Parents communication is the good intervention

So if there is maybe a friend or a family member that's taking sides,and is speaking negatively about a parent in front of the child,we ask parents to take control of that and to tell everyone,"We will not discuss the other parent in front of the children, in any kind of negative way.

"There are a lot of ways that parents can help minimize the conflict. One is just to take a step back and realize that it's parenting is a really difficult job. There are going to be challenges,and even if they lived in the same household they're not always going to agree. One of the ways I help parents to reduce the conflict they have is to focus on their communication, because what ends up happening,they come into my office and they're arguing about this, that, and the other thing,and they have all these different arguments, whether it's the homework or whether how the kid gets to school on time, but the problem isn't about each one of these individual problems. It's about the communication. And if they can figure out how to solve one of these problems,we can import their solution-making for this problem to all the other ones,if they have basic communication skills. Another thing that parents can do to try to help keep their kids out of the conflict is just not put the kids in the middle. So when I hear parents tell me that the other parent is having the child call and ask if they can stay a little bit longer, for example,I tell the parents, "You know, you need to be doing that with one another.

"And so we encourage parents to communicate directly in matters concerning the children, and not to use the child as a liaison. It's too much pressure and it causes too much anxiety on the kids,and half the time, as is normal, children don't always get their stories straight. So I encourage parents to think in terms of, you will hear information from your child. Before you jump to conclusions, and you call to accuse the other parent about what you just heard, that you will call to clarify what you just heard. If I could get parents to do nothing else, it would be to avoid doing any sort of business at an exchange. I call an exchange a magic moment for their children. Their children are going to see the two people they love the most in the world come together in one visual, and it's really important that that be 100% positive for those children,because they're going to do thousands of exchanges. A helpful tip for parents is to recognize ways that the child's put in the middle that were unintentional ways.

For example, if a parent was attending an extracurricular function and the other parent was also there,before or after who does that child talk to?Are they free to go back and forth between the parents without one of the parents getting upset,that why did you go talk to him first or her first,and immediately afterwards you should have come to one side or the other. And just be cautious about that.  It's okay for the child to be free to go back and forth at will,as they would anyone else, and get to go see friends and to chitchat after an event that they're excited about. It's about them and not about Mom and Dad.

Make sure they know it's okay with you to love the other parent,as well as you loving them, because they forget that and they sometimes think it's their fault. We've seen children come to us who are 15 years, 16 years old, and having missed that piece,having missed that opportunity to have a significant relationship with the other parent,and how it affects them down the road.