Speaker 1: 0:00

What are some of the risks of engaging in reconciliation counseling? Because I can imagine parents saying what do you mean risk Like I'm not seeing my kid? There's no risk to me starting to see my kid, but that's not true.

Speaker 2: 0:12

Now they assume that it couldn't get worse.

Speaker 1: 0:15

Right.

Speaker 2: 0:16

But it can.

Speaker 1: 0:17

It can get very, very much worse.

Speaker 2: 0:19

And for both sides. I mean the parent can get their feelings really hurt, the estranged parent, the child can become hurt all over again, sometimes in the same basic ways, by observing the parent getting very angry or speaking to them in a mean sort of way, calling them names. All of this, yes, in front of me, putting down the other parent, putting down people in the other side's extended family or even in that parent's family that the parent may be estranged from, because many times an estranged parent is also estranged from their extended family and the child may be continuing to have a relationship with those people like their grandparents, and frequently that is credited to the parent that has custody of them and has been allowing continued access to the child while the parent was incarcerated or whatever. So the child doesn't want to hear negative, pretty much anything bad you think about any of those people.

Speaker 1: 1:46

Right. So the parent who's coming into the reconciliation counseling has to be ready to do well has to be ready to succeed, kind of like before your kid starts kindergarten. They need to know their colors. You know their address, needs to know something about their letters and numbers shapes like. You need to know some of the basics so that you can get in and be ready to make some progress.

Speaker 2: 2:12

And while I want to do a little bit of coaching with them, I also don't want to give them a script to follow. I want to know how they're really going to act with that child when they're along with that child someday, if that's our goal.

Speaker 1: 2:33

Right.

Speaker 2: 2:34

So you know, sometimes it's kind of like. You know, these people have at least slept through the Helping Kids Cope with Divorce class. They may have had individual counseling for it or individual counseling for something, or a class they took in something like anger management or whatever, but they continue to show that they're not ready during a session.

Speaker 1: 3:07

Right. So, as an attorney who is trying to get people ready for reconciliation counseling, it comes into a number of categories. So one they have to be financially ready, because it's an expensive process and typically the estranged parent is the one who's going to bear the brunt of the cost, at least initially. It can be subject to reallocation by the court if something extraordinary comes out that shows that wasn't actually their fault, that it was shared, or the other parents fault. I mean that could be the case. But you have to be ready to to make the payments to have the sessions, because professionals don't work for free and they shouldn't. And it's important to be able to have sessions with some sort of regularity and hopefully quickly, because when you're making progress you want to keep making progress.

Speaker 2: 4:02

And I don't want you to stay at the stage where you've got to have me involved in your relationship for very long. I really don't. I try to work myself out of a job.

Speaker 1: 4:12

Right and you mentioned individual counseling. So let's assume that the estranged parent is properly estranged for their own conduct. Then that usually falls into a number of categories Either they have been just not present, so they need to show that they're stable and willing to be present and consistent with the process. You know they may have drug or alcohol issues. They need to have that under control to an extent where you can feel comfortable that they can participate safely in the process. You know if there's been domestic violence they need to have owned up to it and to have gone through sufficient training.

Speaker 1: 4:47

Whether you know, if it's an anger management issue, anger management training but if it's course of control, which is really more what we're thinking about with abuse, they need to be involved in something like what we have in Oklahoma, the 52-week batterer's intervention, which teaches not anger management so much but communication skills and compassion and seeing things from the other person's perspective. So they need to have fixed themselves as much as they can so that as the estranged parent they can come into the process, be vulnerable, be open to being wrong. Vulnerable, be open to being wrong, be ready to take in what they may perceive as an unwarranted attack from their child without responding in kind, which is one of the biggest pitfalls, I think.

Speaker 2: 5:36

Yes, I mean even sitting in, because I actually used to facilitate the Domestic Violence Intervention Services Men's Program and even sitting in that group where you have other people who have been judged to have had the same issues and having those guys trigger things with you on purpose is not as bad as when your adolescent triggers you.

Speaker 1: 6:10

Right, right, because it's a flat know how to do it. Right and it hits at the core of your self-esteem issues, which probably is a big component in what you've been doing wrong in the first place. So you feel doubly like a failure and have to sit there and take that from your kid and have this lady, who's appointed by the court, who's going to rat you out to the court if you do something wrong.

Speaker 1: 6:36

you know that's the perspective right so the risks are coming in unprepared. Because what happens, linda, if you come in and you're not ready and you're saying things negative to your kid, or you're coming in and you've got you smell like alcohol or you know you don't absorb your kids, maybe unjustified attack, you lash back out at them. What happens to the process and what happens to the chances for a successful reconciliation if that occurs?

Speaker 2: 7:05

Well, most of the time, if it's been that blatant, the child tells me when I talk to them after I've taken them away from that parent into a different room or I set the parent off doxy and I've talked to the child by themselves. It's, the child is done and they know I have witnessed why, witnessed why, and typically the parent may just distance themselves from the process because they get it how badly they behaved or they are embarrassed and don't want to come back and show their face and hopefully I usually don't find out the rest of the story but hopefully they will go get help for themselves so that they do not continue to offend the child even as an adult someday. I mean, if that child comes around and I have heard those kinds of stories from people I run into at Home Depot or Walmart that will let me know that their child is an adult now and they have looked up that parent and went by to see them maybe and might not have stayed long because something happened again.

Speaker 1: 8:35

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 8:37

So it's going to be literally up to that estranged parent for the rest of their lives how they behave and whether or not that child will allow them to be a part of their life part of their life.

Speaker 1: 9:00

Yeah, the image that comes to my head is you have this fire pit right in the back of your house and you spend all this time getting good wood, getting the tender, getting the kindling, sending it all up. Maybe even you got stuff for s'mores, you got some music ready to play and you take the matches that you're going to use to reignite that relationship with your kid to light that fire in the fire pit and enjoy your time and you just dump a bucket of water. Right, you can set the table all you want, but it doesn't help if you're just going to dampen any enthusiasm or desire to reignite the relationship. Right, I want s'mores. I know I shouldn s'mores.

Speaker 2: 9:36

I know.

Speaker 1: 9:37

I shouldn't have said it. I need to go eat something really bad.

Speaker 2: 9:43

Well, and also you know they've paid a lot to get to that point, to work up to that point, right To get to that point, to work up to that point, and many times it's. You know when they're calling the other parent names or when they're calling the child a liar because they have a different perspective than the parent does. Or maybe the parent was inebriated or high so badly that they don't even remember something that happened, but the child definitely does. They're calling a child a liar because their memory's better, there's no going back. And you just yeah, you dumped water all over the matches, that's for sure.

Speaker 1: 10:39

So that's why you know, from the attorney perspective, some clients you just can't manage. They're unmanageable, but that's a very small percentage. Most of the clients in my experience who are willing to have the conversation with you, even if they have a really bad track record, if they're willing to have the conversation, that's a huge step for them and they're willing to take direction. They just have to be given enough feedback to understand that they're not ready and that they can't because they want to start right away.

Speaker 1: 11:14

And I've had situations where I've got a client who wanted to start right away and the other parent was trying to make it seem like they didn't care because they weren't starting right away.

Speaker 1: 11:24

And then that's when you have to explain as the attorney to the gal or to the judge judge, this person wants nothing more than a start right away, but the only thing they want more than starting right away is for it to be successful. And if they're going to be successful, they need to do these things first and that's what they're doing. So having the attorney who can understand that, and to communicate with the client and communicate with the court and the opposing counsel, whoever, to make sure that everyone's on the same page and that everyone's ready before we start the process. I think that's critical to the success in some of these more difficult reconciliation counseling cases, because you need a partner to help get this estranged parent through the process successfully Right. To help get this estranged parent through the process successfully Right, because they only see you like an hour at a time every other week or so, but they're going to have a lot more contact with their attorney potentially.

Speaker 2: 12:21

Right and, as an attorney, if your client can't be appropriate with you, whether talking about their ex or whether talking about I mean they're just being pushy or demanding or whatever, they're letting fly all sorts of colorful language and stuff like that, I mean you've got to talk to them about what that's going to look like in front of their child. You know, because I have been very surprised in some situations, for good or bad. You know some parents that I'm like I don't know, I've heard about them from trusted colleagues and even a little bit scared of them, you know. But then, in front of me and with their child, they've just been beautifully well-behaved and done everything the child needed.

Speaker 1: 13:22

That's the goal.

Speaker 2: 13:24

Yes.

Speaker 1: 13:25

And then it's partly it's a fake, it till you make it kind of deal. You know, once you start, and when you act that way, when you act better and you're getting some positive feedback from the counselor, positive feedback from the kid, then that reinforcement makes you more likely to continue.

Speaker 2: 13:45

Right.

Speaker 1: 13:46

But you have to even just fake it till you make it. I mean, I've told that to many clients.

Speaker 2: 13:52

Right.

Speaker 1: 13:52

You know, you just have to go in there and picture the person that you think is the most calming, soothing, comforting person that you know. How would they respond? Just try to respond like they would, even if you feel like you're being attacked. Just let it pass right over you attacked. Just let it pass right over you, and then eventually, some of them. I think it becomes habit.

Speaker 2: 14:16

It becomes easy. And, more than anything, just show empathy, for the child especially, but even for the favorite parent, you know just if you act like it's a competition and you're going to try to say it's all the favored parent's fault that you haven't seen them in three years or something, the child's not going to believe it. The child's not going to agree with you. The child is not going to start hating the favorite parent because you said so. You have no credibility with them. They have no trust for you. So all you've done is re-offended the child.

Speaker 1: 15:03

And it's better. This is the way that I ultimately sometimes explain it to folks. It's better to wait six months to a year to get yourself in check and to miss that six months or a year feeling like a real parent in your child's life, to give yourself the best chance of having a good relationship with that child for the next 50 years. Right, it's a loss, leader. It's a good investment, right.