You just pulled an official looking manilla envelope from your mailbox, opened it and found your signed and sealed divorce decree.  "Is it really over?" you wonder.  The married part is but if you have children there is still work ahead.

Or, maybe, you were divorced six years . Everything went pretty smoothly until your oldest hit 15. Your coparent has completely different views on your child learning to drive, receiving a car, going to college on the opposite coast .....cooperative coparenting has become a mystery or a misery.

There is a minute chance that you and your coparent are each other's favorite person, although such coparent teams do exist. You don't have to adore each other to coparent in a way that is healthy for you and your kids.

The following quotes are drawn from my files of coparents with whom I worked. These are quotes from regular people who do not consider their coparent a great friend but do believe they have a healthy coparening relationship. I asked...

Anxiety is a common childhood mental disorder. Nearly 1 in 3 children suffer from anxiety.  During the teen-age years, nearly 1 in 3 adolescents will suffer from anxiety.

Anxiety makes normal things and seemingly regular days hard for children. 

When being coparented, especially in the beginning days, week-days and week-ends tend to feel abnormal, thereby making the transition to their new home situation even harder.  On top of that, children may be simultaneously undergoing other intense transitions such as a new home, beginning school, moving into a new school, or beginning puberty. The cumulative impact of multiple transitions also contributes to anxiety.

Enlightened CoParenting includes specific steps to minimize anxiety through developing a parenting plan that provides children with ease in daily living, parenting communication that models healthy conflict resolution, and emotion focused parenting which promotes emotional health and increased cognitive capacity...

Dr. Jodi Peary joins me to discuss Supporting Families Through Divorce. As a psychologist and former family lawyer, Dr. Jodi shares her thoughts on how to navigate the complexities of divorce, ways to lessen the impact on families and help people become enlightened co-parents. Dr. Jodi opens up about what her own relationships taught her about marriage and divorce.

Dr. Jodi Peary is a psychologist and former family lawyer who helps individuals and families emerge from divorce happy and whole and helps them to co-parent in a way that promotes the well-being of all family members.

Highlights

How to handle high conflict co-parenting sessions
Answering the Question “are we messing up our children”
How to share news of a separation/divorce with children
How Dr. Jodi’s own experiences shaped her understanding of divorce
The impact of the extended family on the divorce
Using rituals to help children navigate divorce

Dr. Jodi’s programs Breakup to Brilliance and Empowered...

The impact of destructive conflict between coparents on children differs in relation to what the conflicts are about.

Research studies have found that conflicts between coparents about finances and those about parenting time have the greatest negative impact on children.

Why does financial conflict have a disproportionally greater negative impact on children?

Divorce is, in many cases, extremely financially costly.

The cost of divorce forces many families to make financial readjustments. Some will experience serious financial consequences.  Parents may believe their financial well-being is threatened. The economic impacts of divorce may significantly increase stress and emotional distress of parents leading to high levels of conflict between parents of the kind that children are aware.

Children experience the parent's stress and conflict together with the concrete ways family economic circumstances are changing. Together, this kind of conflict tends to have...

Ideas about Marriage were passed down to us from the generations of family before us. 

Some say divorce is a sign of failure, or being a quitter, a lack of commitment and courage.  

You know that is not true. 

Divorce does not mean failure. 

 CoParenting does not mean an unhappy childhood. 

Enlightened CoParenting is a method that enables you and your children to emerge from divorce happy and whole.

Self-Esteem is one ingredient we can increase in children to contribute to their well-being.  While it is just one element it is an important one.  That is why I created this FREE resource: Promoting Positive Self-Esteem In Children After Divorce Packet and Journal. Do check it out because it includes simple strategies to start making a difference in your child's life today.

Many different things have brought you to this crossroads  

A holistic understanding of our lives over time...

Calling all parents!

What if you had a coparenting blueprint that helped your children emerge from divorce with confidence!?

That’s exactly what Promoting Positive Self-Esteem In Children - a FREE guide - is designed to do.

As a psychologist and former family law attorney, I have spent two decades working with individuals and families to help them emerge from divorce happy and whole.

And I am also all too familiar with the effects that negative self-esteem can have on a developing child. 

In this FREE guide, it is my mission to help parents everywhere raise happy, healthy and confident children with loving guidance.

For parents considering, going through, or who have already divorced, this guide can help you  discover:

How self-esteem plays a role in childhood 

How their self-esteem influences their choices and relationships later in life

A comprehensive strategy including 8 Steps you should take to help your...

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,...

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...