Speaker 1: 0:01

All right, everybody, welcome. We are today in the second part of our two-part series with Connie Leblanc, a therapist, co-parenting counselor, parenting coordinator, bringer of the. What kind of cake is that? Cake Bringer of the King, Cake all the way from Louisiana and Linda's best friend.

Speaker 2: 0:21

It's Marty Grott. I'm in Louisiana, so she brought a little bit of that to us.

Speaker 1: 0:25

And we've already eaten half of the cake and it's been like two hours.

Speaker 2: 0:30

Yeah, and she brought me one at my house. It's probably three-fourths of the weight.

Speaker 1: 0:34

So you know, she just got here on Thursday. So, All right. Well, today we are going to continue our conversation with Connie, and today what we're going to focus on is, generally speaking, how she conducts co-parenting counseling and some of the biggest mistakes that she sees co-parents making and how she's tried to help them over the years, and you'll get some specific nuggets that might be good takeaways for you as you're trying to deal with your co-parenting issues as well. So, connie, welcome back.

Speaker 3: 1:04

Thank you, thank you.

Speaker 2: 1:06

I expect that last time we talked to her, it seemed to have more of the legal differences in the two jurisdictions, but I think today's is going to maybe highlight how many things are similar, no matter where you live and what you do. You know and that's that's one of my, my favorite takeaways from the AFCC conferences is it doesn't matter where in the world you are working with parents and children. They still have the same issues, it seems like so for sure.

Speaker 1: 1:38

So, connie, talk with us about how you do co-parenting counseling. How do you make that work?

Speaker 3: 1:45

Well, what I like to do is have a two hour session with the people each of each of the parties, as I said last time where they can bring whatever, whoever they want to be in there to help me to understand the past, and during that time, often I am encountering a really intelligent human being who handles their emotions well, or reasonably well, and then I put them together and it's like this is the limbic brain goes crazy and they can't. They can't be around each other and you know the stuff that I've learned is you know smells and every sense can be triggered by being in the same room with someone who you are in a divorce situation with. So I do keep them separated in the waiting room as much as possible. They know they have to come in, they have to divide the cost of the session, which usually drives them crazy, but it's okay. They each pay equally and they take turns being the first or the second. Each time, you know, you bring up the first issue. This is what's going on for me, and we try to work through all of the issues that are there and and what I find is I do work when, when.

Speaker 3: 3:07

So much so what do you need? What do you need? How can we bring it together? How can we give you the most of what you want and you have the most of what you want. And to stop thinking I've got to be the only one there. But it takes an empathy with somebody you really don't like and that becomes difficult, and someone who is treated you badly and you just know they're going to treat your child badly and that's not necessarily the case. You know, I bring that out so much just because this has happened with you. It's a very different relationship between father and child or mother and child.

Speaker 2: 3:49

I never thought about it quite like that. That. Yes, the difference in the relationship and it's hard to to have the parents separate their own relationship issues with that other adult From that other adult how they're going to treat the child. But there is many times an assumption that if you treated me badly, you're going to treat my child badly. That's why we hear a lot of parents say I, I'm just trying to protect my child.

Speaker 1: 4:16

Well, that's why I think it's the labels are so bad. You know, it's always that my ex husband was a narcissist or is a narcissist and my ex wife is bipolar or borderline, or borderline personality disorder, and because when you label the person with that, then that means that no matter what relationship they're going to have, they're going to have the same behaviors with the person with whom they're interacting, which is not necessarily true. And we know that only one to two percent of the population is narcissists. So we know that, unless there's a huge self selection issue where the only ones we see are all of the narcissists.

Speaker 2: 4:51

Is that recent?

Speaker 1: 4:55

Maybe it's for. Maybe it's doubled over time.

Speaker 3: 4:57

I remember the first day of CC conference. They said only 20 to 25 percent of divorces are contentious and I went oh my God.

Speaker 1: 5:07

I see every one of them, you know it becomes this Are you sure that's all?

Speaker 3: 5:12

Can't be the case.

Speaker 1: 5:14

Right, but I think the labels make it easy to other the other person and then say well, I know what they're going to be like with someone else, because that's what they are. They're that label.

Speaker 3: 5:24

Well, I won't allow them in my office to call them my ex. I've read Isabella Harishi I think it's her name, we'll need to find that out but she talked about in mom's house, dad's house, where she said that you only referred to them is my child's father, or my daughter's father, or my daughter's mother. And in fact I worked with a gentleman this past week. He really was having trouble with saying my kid's mom, he's just so angry with all of the court issues. But then when you make them do it, you're not going to address each other that way. You will use a certain tone that's appropriate. That's the beginning of the teaching, so that at some point they're going to get this and they can work with each other.

Speaker 1: 6:14

I do that too, and sometimes it feels awkward. But even in my emails to attorneys from the Guardian and Lada, I'll say, well, mom's position is this, dad's position is this, and those are the labels that I use. And when I'm meeting with them and talking with mom I'll say, well, dad has this concern, and just because I think it immediately softens it and forces you to recalibrate a little bit, 27 years post-divorce and a 48-year-old daughter, and I still refer to her father as my daughter's father.

Speaker 3: 6:45

You come from a place of how your kids feel when you say this. That's the thing that I keep bringing out. What are your kids feeling like when you say this? How would they like it if you were nasty to their father or their mother? And it makes a big difference. So that sets the core for everything that I mean. I will correct semantics all the time when they're arguing with each other and I think that helps to humanize the other person. The other thing I say a lot is to say you're right, I see it this way, You're right into your position, but I see it this way. Or talking using I statements, all those things, to get people to say things different and view the other parent in a different way.

Speaker 2: 7:37

I think from the child's perspective, Instead of saying you with your finger pointed across the table.

Speaker 3: 7:43

Being able to say this is what I think. I think this, and it falls apart sometimes, but it's still.

Speaker 1: 7:52

So can I practice one of those? So I think my ex is a narcissist. Does that work? No, or.

Speaker 2: 8:02

I feel, that you're an idiot, doesn't?

Speaker 3: 8:04

work either. It goes. I feel, when you do this, I feel this way and what I'd like is to ask for what you need. The other thing is I say you can ask for what you need, but it's not necessarily going to be a yes answer. So you ask for it. You really ask for proposals and counter proposals. And how do you do this? And trying to help them to see that there's a way to work through a really kind of simple solution about who's going to pick up the kids?

Speaker 1: 8:43

Are you thinking what I'm thinking? So in our co-parent academy we have our conflict resolution course, and it is essentially the thumbnail of it is figure out what's upsetting you and why, think about what else could be true, communicate to your part, to your co-parent, what is that you need, and then, once you get the response back, make a decision and take action. And so that's basically our conflict resolution process, and it's just exactly what you just said.

Speaker 2: 9:13

It's my messages. It's really good way to communicate instead of at all Nothing about that. Even the way he was talking about that just then, coming out of a man's voice, it didn't sound the least bit adversarial or aggressive or anything like that. There's just not space for that.

Speaker 3: 9:38

Another thing I felt was really important is you are responsible for your representatives. So if you allow, if you allow somebody to go pick up your child and that person curses, misbehaves, mother out or father out, then you're responsible for it. Well, I can't help it. She did it. You know what? The one that I'm thinking about is a mother who went to a wedding and made awful behavior over a child and embarrassed the child. You're responsible for your representatives, whoever you have there.

Speaker 1: 10:20

Very good point, because you can't control their action in the moment, but you control their access to the child.

Speaker 2: 10:24

Yes, so sometimes I even get the idea I don't know where I would that, as some parents have been so almost threatened by the court or maybe their own attorneys, not to talk badly about the other parent, but everybody else can lay it on thick, you know. And so that's another thing. I used to appreciate that Jerry would do as a PC, would you know? Many times he would send a grandparent or the aunt not go or somebody to if you want anything to do with this child again, like he had the control over that. But yeah, if you want anything to do this time again you will be going to so and so for some therapy about what this means, because you don't seem to get it.

Speaker 1: 11:11

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Speaker 3: 11:28

There's a lot of extended family living in Louisiana and often grandparents raising children, which can open a whole new kind of fish, because it does around here too. You know, the mother all of a sudden doesn't like her parents anymore and the kids are caught in the middle of all of it. But they've got to be accountable for their behavior, and when you shrug your shoulders and say it's not my fault would yeah, then don't put that child near that situation again.

Speaker 1: 12:04

So I know that you also have taught the, like the introductory, helping children cope with divorce kind of class. What were some of the most important things you think parents could learn when they're just getting into the divorce and separation process?

Speaker 3: 12:21

Well, I think the stages of grief was a big part of it being able to talk about where you are in that process and that realize it is grief Exactly. I used to do disability work and I talked about people grieving the loss of function. We can't walk anymore, so you lose function, can't see anymore. So there's ways to show and introduce the grief part of it and we have to deal with that and I think it just becomes over the years as I went through I was teaching it.

Speaker 3: 12:54

At the same time I was going through divorce myself and realized how interesting it was, was how different I taught the course as I went around to it. You know I became more and more in different stages of acceptance. So when you teach the stages of grief, then we go through different stages of acceptance and we get better at it and better at it and better at it. It's challenging, it's a challenging time, but I think you got to keep this kid Number one. You know my daughter still is number one in things sometimes, you know, but she is number one with everything.

Speaker 1: 13:33

That when I thought about how I should handle things, what holiday should be, what anything was, Well, and that's tough because the stages of grief aren't just all you know, they're not nice Like. They're difficult stages and some of them can be volatile, and so that can be a real difficulty when you're dealing with co-parenting and you're in a stage of the grieving process that has you very angry.

Speaker 3: 13:59

Or I think even denial is awful because this isn't really happening to me. She or he is going to come back and fix the lawnmower or cook a meal or do any of those things. You're in terrible denial that this is really happening, that I won't really be able to see my kids every day, that there'll be someplace else and you know I can't control this anymore. I mean, there's so much, I think, in denial that's almost as bad as going into the anger part of it.

Speaker 2: 14:36

And even you know we've talked about this ourselves before that not everyone is in the same stage at the same time, which is really a problem. And then you know as many people as there are in the family there could be that many different stages happening at the same time, and usually the person, the parent, who wanted out of the relationship may be ahead of everybody else in the stages of grief. Everybody's looking at them like what You're already wanting to date again, and we just found out yesterday it feels like you know, so it's really. And then you put together with that the ages and stages of development and all that with the kids, and, oh my goodness, we're all over the book, you know, with what's going on.

Speaker 3: 15:20

Children have so much different like different and different ways of expressing grief. I mean one of the things is that they feel safe at your house, that you'll get a lot more hell from their anger than you will because they can't go to the other house and express their anger. So they come back to your place mad and frustrated and can't do things and you think you've got to behave or you've got to obey me or whatever. I think understanding our kids do stages of grief as well is really really important.

Speaker 1: 15:51

And we talk about that a lot too that kids are gonna be more likely to hurt the ones than it will forgive them.

Speaker 2: 15:56

Yeah, what they feel the most comfortable with, not the one they feel the most emotionally distant from.

Speaker 1: 16:02

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 16:04

Hmm.

Speaker 3: 16:06

I've got twin boys that I'm seeing for something else, but they look so much alike but their approach to things are so different and I think that even with twins it's just different.

Speaker 1: 16:20

And are they identical?

Speaker 3: 16:22

Yes, Wow, they are amazingly identical, but one of them is much more sensitive. One of them comes. He comes across as a bully, but he's really more sensitive. We're working towards. Yeah, very interesting.

Speaker 2: 16:36

One of my favorite things that I learned from Connie a long time ago, when she was just describing how she did the co-parenting, or PC work. It's something I want you to talk about now.

Speaker 3: 16:50

Well, at the first appointment, when I'm meeting with them individually, I ask for a picture of their child and they can bring each of them can bring that and every time we meet the pictures of their children are facing them so that the person who's important in this process, other kids and I think it helps. I hope it does he had a visceral reaction to the dentist.

Speaker 2: 17:17

That's powerful, yeah.

Speaker 3: 17:19

And so I'm. Even. When they get really ugly, I'll poke my finger on the kid's picture Because they got to. I mean, they're hurting themselves, yes, but the kids don't deserve to be treated any differently. And so their pictures are there to say look at this.

Speaker 2: 17:39

And when they get so caught up in their own little tiny thing that is so important they think right, then it just really resets, I think, where the focus needs to be.

Speaker 3: 17:48

It's really sometimes interesting what the pictures are like. I try to just get at the pictures of the kids, but sometimes I get the new step brothers or sisters or the new step mother or father. Yeah, don't let those come in, because that doesn't. That keeps that thing.

Speaker 1: 18:08

Do you just put that right off?

Speaker 3: 18:10

No.

Speaker 1: 18:10

I suggest they bring another picture. We'll try to get this picture before we get started. No another picture please.

Speaker 3: 18:16

But yeah, I think it's just. You've got to go back to the source of why we're here. We're not here to. It is true that we're here to solve practical problems, but yeah.

Speaker 1: 18:32

Well, refocusing on the best way to set the children, if you can agree on what is in their best interest, is the best way to avoid some of those problems. I suppose Right. The problem is, difficulty comes in when they both, in good faith, wholeheartedly disagree about what's in a child's best interest. Yes, and they both have good points to support their position and it's just maybe a toss up sometimes.

Speaker 3: 18:55

Well, doctors, that can be a big thing with doctors so often. I would propose an alternate, like, for instance if we want to pick a doctor, each of you bring the names of three doctors and I pray that somebody is on both lists.

Speaker 3: 19:12

Sometimes I get lucky. So you're putting out possibilities to try to help them to get what you've got to do, to get this thing to work deciding whether a step parent can come to the exchange, because what I've learned, or what I believe, is the exchanges are one of the most challenging times for kids. Oh my goodness, yes, and so they go through so much with that exchange and so it's so hard. One time nobody told me that there was going to be an issue with the exchanges. So I mapped out the parking lot and I said you park here and you park here and you don't say anything to each other. This was a child in arms, maybe two, and not to say anything to the kid. And they exchanged the child and the little girl just waved a little bit to her daddy and mama went crazy. I'm going to tell Connie LeBlanc that. And it was just oh what. This little baby just wanted to go from one house to the other peacefully.

Speaker 2: 20:30

Yeah, so yeah, he's got a great way. He describes how the exchange ought to be. A little summary.

Speaker 1: 20:39

Yeah, so In our Visitation Transfers course we talk about how this station should be short, efficient and unmemorable.

Speaker 2: 20:47

I love it unmemorable. I do too. That's wonderful.

Speaker 1: 20:51

And then especially for the younger kids. We described it as trying to create sort of a nurturing bridge between the two households. The idea is to nurture the child as you go from one household to the next, with nothing that would interfere with them feeling nurtured in the process.

Speaker 3: 21:05

I also add that let the child that's coming to you have time to get the suitcases unpacked, to be there, to let them feel sad that they're leaving the other parents home. And also one of the strong things we taught in the Children's Coat with Divorce was not to ask did you have a good time? No questions, Not even that, no questions. So yeah, that was a big thing, I think the exchanges.

Speaker 1: 21:34

Yeah, another thing we have in our course about exchanges is what we call the long goodbye, that long goodbye when you're going from one to the other, and so I don't know how you like to do it. We like to say that long goodbye should happen, or shouldn't be a long goodbye, but your goodbye should happen before you get into the car, yes, at the place where you're leaving. That way, once you're in the car, it's only happy, put on happy music. You're not talking about anything sad, and it's just a happy, fun time that the kid maybe looks forward to.

Speaker 2: 22:03

Exactly.

Speaker 1: 22:03

They get to play their music or whatever it is.

Speaker 2: 22:05

We need the joy song every time, that's right?

Speaker 1: 22:07

Yes, we do. I've told people this before. I once had the occasion to be in Chicago and I had dinner with three ladies, each of whom was a little bit older than I was, each of whom was a therapist, and I never felt more affirmed in my entire life.

Speaker 2: 22:26

We were all old enough to be his mother. Well, I was trying not to say that much. Each of us was Not collectively, but each of us.

Speaker 1: 22:36

But I would say that just spending the time with Connie and Luna today is amazing. I'm very grateful and I hope you, listening to our podcast, have gotten just even a touch of the warmth that is in this room. I get to feel. So thank you to Connie for joining us today. We're going to miss her when she goes back home and thank her for sharing all of her knowledge and experience with us. So hope you have a wonderful week, connie. I hope you have a great trip back. Thank you and we will see you all soon. Bye.