Supporting Children Through Family Transitions w. Dr. Christina Wise

[00:00:00] One of the things that happens in high conflict relationships and then the aftermath of our kiddos, who are also in family ruptures, is that boundaries are not held and are also not modeled

[00:00:14] in appropriate ways. And so I will work with kiddos on recognizing that there's only so much that they can control. Welcome to AwakenHer. The podcasts were women find their strength and transform their pain into power. I'm Corissa Stepp, your guide on this journey of healing, growth,

[00:00:34] and empowerment. Here we share the real stories of women who have faced life's toughest challenges and emerged stronger. Together with expert insights to light your path forward. Whether you're seeking to heal, grow or empower your life after hearty, but AwakenHer is here to show you

[00:00:53] that not only is changed possible, but you are capable of achieving more than you ever imagined. Let's dive into today's episode and take another step towards becoming your most empowered self. Hey, hey everyone. Welcome back to another episode of AwakenHer. I'm your host Corissa Stepp.

[00:01:12] And today I'm joined by Dr. Christina Wise who is a licensed psychologist with over 15 years of experience in nonprofit management, specializing in working with children, adults and families who have experienced trauma. As a former nonprofit leader she developed innovative training programs and tools to

[00:01:29] understand and support families experiences. Dr. Wise has honed her consultation skills effectively working toward client and organizational goals. She co-founded Parenting Law committed and has a demonstrated history of developing comprehensive assessment and feedback methods. Dr. Wise

[00:01:45] is expertise extensive supporting the social and emotional well-being of students and teachers through her research and clinical work. Dr. Christina Wise, thank you so much for being here with me today and having this conversation. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to have the

[00:01:58] conversation. Awesome. So today everyone we're going to be talking about how to empower your child if you're co-parenting with someone who might be a narcissist, right? We know that there can be trauma that's associated with those types of relationships but we want to sort of clarify and I

[00:02:15] will love for you Dr. Wise to kind of share with us whether or not, you know, is it always the child's experience of a toxic relationship? The same as what? Maybe the other co-parent might be

[00:02:25] experiencing because I feel like there's probably some light you could shed on that for us that we can have a better understanding so we can better support our children. I think that it's

[00:02:32] important to first understand my perspective as I go in and work with families. I'm a systemic therapist and regardless of who's in the room, I consider how the individual impacts and is impacted by their context. And that includes relationships within the families, their work settings,

[00:02:52] and their culture. One parent has a specific view and experience with their co-pants or their partner. It doesn't mean that the child or those around have the same view or relationship, each relationship

[00:03:06] is unique. And so I think that it's really important as a parent to have an understanding that just because I have an experience or story about what's happening, my own narrative of what's happening isn't necessarily shared by everyone and I think it's important as we move

[00:03:25] forward in therapy and then also just in our day-to-day lives to recognize that everybody's context and perspectives within those contexts is unique. Even if we're in the exact same setting, experiencing the exact same thing, everybody's eyes on those same experiences are a little bit different.

[00:03:44] Yeah that's super helpful because I think that sometimes we just assume that whatever we've experience is what other people have experienced as well. And you know I remember there are even reading like a research study about two people who maybe have been involved in a car accident

[00:03:58] that they may not both experience a even PTSD, even though they both were in the same car experience, the same traumatic event and of course that's you know not the kind of trauma that we're talking about here but still those two people kind of a very different perspective

[00:04:14] or outcome in terms of the impact that that event had on them depending on what happened in the moments that followed. Meaning that if there was an EMT on site who started asking one of the victims

[00:04:27] a lot of questions about what happened, you know what happened next, did you get hurt? What word did you feel the impact and starts asking the victim to start describing a little

[00:04:37] bit more in detail the events then they likely walk away with no PTSD versus someone who maybe didn't get a chance to talk about those events after the fact. And I think also even if we just

[00:04:48] look at it like two siblings who grow up in the same childhood family home their perceptions and meanings of the experiences that they had in that home might be very different even though they grew

[00:04:58] up in the same environment with the same two parents. I'm so literally we have seen in a lot of therapy research and then also just research on trauma that so much of the aftermath of a stressful

[00:05:11] event is about how someone creates that narrative about what happened and then also what it means about them. One of the things that happens regularly within families is that children make sense

[00:05:25] of what they know and then also they create stories about what they don't know. You know trying to be really thoughtful about what it shared with children and how they share the information which children

[00:05:38] they try and keep parent or adult information to themselves and also it doesn't mean that your co-parent or family members or friends are sharing the exact same viewpoints that you are. So sometimes children are getting a different story or an incomplete story and so they're

[00:05:57] working really hard to kind of make sense of it on their own. The way that they make sense of it can be really adaptive and healthy I've had families that I worked with who have come through

[00:06:08] pretty high conflict separation or divorce where the children's viewpoint is so healthy and it doesn't take you know that the narrative that they experience and integrate is one that you my parents still love me, that this is something that's about them right now not working out. But

[00:06:28] ultimately I just are having a different relationship with both of them because they're not in a relationship together but it's a very healthy narrative to keep and hold. And then the aftermath of that in terms of how a child's behavior is and their feelings is very different from

[00:06:45] a child who experiences parent conflict or one of the other parts that happen is when one parent says a lot of negative things about the other parent not recognizing that each child regularly has

[00:06:59] in terms of their identity formation, a recognition that they have a part of both parents inside of them. And so as one parent if they're hearing a lot of negative awful things about the other

[00:07:12] parent, the consequence of that could be the best child to integrate I have a bad part of me because my mom or dad or caregiver is a bad person and so I think it's really important to just be

[00:07:27] careful and check in what kiddos about how they have integrated and what stories they've created. And that's a lot of my work with kids is just to make sure that I understand how they're viewing

[00:07:39] it and what their perspective is and whether it's a healthy one or an unhealthy perspective. So for parents who, I mean of course obviously we'd recommend working with a therapist for all of this

[00:07:51] but if a parent wanted to kind of start asking their child questions to better understand the narratives that their children are telling themselves in the aftermath of maybe having a difficult conversation about ending the relationship or whatever it might be, what would be

[00:08:05] some good ways to connect with that child to find out what they're actually thinking and maybe the stories that they're making up in their head about what it all means. It's a wonderful question.

[00:08:16] I think that it's not one that has a really complex answer. There's a lot of simple ways to connect and support children as they're going through stressful events. One is recognizing that this is something different even if it's the smoothest separation or divorce or rupture in a family,

[00:08:38] children are going to experience this as a transition and there's not to be something stressful about it making sure that there's regular one-on-one time so that you are developing more relationship

[00:08:48] that you can be a safety blanket for them is really important because so much of that work is making sure that the child trusts you to be a person or a container to hold some of their stress.

[00:09:02] If they feel like mom or dad who's trying to check in with them is then it sells really stressed and can't hold anymore, they're going to protect you from that but it doesn't matter

[00:09:12] how complex it is in terms of your way of going about trying to navigate their stories and understand them. If they think that you're not ready to hear the story they're not going to go

[00:09:23] towards it with you which is why sometimes that therapist is really helpful if you yourself don't have the emotional resources at that time to be able to be that container for your child so part of

[00:09:36] it is one self-reflection to making sure that you're developing that relationship and then also making the other part is recognizing that everything that a child is doing is somehow making some

[00:09:50] sort of they have they're trying to get that need met in some way and so in part of that like even if a child is acting out or really hard on themselves making some of those little comments

[00:10:02] that we're here as parents like oh that was my fault and when it's something that's absolutely not their fault or a child who just seems to be really down or isolating themselves those kind of cues that maybe something else is going on and recognizing that it's likely

[00:10:19] due to the fact that in some way there's a need that is either not being met or that they're trying to meet through some of these behaviors and being able to check in about those specific needs

[00:10:31] gives you kind of an easier conduit to get in there and have the discussion because you have specific examples to discuss with them yeah I'm also thinking about for parents who are co-parenting

[00:10:46] where there's even like a hand off right where they're spending time in two different homes how do you support your child through that if maybe the other parent doesn't have the same kind of rapport or

[00:10:58] connection with the child or how do you even assess if they have that same connection with both parents so that they do have at least one if not two safe places to go I guess my question really

[00:11:08] is like we've well it down is if the two parents have an unhealthy relationship or and they have a toxic relationship with each other is it possible even for the child to have healthy relationships

[00:11:19] with both parents and if not if say one relationship is healthy with one parent and it's unhealthy with the other how do you best support them through that unhealthy relationship with the other

[00:11:31] parent that is some of the the biggest hardest work that happens in there be because there's regularly a struggle one with the parent who feels like the other parent isn't unhealthy, role model or

[00:11:47] connection with their child and you don't especially after a separation you don't have the control in the other household that you would like and so part of it is doing the work on your own to

[00:11:59] make sure that you can show up in your households and have that safe secure relationship with their child is one of the things that we recognize is you know having a good enough mother or father

[00:12:14] or caregiver in a child's life who's showing up consistently for them who's responding appropriately and supportively to distress over time forms those secure attachments and it doesn't have to happen across every single caregiver for a child to still be healthy and supported and have good

[00:12:36] outcomes and so so one taking some of the owners of what's happening at the other household off yourself is the parent you can control what's happening at your household. The other part is making

[00:12:48] sure it a model and talk about really explicitly setting boundaries a lot of the work that I do and whether it's individual work with adults or kids and also with families and couples is making

[00:13:04] things that are implicit explicit one of my wonderful amazing former colleagues used to talk about this all the time and it sounds so simple but there's so many things that are happening in a family in relationships

[00:13:19] with others that we assume is understood by all parties and that regularly is not and one of the things that happens in high conflict relationships and then the aftermath of their kiddos or also

[00:13:34] in family ruptures is that boundaries are not held and are also not modeled in appropriate ways and so I will work with with kinos on recognizing that there's only so much that they can control

[00:13:50] I have children that I've worked with who have decided that because of unhealthy relationships with parents they've created boundaries on themselves about what they can and cannot let or allow in

[00:14:04] in terms of the feedback and the messages that they get from that parent and so regularly there's legal requirements for them to show up and be a visitation and be there for custody reasons but those

[00:14:18] children learn about the fact that if they maintain boundaries around what their emotional and behavioral regulation looks like it can be really helpful so that when they show up they allow only the pieces through that are healthy I actually regularly do an exercise with kiddos at all ages

[00:14:37] but they're little or adolescents I actually have done it with adults as well these I think it's a good metaphor to use is that if you think about actually taking a stator from cup and punching

[00:14:48] a number of holes in it thinking about that as a filter that if we allow only the messages that come through that help us that support us that drive our relationship with that person forward

[00:15:00] that allow us to hold our identity then there's so much power that can come from that and filtering out some of the things that make us questions some of those things like our

[00:15:11] core identity principles that sometimes can happen when a caregiver over time is making a lot of toxic or inappropriate comments about either you as the child or your other parent who you love

[00:15:27] and support and that can go on both sides of a divorce high-thomphlitch separation where you want to make sure that the child is holding boundaries about what's important to them what they hear

[00:15:39] and how they hear it of course you know one of the things that they've found time and time again in research is that family cutoffs can be you know have devastating impact of course there's

[00:15:52] times when family cutoffs are absolutely appropriate in terms of violence or abuse or domestic violence situations but in a typical high conflict of worse separation or cutoff from a one or the other caregiver can cause devastating impact to children and so even though it may make

[00:16:11] things easier for the other parent it can have impact on the kiddo so really being careful and thoughtful about what that looks like and also a lot of modeling, modeling about what

[00:16:24] boundaries look like and part of that is from parents on both sides modeling how to talk about the other parent or caregiver despite maybe some of their own personal things that are going on

[00:16:36] for them and how they're processing it because so much of that is helping to create and support the child's narrative about themselves as being a full holy competent, healthy person.

[00:16:52] Right and just to lead back to your earlier point which is you know the child is half of each of you right in terms of the parent so of course if you're saying anything negative or

[00:17:03] belittling or critical about the other person that makes a path of them they're going to internalize that to mean something negative about themselves. Absolutely and I think that's such a good point that there's a balance because it doesn't mean that you are not making comments about what is

[00:17:20] and is not appropriate behavior. If one parent or the other is doing something that's a poor choice there's a difference between their bad person or a bad parent or a manipulator or some of the kind of high conflict words that can happen. Mama, dad, or caregiver, labeling

[00:17:40] the behavior instead of the the person it can be really helpful and that also models the boundaries that we all make mistakes and at this point Mama, dad made a mistake. Ultimately they love you

[00:17:54] and we're going to repair it there some figure this out. Now what about in the instance because if we're dealing with a narcissistic parent that apology may not ever come so sometimes it can

[00:18:05] feel like when you're having the conversation with your child of he knows or she knows that what she did is wrong and she feels sorry you can't even almost say that because they're never

[00:18:14] going to get that remorse or the accountability even for their actions they're going to feel very justified and what they've done. How do you help children I guess be okay with not getting that apology. I know you're addressing the behavior saying that we'll tell them that that behavior

[00:18:31] is not acceptable or it's not okay. That's not the way you or I would behave right but how do we make them okay with not getting that apology? I think that's a really good question. Part of it is that

[00:18:47] yes you would never make a promise for about another person you can make a promise about yourself and your own actions and so you're not going to be promising your child that another parent or

[00:19:00] caregiver is going to make that apology. What is important is that you talk about that one of the ways that we would respond you can do the you know imagine if and then

[00:19:13] one of the ways that if we made a choice like this some of the things that we can do are respond in ways that one we talk about and identify our choice that wasn't wonderful.

[00:19:24] That's one of my favorite exercises that I actually do in my own family and then I work with a lot of families who I've taught the redo method, you know some of my friends and it's simply

[00:19:36] saying things like when your kiddo is having a really hard day or struggle like oh let's stop let's redo it. Discipline that goes along with that if they're able to stop and restart and maybe it was

[00:19:49] saying something a little bit of attitude or a behavior that hurt somebody like let's redo it much so how we do this in real time and then if they're able to stop connect with a way to second

[00:20:02] this wasn't the best behavior and then be able to redo it then after that it's like oh perfect thank you and then I respond to them in real time how I would if they had done that behavior the first time

[00:20:15] the adaptive way, the healthy way. And so we can also do that in situations like this where if someone like a caregiver is saying something that is negative or toxic and you're coming on the

[00:20:30] aftermath and doing a reflection what is another way let's say if that happened for you what would be some of the responses that you might have and then what would be the way to correct that so that

[00:20:41] they can start seeing like okay that's part of that boundary creation because here they are in a situation where dad or mom or caregiver it was not able to do that but I'm talking through how

[00:20:57] if I have a situation in the future that I could do that and it's part of that creating boundaries and modeling what is appropriate response because again you can't always have control over what's

[00:21:09] happening unfortunately at the at all locations for your child and that is also the same thing that I suggest to parents or caregivers with a situation at school you know regularly we're in a

[00:21:22] place where a teacher or peer is saying things that aren't appropriate or are unhelpful or mean or they're being bullied and I can't be actually at the school to interact directly with the peers

[00:21:36] and so it's a lot of it is making sure that your children have all the tools they need to be able to take in what they need to to take in and then also not to model and mimic some of

[00:21:48] that behavior going forward so a lot of it's a discussion about what that might look like and sometimes an actual role play of what that might play yeah that brought up two things for me which is

[00:22:00] what happens when you do start to witness your child maybe mimicking some of the unhealthy and toxic behavior of another parent or maybe even our own right because we're not perfect no one's perfect

[00:22:13] so how do we kind of address that but then the other part was you know I kind of heard you saying almost like it's also a way to teach them in some ways to have empathy for potentially with someone

[00:22:23] else might be going through when they behaved in a certain way but what makes me cautious there is that for a lot of people who end up in these narcissistic relationships as adults it's that

[00:22:35] ability to have so much empathy that it allows us to just make excuses for behavior that's not tolerable or not acceptable or shouldn't be acceptable and so obviously with that there's also a lack of boundaries so it's like teaching the empathy with boundaries is like the perfect

[00:22:54] combination but if you're just teaching empathy and not teaching them how to set the boundaries and you could potentially be priming them for a toxic and unhealthy relationship later on in their life

[00:23:05] I think that's such a good point one of the things that is I talked about a little bit earlier with the filter is that part of it is really recognizing in relationships with others that just

[00:23:18] because someone else goes through or is experiencing trauma stress distress they're acting out in certain ways we can understand what's happening to them and also keep ourselves safe. Both things can happen at the same time and we can also understand what's happening for someone else

[00:23:41] and not approve of it. I think that sometimes there's a belief that empathy means acquiescence or approval and that is not always the case I think you know sometimes empathy absolutely

[00:23:57] means that I get where you are and in your shoes and I'm there with you and other times it means I understand why you chose to do this the result of that regardless of the intention was that it hurt

[00:24:13] and in order for me to stay safe and in order for me to stay healthy and in order for my identity to remain intact in terms of my positive way that I look at myself the strength that I have

[00:24:27] internally how I've even myself going forward. I can understand why you did something and also feel like it's not okay for me and I've worked with children who have decided that okay at this point

[00:24:43] when I have conversations with mom or dad or caregiver or grandmother whoever it is if they're living with an interacting with on a regular basis they're ongoing way of going about the world

[00:24:55] hurts me. I understand that the reasons that they've done is is that they're modeling what happened in their own family of origin however I've discovered I don't want to repeat this in mine and so once

[00:25:09] I turn 18 in half control I'm gonna choose that I'm not gonna be here I'm gonna stay in contact with them and however we're gonna protect myself. I have worked with a number of adults who have had

[00:25:23] in their childhood these types of relationships between mom and dad or caregivers and one of the things that I've regularly find is the difference in how adults then navigate those relationships as adults you know when we're in on-in childhood there's a lot unfortunately it's

[00:25:43] out of control and so that's why it's important to as much as possible figure out ways to have a child who's going through some of these experiences who have experienced trauma and stress disruptions with their caregiver attachments to make sure that they can have that feeling like

[00:26:04] their in control of their own life is much as possible there's a lot in childhood that we aren't in control of so as the caregiver who is showing up making sure that they have choice that they are

[00:26:19] developmentally appropriate manner made sure that they're aware of everything that's happening that they are also prepared in terms of those boundaries so that they can understand why someone is doing something because in the understanding it helps with the narrative about themselves

[00:26:38] is if I understand that mom or dad or grandma is treating me this way because of the experiences that they have then it becomes less about me I can also then hold the boundary from that understanding

[00:26:52] of that it is something that's important for me to make sure that I'm holding my boundary and not allowing you to hurt me so I'm going to filter in the parts and pieces that are helpful to me

[00:27:05] and filter out the parts and pieces that are not. That sounds almost to me like something that might have an age appropriateness kind of attached to it because I feel like maybe children under certain age that wouldn't really resonate like oh grandma's acting like that because of

[00:27:22] what she experiences in childhood they may not fully make that connection you know even though you're pointing it out so is there really an age appropriateness to that making that kind of or explaining that? Absolutely I think that those conversations are one that will be more likely to

[00:27:39] be had in adolescence in younger childhood and middle childhood a lot of the discussion is grandma's going through something right now as having a lot of concerns that she's having and sometimes you know just like when I'll use the the two leader bottle getting all shook

[00:27:59] as a metaphor a lot sometimes we get to a place where we weren't there when the two leader bottle got all shaken up and now we're coming back a little bit later and we're opening the

[00:28:09] bottle and it explodes. Grandma's got a lot of things on her plate right now she's got a lot of stress and so unfortunately when you went and asked for the money to go to camp that's when she exploded

[00:28:23] it was not about you it was about all the times that the two leader bottle that shaken before and so it's easy for you to believe that it was your fault and however if we take a step back

[00:28:37] and look at the big picture we see that maybe there's lots of other stuff going on and you are just kind of the last piece and unfortunately you got the front of that. However there's also

[00:28:47] pieces of that that are important for you to understand because you had already asked for three other things that week and so it's also important to recognize that sometimes we don't always

[00:28:57] get exactly what we want every time that we want it and that's an important message that Grandma was trying to teach you she just was doing it in a way that probably she doesn't want to now if Grandma

[00:29:08] has that ability or if she doesn't have the ability and that's just how Grandma responds then it's important to talk to the kid about Grandma has has struggles when she gets really stressed

[00:29:18] and so it's important to hear the message of you know the underlying message and try and figure that out versus how she gives or delivers that message. How she's delivering the message is not about

[00:29:31] you in terms of safety just making sure that there's a balance there's a social support for kiddos in the younger age and the older age that if you look at the full system if they're only

[00:29:44] person that they have that they're relying on is a person that is constantly exploding or giving them a lot of negative feedback then that's when some of the narrative is going to be

[00:29:58] likely very unhealthy and so as much as we can balance so that they can get that there's other shared experiences of them that are positive and that all the experiences in every relationship that they

[00:30:12] doesn't have to be negative just because one person is experiencing other stressors outside of them that that is coming out on them and their relationship with them. Right so what I often find with

[00:30:25] clients is that I mainly work with women right so a lot of times their partners tend to be in men and if they have children who are boys we know that boys or even girls right young children tend

[00:30:38] to identify with the same sex parent to figure out how to be in the world and sometimes as a result as the child is getting older if this parent was exhibiting a lot of unhealthy tendencies

[00:30:50] and manipulative tactics and all these kinds of things we'll see the child start to as you point it up before so to mimic some of those behaviors and so sometimes we do have to have these

[00:31:01] tough conversations about how that behavior is not appropriate set of boundary that that's not accepted in the home and talk about you know how it makes other people feel when you behave in that

[00:31:12] way to get them to understand with a little bit of empathy of what someone else is experience my be of that behavior on the other side which then I think would open the doors to having a conversation

[00:31:23] of like well how do you feel when dad behaves like that you know if that comes up without obviously spoon feeding it to them because you don't want to be criticizing necessarily the other parent

[00:31:32] or create any kind of parental alienation which would be damaging to the relationship that the child has with the other parent. The idea of really making sure that you're checking in and

[00:31:43] understanding that in the moment is so important I think that as adult we look at more big picture in terms of how we conceptualize and what we view in terms of the problem and especially when we

[00:32:00] already have our own views of a relationship it's easy to be triggered by our child in what we believe is just a repetition of what had happened in our relationship so there is something as you said that

[00:32:16] we tend to be more sensitive to kiddos that are displaying some of the what we see as the same things that are happening in a conflict a high conflict separation or relationship and so I think that's

[00:32:29] important to you know I had mentioned mimicking earlier however I also do think that it can be triggering for people to assume that what's happening with their child is an mimicking what had happened in the relationship with the caregiver because I do think that sometimes it can actually

[00:32:48] create some triangles in the family where suddenly the kiddo is your conduit or surrogate to communicating what you would have wanted with the person that you are in relationship with so it

[00:33:02] can be hard so one of the things that I like to do so that you don't end up I call that kind of a hook in families there sometimes that like envisioning there's a hook out there and it's better to steer

[00:33:16] around the hook speed they're out there ready to hook you so that's one where it's better to actually think about just the relationship with you in your child and act in real time in the real moment

[00:33:30] so that you're not hooked into bringing the baggage from your previous relationship into your relationship with your child and so one of the ways that you can do that is the making sure to

[00:33:41] have discussion in real time about what's happening so it's not about what it could mean but it's about what is and one of the ways that you do that is the redo that I talked about earlier is if there

[00:33:55] something that you're seeing that is not acceptable in your house whether it's how your child is talking to you it's how they're behaving then those are those moments where you're like actually no that's a

[00:34:08] and if the child for the first one of the things with the redo is you're saying this isn't okay let's go ahead and try and redo after you have a long creative time where your family is

[00:34:22] now regularly in this culture where reviews happen you don't often have to explain it however at the beginning if you're going to try out the redo you're saying something like let's try this again

[00:34:34] and let's try in the tone that would be acceptable here or let's try that behavior you know that in this house that x-y and z is not okay so your kiddo comes home and it's like mom what's for

[00:34:49] dinner and you don't even have anything ready and where are my my and then you're saying actually let's back up how should what should the tone be when you come in the house and what's the behavior

[00:35:00] okay mom I'm curious that would dinner is and when they don't understand the first time then you can actually give them the words so in this moment you came in hey mom it's nice to see you

[00:35:13] haven't seen you for a while and I'm just coming home for a week with dad so now I'm in a place where yeah just curious what would dinner is and I have some things going on tomorrow to get to

[00:35:26] get a chance to do my laundry or do I need to do it okay perfect yes dinner is on we're going to have it in 30 minutes and I love for you to get started on laundry I have an energy and

[00:35:37] to do it suddenly you're in the different discussion if they don't get it that first time or the second time then you're kind of going through it and if at this point they're drawing

[00:35:47] the line then that's when discipline comes in and then there's consequence but you're giving them an opportunity to try again and to recognize how they are this happens regularly in my house where

[00:36:01] I have you know it's not necessarily the message but it's the tone of the message that needs to be read done I don't mind that the question was asked I don't mind that the request was made I do

[00:36:16] mind how the question was asked or how the request was made and so it's like actually no we're read you and sometimes my kiddos are so disregulated that they need that extra discipline

[00:36:28] are support but the majority of time they're able to be like oh and they laugh because the read you is funny and so you have that laughter and then suddenly you have the the read you

[00:36:41] and then suddenly we can just move forward and if you think about the difference between the consequence of that to my relationship with my kiddos where suddenly we were able to laugh

[00:36:52] they were able to then reconnect understand what should have been said and how it should have been said and now we can move forward with our day versus if I immediately went in with discipline

[00:37:03] then suddenly we're on a very different trajectory for the night in terms of what my responsibility is what theirs is and then what the outcome is to our relationship. Right yeah I was just thinking

[00:37:16] as you're talking about that I'm like oh my wonder if this works with teenagers because my teenager you know or another one who's like year or two away from it is you know they're attitude

[00:37:25] sometimes they're sort of voice can be very you know snappy and we definitely have to talk a lot about is that how you ask you know like that's usually my redo is like is that how you ask or is that

[00:37:36] how you say that to me but yeah maybe I should just say redo and just keep it simple so that they can just think about it for a second like oh we okay yeah my tone of voice does matter which is

[00:37:46] something that I've been instilling in them since they were little like oh how do you ask you know we say please we say thank you we say kindly we say with a nice tone of voice we don't say

[00:37:54] with an attitude but yeah like the idea of just saying redo the kind of disrupts it disrupts the pattern and it's also you you even just saying it you smiled and laughed and that's what often happens

[00:38:07] there's something about in the moment like oh yes oh yeah that's probably not how I should talk to mom right now and let's try and figure this out it absolutely works with adolescents it's all

[00:38:22] about though getting the normalized culture going with the redo so that they understand what you're asking for and that you're not using sarcasm mask for it and that's the other part that's important you're not just being like it's time for a redo you know like it's you're

[00:38:39] saying oh redo and you're giving the opportunity and showing them that you're not mad that this is an opportunity that they can go about this in a different way with a different outcome then you know

[00:38:52] you get sent to your room or grounded or something gets taken away or a fight then sometimes happening in those moments that there's something else that I wanted to bring us back

[00:39:03] to well we were talking about empathy where you're saying like even if you have empathy for someone doesn't mean necessarily that the behavior itself was okay right so the thing that came to mind

[00:39:13] when I was when you were saying that was I told my clients it's all the time it's the same thing with forgiveness you can still forgive someone even if what they did to you is not acceptable right

[00:39:24] you can still forgive and move on without tolerating that behavior going forward or forgive them even if the pain is still there if the hurt is still there and that's a really I think sometimes

[00:39:36] like a hard concept for people to be able to do that because people often say like oh forgive and forget well just because you forgive doesn't mean you have to forget what happened it just makes

[00:39:49] you more aware so that the next time if it happens again you can set that boundary I think that that is such a good point because when we think about forgiveness it's regularly we're thinking

[00:40:02] about the fact that we're needing to forgive someone else but regularly the forgiveness is about letting go for ourselves because it's a dream to be in that space of putting the time energy into

[00:40:17] feeling and holding that baggage when we walk about our day-to-day life and forgiveness does not also mean that you have to let someone back in not put walls up because at some point making sure

[00:40:29] that we're safe and you know walls can be unhealthy and really just because they can stop us from being able to connect and trust on the other side when you have someone who has shown you that they

[00:40:42] aren't to be trusted then walls can be absolutely healthy and so in those moments you can forgive someone so that you're not holding those deep heavy feelings walking around day-to-day and also

[00:40:57] not allow them to have that trust broken again yeah definitely this is I think been a really helpful conversation on how to connect with our kids how to set boundaries at them how to

[00:41:07] teach them how to set boundaries understanding that even if we have an unhealthy relationship with the co-parent they can still have a healthy relationship with them and we can still have a healthy

[00:41:18] relationship with them it doesn't mean that we're all doomed and that we can you know move forward in a way that is healthy and meaningful right we can just still meaningfully connect with each other

[00:41:30] and it doesn't have to be this like standstill so my last question that I want to ask you is when we are having these difficult conversations about talking about maybe ending the relationship

[00:41:40] do you have any suggestions or advice for parents that they can kind of walk away with on maybe what to say or what not to say so that the child doesn't feel like it's their fault

[00:41:51] or they don't feel like they're being rejected at the same time that the relationship itself is kind of coming apart absolutely regularly children feel like divorce is a family divorcing and so as much as you can can make sure that the child recognizes that the parents are

[00:42:13] separating the family is not breaking apart the family is just going to look different and in that that conversation when you're thinking about what the takeaway is a lot of it is recognizing as the parent some of those times that a child does maybe pulling away or making

[00:42:34] those comments about you know if only I hadn't thought or if I hadn't asked for that last thing because you guys had the fight over my camp or those are those times when you need to immediately

[00:42:48] go in and talk to them about the fact that you what this is a time mom and dad or care you know whoever your in relationship with me and my partner is our relationships that is what's going on

[00:43:02] we worked hard on trying to figure out if we could keep our relationship going and we decided right now what was best for us and our family was that we aren't in relationship anymore that does

[00:43:15] not mean that we don't love you both of us love you that we aren't gonna show up and that we aren't a family anymore we are absolutely a family and it just looks different and so in those moments

[00:43:27] recognizing how what you say could impact their story is so important because at the end of the day if the child feels like you know what this was a caregiver issue and not a me issue then suddenly

[00:43:44] the aftermath just looks different we know from a lot of the research on adverse childhood experiences that divorce and separation and parent conflict can have long-term impact however in these are the things that buffer from not long-term impact making sure that the child has the the tools

[00:44:04] necessary to see that it's actually I'm gonna have time with both caregivers they're both going to let me and they're not gonna allow their conflict to get in the way my relationship with either of

[00:44:15] them I love that yeah I always tell clients I'm like it's just a re-org so I mean come from a finance background so it's like it's just a re-org you're just restructuring and that's all it's

[00:44:24] kind of big deal like it's still gonna still the same thing it's the same family right same people you're just looking at time with both you're still loved and you're still important part

[00:44:34] of this family and everyone in it is still an important part of the family it's just re-organizing Dr. Christina Wise you have any final words for our listeners that you think might be helpful

[00:44:46] on the back of our discussion today I think that one of the most important parts is that there's so much in our world that we assume that other people just know and get and it's important to give voice to what's happening for you and you're perspective and then

[00:45:05] also making sure to ask and question the other people and your family and your systems that are important your support system to make sure that they also understand and that you understand what's happening for them and not just make those assumptions making things explicit is gonna be really

[00:45:22] helpful the other big thing is just to make sure that as caregivers that we have our own support networks in place and that we have the necessary skills and tools and people in our lives

[00:45:37] so that we have the resources necessary to support the kids in the way that they need to be supported and so that's those are my big takeaways for today that's awesome that is fantastic those are such

[00:45:50] good such important takeaway so thank you so much for sharing that with us I know that you also wanted to share a little bit about some of your work around parenting while committed I don't know if

[00:46:00] you want to share a little bit about that with the audience real quick before we end our conversation for today of course so parenting while committed is myself and my co-founder Dr. Garak and Sanford

[00:46:11] we work with families and children and couples in a variety of ways to really make sure that we have that implicit to explicit conversation that so we do that in ways that we have collaborative for couples the collaborative is really a chance for you and your committed partner

[00:46:33] to have an end up assessment and then try and figure out how to navigate what your roles and values are going forward so you just have a better understanding because so much of the world

[00:46:44] within our relationships is improved just by understanding each other and what we hope to do in the future together better. The other part is that we do assessments for families as well

[00:46:56] as couples so that they can get a full kind of 360 degree view of what's happening for them and then also the perspectives of the other family members so that they have a better understanding

[00:47:06] of what's happening and some of the patterns that are helping and some of the patterns that might be getting in the way of the goals for the family or the couple and finally we do individual

[00:47:17] and family and couples work so if you want to come and meet with us for their be we also do that. We would love to learn more about you and your family and help you out in any way that we can.

[00:47:29] Amazing I just have one question because this might apply to some of the listeners. Would you also do that parenting look committed work with maybe a new partner right? So say someone is divorced

[00:47:39] and now they're with a new partner and they're in a serious committed relationship and maybe just helping them through with that dynamic looks like for a step parent coming in is that something

[00:47:48] else that you could help with? Absolutely as long as there is a person in the family that is in a committed relationship and you want to make sure that that relationship is bolstered it does

[00:47:58] not necessarily mean that both parties are the biological parents and so however you define parents and committed relationships. Thank you so much again for coming on and having this conversation with me

[00:48:09] today I know the listeners definitely got a lot out of this conversation and I can't wait for them to tune in and listen to it so thank you so much again for being here I appreciate it. Thank you so

[00:48:17] much. Until next week everyone be well. Thank you for tuning in to a week in her. Today's conversation may have ended but your journey towards healing and empowerment is ongoing. Remember every challenge you face is an opportunity.