 

When problems feel approachable to children and approachable to us we are better situated to solve them with less anxiety along the way.

2.Take the time and make space for learning how your child is perceiving the many changes that separation and divorce brings. 

Doing so builds our empathy muscle.

Even if you are facing the lengthy to-do list your lawyer gave you, trying to translate  financial information, or engaging confronting other legal...

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...