When couples split up, animosity and resentment can fester, leaving children caught in the middle.
On this episode of Children First Family Law, Krista welcomes Jill Reiter and Dr. Shelley Bresnick to discuss their program, Co-Parenting with Respect, a 10-session curriculum that brings children’s voices to the forefront and delicately facilitates parents learning to be the best possible co-parents. Shelley is a clinical psychologist who has worked with Colorado’s court-involved families for decades as a parental responsibilities evaluator, co-parent educator, and parenting plan consultant. She is also a therapist, working with children, adolescents, couples, and families. Jill is a licensed clinical social worker who received much of her early training with psychiatrists in child, adolescent, and adult inpatient psychiatric units. She has years of experience working with disrupted family systems through the public and private sectors. Jill maintains a private practice in Colorado, specializing in child, adolescent, and family therapy, including parent-child contact problems and parent coaching.
Krista, Jill, and Shelley begin their discussion by exploring the providers’ backgrounds and how they decided to partner to develop Co-Parenting with Respect. Jill and Shelley explain how they screen co-parents for the program, the positive impact on children when parents overcome dysfunctional co-parenting dynamics, and how they implement child voice sessions. Jill and Shelley outline the Co-Parenting with Respect curriculum, explain what situations and families the curriculum best serves, how they teach parents to communicate together, and share a couple of their favorite success stories of families who completed the program. Finally, the family law bar and in particular litigation-focused attorneys need to know about their role in the divorce process and the impact litigation focus has in harming families and coparenting outcomes
Reframing the co-parenting dynamic is a critical piece of the puzzle following divorce. Shelley and Jill are teaching parents how to communicate and interact so their children can flourish for years to come with both parents.
In this episode, you will hear:
- Jill Reiter’s background in social work and discovery of a passion for work in the divorce and domestic relations realm
- Dr. Shelley Bresnick’s entry into divorce work after completing her Ph.D.
- The development of Jill and Dr. Bresnick’s Co-Parenting with Respect program
- How they screen co-parents for their program, and the impact that domestic violence can have on the screening
- Overcoming difficult co-parenting dynamics and the positive impact it can have on children
- The goal of Child Voice Sessions and what makes them unique.
- An outline of the Co-Parenting with Respect curriculum
- Teaching parents how to communicate together, focusing on the children, and the shift that occurs when parents learn these skills
- Jill and Shelley’s favorite family success stories from their program
- The family dynamics best suited for the Co-Parenting with Respect program
- Finding common ground with which parents can resonate and use to turn their relationship into a business-like relationship that is courteous and puts children first
- What attorneys need to know about their role in the divorce process and the impact litigation focus has in harming families and coparenting outcomes
Resources from this Episode
www.coparentingwithrespect.com
Jill Reiter, LCSW, is offering the CPR program at the following location:
750 E. 9th Ave Suite 104
Denver, CO 80203
Call or email: 720-810-9910 or jill@jillreiterlcswpllc.com
Shelley Bresnick, PsyD, PLLC, is offering CPR at the following location.
710 Kipling Suite 103
Lakewood, CO 80215
Call or email: 303-601-4983 or shelleybresnick@gmail.com
www.childrenfirstfamilylaw.com
All states have different laws; be sure you are checking out your state laws specifically surrounding divorce. Krista is a licensed attorney in Colorado and Wyoming but is not providing through this podcast legal advice. Please be sure to seek independent legal counsel in your area for your specific situation.
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Co-Parenting with Respect with Jill Reiter and Dr. Shelley Bresnick Podcast Transcript
Dr. Shelley Bresnick 00:00
I think early on working with parents in divorce situations, it just became very apparent that the parents conflict. I mean, our own personal journey, at least for me, just seeing the parents conflict and how that was affecting the children, because I worked with a lot of children, and I would hear the same things from the children about how their parents didn’t get along how their parents hated one another, and this was so distressing to these kids, and came out in all sorts of, you know, emotional difficulties for them, behavior problems, you know, that kind of thing. I think that’s how I really started to realize just how important co parenting relationships are, and how effective co parenting can just change the course of a child’s life.
Jill Reiter 00:45
I would agree with that. I worked with children and adolescents for years, and still do see some adolescents in my practice, and the common denominator was kids coming in just so distressed when parents couldn’t cooperate or collaborate with each other, from passing messages to one another to arguing at, you know, a sporting event to one parent refusing to attend a child’s extracurricular activity if the other parent was going to be there. Parents arguing over, you know, exchange times or exchange places kids that had to be exchanged at a police station, and they were really little, and it was scary for them, so I felt like I really wanted to be a part of the solution, and I did parenting coordinator and decision maker roles for a while, and just felt like that was not where I wanted my aim or focus to be, because I wanted to be teaching people how to get professionals out of their lives, how to move forward, have the skills and be able to work together for the best, truly the best interest of their kids, and to understand their child’s position. They were so engulfed in their own process and in their own feelings that they really were kind of blind to what their children were experiencing, which is why we incorporated the child inclusive piece of our program.
Intro/Outro 02:05
Welcome to the Children First Family Law podcast. Our host, Krista Nash, is an attorney, mediator, a parenting coordinator, and child advocate with a heart to facilitate conversations about how to help children flourish amidst the broken area of family law. As a child advocate in demand for her expertise throughout Colorado and as a speaker on these issues at a national level, Krista is passionate about facilitating and creatively finding solutions to approach family law matters in a way that truly focuses on the best interests of kids. Please remember this podcast is provided to you for information purposes only. No one on this podcast is representing you or giving you legal advice. As always, please enjoy this episode and be sure to like, subscribe and share the podcast with others you think would benefit from this content.
Krista Nash 02:53
Today, on the podcast, we welcome two esteemed mental health providers in Colorado, Jill Reiter and Dr Bresnick, who are two of Krista’s go-tos for deep family systems, work and parent child contact challenges, but who today join us to share their innovative co parenting class called co parenting with respect. Shelley and Jill have written and now lead a 10 session program that brings children’s voices to the forefront and delicately facilitates parents learning how to be the best possible co parents. Dr Bresnik is a clinical psychologist who’s been working with Colorado’s court involved families for decades as a parental responsibilities evaluator, co parent educator and parenting plan consultant, as well as being a therapist for children, adolescents, couples and families. Jill Reiterr is a licensed clinical social worker who received much of her early training with psychiatrists in child, adolescent and adult inpatient psychiatric units. Jill has many years experience in working with disrupted family systems through both the public and private sectors, and now maintains a private practice in Colorado specializing in Child Adolescent and Family Therapy, including parent child contact problems and parent coaching together Jill and Shelley give hope with real solutions for parents who want to avoid toxicity as they divorce, or who Want to improve a history of poor co parenting. Welcome everybody to today’s episode of the Children First Family Law Podcast. I’m excited today to have with us Dr Shelley Bresnik, who is a licensed psychologist in Colorado, and Jill writer, a licensed clinical social worker. I have worked fairly extensively with both of these people, and they’re on my go to list for these high conflict divorce cases where we need really sophisticated to help families really address the problems that they have been having in especially post divorce, sometimes pre divorce, but lot of resistant, refuse, parent, child contact, problem dynamics, and they have a very interesting. The program that all of us should be using more, called Coarenting with Respect and so welcome both of you. I’m really glad you’re here with me. let’s just start by giving a little background. I know you both came at this in a little bit different path, so maybe Jill, let’s start with you. Give us just a little background on how you landed in this specialized area. I think it’s especially interesting because there’s so many people who do this, who have come through social work or psychology training, but then won’t do this type of work because they just think it’s too intense or too grievable, or all of those things. So tell us how you got into this.
Jill Reiter 05:37
Sure. So I think probably 25 years ago or so, and Shelley, we might have even been in this class together. I did a mediation class with CDR and Associates up in Boulder. And so I became interested in the divorce realm, or the domestic relations realm, and just sort of continued in that and kept adding services and adding services. And then Shelley and I did a class previously. We provided a class called the Shared Parenting Support Program that was out of California. I felt that just was not as up to date as we wanted it to be. And then we co-authored our program back in 2008.
Krista Nash 06:16
Yeah, that’s great. That gives me some hope, actually, because I was just, for example, at a conference. Well, Shelley and I were both at a conference last week, and there are a lot of therapists and people there, social workers there, who are interested in this, but a little timid. So it gives me hope that somebody of your caliber, Jill started that way, that maybe more people will be heading into this. And yeah, because it’s such a vitally important area, and having more people who know how to do this nuanced work is so, so important. So Shelley. How about you? How did you land in this area?
Dr. Shelley Bresnick 06:45
Yeah, well, when I got my doctorate, I specialized in adolescent psychology, and then I worked in a group practice early in my career, where they were doing custody evaluation of some of the other psychologists, and so they started asking me to help out with interviewing the children, that sort of thing. And I just became more and more interested in that kind of work, and eventually opened my own practice, started doing evaluations myself, or continued doing them. And then, like Jill also continued to add services to what I was doing, divorce related services, yeah, and so then I don’t even remember when I met Jill. We’ve known each other for many years. And yeah, that shared parenting support program was really where we took off in terms of wanting to build our own program that we felt would be little more relevant, little more up to date. That’s great.
Krista Nash 07:36
And I will note for everyone so on the show notes, resources and my website, I will include the Co-arenting with Respect information and website link. I’ll also include both of your separate practices, because I think it’s important to note that you both have separate entirely practices then came together to do this co parenting with respect. But both of their websites will be available, and there’s a lot more information I was looking at them as I was preparing for this. And I think it really would for parents, especially going through divorce, or providers family law attorneys and people looking for help for their clients. There’s a lot of interesting information on both of your sites about the different areas that you cover, and I think it just really gives a lot more insight. So just all point people to that resource. So tell me, this seems a little bit obvious to me, and maybe people have been listening. To the podcast for a while because I, you know, I’m so passionate about how co parenting is the thing we really need to be focusing on. You know, people look up divorce, how to get divorced, and they get moved into this channel that’s very weaponized. Often, it’s very adversarial about how to win. And so I think you both probably have a lot of perspective on, you know, what actually is needed? You know, you wish the co-parenting needs came up as the first things on the Google Sites, right? So, how did you come together and say there really is a need here that isn’t being filled? Shelley,you want to start?
Dr. Shelley Bresnick 08:56
I would just say, I think early on, working with parents in divorce situations, it just became very apparent that the parents conflict. I mean, our own personal journey, at least for me, just seeing the parents’ conflict and how that was affecting the children, because I worked with a lot of children, and I would hear the same things from the children about how their parents didn’t get along, how their parents hated one another. And this was so distressing to these kids, and came out in all sorts of, you know, emotional difficulties for them, behavior problems, you know, that kind of thing. I think that’s how I really started to realize just how important co parenting relationships are, and how effective co parenting can just change the course of a child’s life?
Jill Reiter 09:44
Yeah and I would agree with that. I worked with children and adolescents for years, and still do see some adolescents in my practice, and the common denominator was kids coming in just so distressed when parents couldn’t cooperate or collaborate. With each other, from passing messages to one another to arguing at, you know, a sporting event, to one parent refusing to attend a child’s extracurricular activity if the other parent was going to be there. Parents arguing over, you know, exchange times or exchange places kids that had to be exchanged at a police station. And they were really little, and it was scary for them, so I felt like I really wanted to be a part of the solution, and I did parenting coordinator and decision maker roles for a while, and just felt like that was not where I wanted my aim or focus to be, because I wanted to be teaching people how to get professionals out of their lives, how to move forward, have the skills and be able to work together for the best, truly the best interest of their kids, and to understand their child’s position. They were so engulfed in their own process and in their own feelings that they really were kind of blind to what their children were experiencing, which is why we incorporated the child inclusive piece of our program.
Krista Nash 11:02
Tell us a little bit. I know it was a long time ago now, but I understand you actually have a curriculum that you use. So it isn’t just either it’s got a lot more meat to it than some so when you two connected and said, you know, this isn’t working as well as we’d like, maybe we should do something different. Tell me a little bit about that sort of Eureka moment. And then what you did, you know, how did you get together in a room and write a curriculum? Or what happened?
Dr. Shelley Bresnick 11:26
We did, actually, Jill and I and another therapist would meet. We actually met at a library for months, just regularly putting together a curriculum. And we pulled from other co parenting classes, we looked at research, other literature that was written, and we really pulled together all the curriculum that we have now for our class.
Krista Nash 11:53
So give me a little more details. I mean, did you pull from other research each write chapters like, how does your curriculum even work?
Jill Reiter 12:00
You know, I think, honestly, Shelley. I think it was over a period of like two years that we ended up using, yeah, it was so long. And again, we were providing one course, and, gosh, at that time, the manual for that course wasthe binder was like three inches thick that we would give to clients, and we knew that there were some parts of that program that were still relevant. You know, one of the key pieces that we decided up front was that we wanted to offer families an individual opportunity, so rather than a large class that we wanted to help manage this so that they could bring relevant, current examples of things that were going on in their co parenting relationship and with their children to the class through the exercises to actually practice the skills that we were teaching them. So that was an important piece. We also decided that parents had to come together in person in our office, because doing it, you know, working with one parent, and then the next day working with another parent. Even if we would teach the same curriculum, we didn’t feel like that would be targeting what our goals were, which were, hey, if your kid ends up in the ER, we want the two of you to be able to get along. Hey, if you need to go to a conference at your kid’s school. We want you to be able to get along. Hey, when you’re exchanging we want it to be able to be in the driveway or at the front door in the house. We need you to be able to practice getting along. I think we also decided at that time that step parents or significant others that were involved enough that they were parenting children and or living with the bio parent, that they needed to be involved as well, and we decided that because otherwise, what we found through our work with co-parenting is that they would become a scapegoat, so that person needed to be present and also develop a relationship with the other birth parent, in case they were going to be exchanging the children, or they were going to be at the ER, or they were going to be at a school conference.
Dr. Shelley Bresnick 14:04
You know, that’s exactly it. And I think we really wanted our program to be a more interactive environment for these parents, because we felt that they could take a class each individually, and they can learn these skills and try to practice them on their own, but it’s so different when they are together in the same room, working on a skill, exchanging information, trying to have a conversation, and we can help them do that in the room. I think that’s really probably one of the most valuable things about this program, is just helping them to talk to one another and interact. And also there’s a lot of emotion sometimes that parents come into these classes with. There’s often a lot of hostility or anger or maybe anxiety, and so helping them to try to manage that, that’s another piece of this program, because that’s also very essential when they’re going to be communicating.
Krista Nash 15:02
And working together in the real world, you must get a lot of pushback. I would think where people would say, No way, no how. I’m not getting in a room with that person. I’m definitely not getting in the room with the woman who had an affair with my husband and is now married to him. I want nothing to do with him. I don’t know. I can think of a lot of things that my clients or people over the years would say to me about that there’s some people who probably just aren’t right for this model, and you have to vet that, and then how do you help them overcome that? Like, how do you gauge the actual level of resistance? Because I imagine most people would say, Oh, I don’t know. I’m not very comfortable with this.
Jill Reiter 15:38
We do have a screening process, and it is, you’re right. Krista, it’s not for everybody, especially if people are going through a current evaluation, like a current PRE or a current CFI evaluation, it is not the time to do this, because another essential piece of our program is that it’s confidential. So we are not talking to evaluators. We are not talking to people. But let me get back to your question. We’ve had several people, both of us, who, over the years, the step parent is someone who the other birth parent really has had a lot of feelings towards. And you know, one of the first things that we say is, bring pictures of your kids. Let’s set them on the table, and let’s really talk about why we’re here. And I think what I find; and Shelley you can weigh in on this- I find that there’s so much anticipatory anxiety, but when people actually come in the room, many times, there’s kind of a relief, like we knew we were going to have to do this someday. We’re finally here. We’ve got a professional that’s going to help walk us through this. And actually, you’re just another human. You put your pants on the same way that I do in the morning. I might have some old resentment, but we also have some parts of our program that help people work through some of that. I mean, obviously they have to be willing to but that’s sort of been my experience.
Krista Nash 16:53
So are you doing this in a way that it’s either one or the other is doing this? Or is every case? Is each one assigned to just one of you? Or do you work collaboratively on all of them?
Dr. Shelley Bresnick 17:04
Yeah, no. Jill and I work separately. We have our own practices. We develop this program together. We talk to one another quite a bit. We consult on cases or or just if we have questions about, you know, things that come up in this program. But we have our own offices separately, in different locations. So people can go to either one of us. Sometimes they pick the location that they feel like is closer to them, or maybe they just got one of our names from their attorney, and they go with that person. So yeah, we do it separately. So walk through the steps. Then
Krista Nash 17:38
I’m a parent. My attorney tells me, or I find it on this podcast or whatever. Okay, I’m gonna go google co parenting with the respect what happens next and what let’s walk through the process of what that looks like. Sure.
Dr. Shelley Bresnick 17:49
Well, so first we start with really a screening process, because we do want to make sure that people coming into this program are going to be a good fit. We do have someone who absolutely refuses to be in the same room with the step parent, for example, that’s really just not going to work. And there are some other programs out there that maybe would fit better for them, and there’s some other other issues that we screen for as well. We want to make sure that people feel safe. If there have been domestic violence allegations in the past, or things like that.
Krista Nash 18:22
We pause on that for one second. We all know that, especially there’s a lot of national, maybe International, particularly in Colorado, attention being paid to domestic violence. In Colorado, we have statutes now that include all the courses of control, much more broad view of domestic violence components than many states have, and then that we’ve had in the past actually codified in our statutes. So I’ve heard other psychologists and mental health professionals talk through sort of levels of this, you know, like whether somebody can be in a room or not. And I know this is a little bit fraught with, you know, fear, in terms of labeling one level of domestic violence as somehow maybe not as insidious as another. But is that how you gage it in your intake process that there’s some people that can handle this and there’s some who can’t, or how does that new narrative about domestic violence and our statute sort of affect how you would screen this?
Jill Reiter 19:20
Now, I think we’re all still learning about this one nice thing, because Shelley and I both work with so many doctor cases, so many domestic relations cases, that this isn’t just in our co-parenting that this has come up. And so I have some security in my building that allows me in terms of the setup to keep people separate until I bring them into my office, so if someone is uncomfortable, I have some protocols that I go through, and I know that Shelley does too, and we both have a separate exit from an entrance that people can come and go out of a different entrance or exit. I think the other thing is. There’s many times where judges have ordered this and parents or attorneys send me this, and one parent says, there’s absolutely no way I don’t feel safe. I physically don’t feel safe. Emotionally, I don’t feel safe. I’m not ready for this. Well, even if a judge orders that, I’m not going to try to provide something, when an individual is saying I don’t feel safe. So again, it’s just not the program for them. If that’s happening, okay?
Krista Nash 20:25
And Shelley, same with you.
Dr. Shelley Bresnick 20:26
Yes. And I, like Jill, have separate entrances. People can come and go. And we do have guidelines and rules in this class that we go over with people at the very first session, but we need people to be able to listen to us if things are getting escalated, and we need them to stop and we need to take a break, for instance. So we need people to have the capacity to be able to step back. And if it seems like that capacity isn’t there for whatever reason, then we may not be able to have the class with them.
Krista Nash 21:02
Have you ever that happen where you’ve had to terminate and just say, this is not a good fit? We thought it was a good fit. We didn’t screen it out, but now we are screening it out.
Jill Reiter 21:09
Yeah. I mean, I think both had cases where people have not finished for different reasons. I mean, one thing that we do is sometimes we do push pause and we say to one parent or both. You know, we think that it would be beneficial for you to work with an individual therapist, to work on some of this emotion management and to work on the dysregulation that keeps arising in our sessions that is getting in the way of us really being able to provide the program as we have authored it, and to really be as efficacious as it could be.
Krista Nash 21:43
It’s interesting from my perspective, because I’ve done a lot. I spoke at the National AFCC conference last year about the domestic violence statutes in Colorado, and I’ve been trying to really keep my finger on the pulse of what is happening nationally with that, and had a few podcast guests on it. I think it’s interesting, because there is a propensity of attorneys, I think especially, to lay down a there’s been domestic violence label on it, and make that so it is such a big barrier to co parenting work in the future that I always encourage parents that I think they need to really strongly consider how to do this safely in a way that both recognizes the domestic violence components and coercive control, all the things that can be really problematic in a relationship, but also recognizes that that that doesn’t allow you to get out of the need for co-parenting. So in some ways, it seems encouraging to me that these careful programs, like your class and the way you all approach it really could be a place that is a safe way to figure it out, as opposed to figuring it out just on your own, you know, using apps and filing, I don’t know. So I think people shouldn’t just write this off. I think it’d be well worth a, you know, a try to see if this kind of programming would work. I’m involved in a case where those DV allegations become this blanket that allows zero communication and there isn’t even just the most basic ability to even coordinate. For example, this is what time the flight arrives, you know, so figuring out how to both recognize it but also allow you to still do this very difficult co parenting project so that your kids can flourish and keep everybody safe at the same time. Seems like doing it within a protected kind of co parenting environment might actually be really productive. Have you had any cases like that where they’ve really made some progress despite having that kind of narrative?
Dr. Shelley Bresnick 23:36
Yes, definitely. Yeah, both Jill and I talk about- we love our successful cases, of course, but everybody comes into these classes with anxiety. I think every parent is anxious about coming in. They don’t know exactly what it’s going to look like. They are concerned about being in the same room with the other parent and working on things together. But what I think we both find is that these parents start to feel some sense of hope and maybe relief that they can actually talk to one another, and they start to see some of the positive things that they really have been overlooking or forgotten about in that other parent. And that’s what we really love to see, is when people start to remember the positives and to re-experience those with the other parent.
Krista Nash 24:26
That’s great. So we talked about how you screen first, okay? So then we kind of got derailed there in an important way, but on the domestic violence. So keep going with your process. What happens after that? So somebody gets screened, you set up appointments. Is there pre work that they have to do? You just start an intro session. How does that work?
Dr. Shelley Bresnick 24:41
Jill, do you want to go ahead?
Jill Reiter 24:43
Yeah, sure, so the very first thing, and we usually schedule by email. We’re very transparent. Both parents are always on the emails, so they are not contacting us individually, so that we can remain neutral. And everyone feels that we are not picking a side, because parents come in and eventually. They all want to convince us and treat us like an evaluator, that they are the better parent, that the other person has done something wrong, and we have to sort of renegotiate that and redirect them. But the very first thing that we do is what’s called a Child Voice Session, which is unique to our program, as far as we know. So we like to bring the kids in. Each child comes into our office separately, and we have activities that are pre designed to meet children at different developmental stages, but the focus and the goal is to get that child’s experience of their parents co parenting and how that has affected them over time and what they would like to see changed. Shelley, let me hand that over to you, and you can add,
Krista Nash 25:41
Yeah, that’s amazing. I’m just going to interrupt and say, that’s incredible and so important. I just interviewed for the podcast. His will probably come out before yours, Justice Tom Altobelliin Australia, they have an incredible program in Australia. I’m like, why are we not doing this here, where they’ve got mental health people who interview every child in cases like it’s just part of the court process to make sure that that voice is heard. I just got off a pre trial conference in another case where a wonderful judge who actually was presenting with me last week had done an order that said that the child’s voice could come in through me without all the evidentiary problems with it. So the order says that, and in the pre trial conference. Now this new judge is like, I have a different view of this. I’m going to go back the other way. We’re not going to do this in Australia. They have completely different evidentiary rules, so we have a lot to learn about that. So just kudos to you that you put those pictures of those kids on the table. Very, very important. I tell my clients to do all the time before you send an email or text. I want you to put that image of your kid watching you do that right on your, you know, on your phone, right on your computer, but then also that you really change the tone by getting the child’s voice in right and putting right in the center. So tell us about what happens from that? Then that’s amazing. Good job on that.
Dr. Shelley Bresnick 26:58
Yeah, and just a little more about that Child’s Voice Session. I think what’s unique about what we do with the children is that we’re not trying to get information to go to the court, that we’re not trying to get information that a judge would use to determine what the parenting times should look like. That’s not the goal at all. So our goal is to get information that the child would like to share with the parents. We let the child know that we’re going to be sharing information with their parents, so it’s up to them what they want to share. For instance, we often have children write a letter. We help them write a letter to their parents, and they are usually very willing to do that, and especially a little bit older children, put a lot into that letter, and this is such a I mean, it’s just such a touching part of this program. When we get that information to the parent and we give them a copy of this letter that their child wrote, we read it with them. Often, parents will cry, and it’s not always new information that they’re getting, but it’s just from that child. It’s their voice speaking to them about how hurtful the conflict is for them, how much they wish their parents could get along and be nice to one another. Those are kind of the basic things we often see in those letters that we share. But that’s really an important part of this, because that’s the whole reason we’re doing this class. And it really brings that home to the parents.
Krista Nash 28:25
Yeah, I love that. It would be nice if we had these solutions driven children’s voices, not adversarial children voice, you know, but at least, at least we’re getting, you know, just that propensity of the children’s voice to be important no matter how we’re doing this, I think, because I do think it helps, it also helps parents stay out of court more if they can understand that what their child’s perspective is. I come into these cases as the best interest attorney. Usually when the case is very heated up, I’m being appointed as an attorney to help the court navigate this and help the parents navigate it. But I’m always trying to drag everybody out of court and listen to the kids so that we are not going to court, which is, you know, sometimes successful, often successful. Because I think any professional, whether it’s a good best interest attorney or a great mental health professional, anybody who can bring that kind of clarifying information to parents to try to stop this train that’s heading toward collision at court, you know, is something that’s really valuable, I think, to a family system. You know? I mean, I’ve broken record with these families, because I’ll just say, yep, we need therapy. Yep, we need therapy. We need to call Shelley, we need to call Jill. We need to call one of these people, because it’s almost always the solution, so people could get ahead of it. And I think I told you both, when we were prepping, I had a former client call me and say it was such a beautiful call, because he said, Hey, my ex and I are having troubles with our kids, and we’re trying to find our own solutions to, you know, therapy and our kids resisting, and we’re trying to find ways to do this together. Should I file a motion? What should I do? Like no, no, no. Oh, don’t file a motion. Go do this, right? And so I think there is a hunger for parents. They just don’t know what to ask for, right? And unfortunately, most of the solutions out there are litigation based, or they think they are right. So that’s why it’s just so important. I think that parents look for solutions like this. So after the child does that, then what happens? So what’s the next step in your process? Is that a one-time-thing that the children are involved in?
Jill Reiter 30:24
Yeah, so the total hours of the program are 10 hours. The first hour is with the children or child alone, and the last hour is where the whole family comes together. But the middle eight hours are four two hour sessions. And there’s a curriculum that we send to the parents prior to them coming in, they can either print that, or they can bring a device, if they would like. I know for my practice, I’m not printing those things anymore. We used to make big books for people that a lot of people don’t want all that paper. So we’re trying to make it more relevant and allow people to bring a device, and each two hour session, we have set curriculum, and then in between those sessions, we have homework that they need to do. So those sessions might be anything from us looking at the parents ability to co-parent, where are their strengths? Where are the areas that we need to focus more closely on? It may be doing a really thorough evaluation of their children, and where are the areas that need focus on the child? And it can be anything from bedtime to meals to school, academic, work, alternative care, therapy, medicine, medical issues. So we have a set curriculum each time. And then Shelley, let me, let you sort of weigh in.
Dr. Shelley Bresnick 31:45
I think we go through these different skills. We focus on individually, what do they need to do to manage themselves? And we then focus on, you know, together, interactively, how do they need to improve the way they’re interacting with the other person and then we talk about communication skills and giving them some tools that we have them practice. And then we do move into a piece of this where, because these parents come in with so much resentment and anger toward one another, sometimes there are a lot of bold hurts that have just not been addressed and are still under the surface and drive a lot of the conflict often. So Jill and I have found that if we can get them to just start to address some of that, and this isn’t a therapy, you know, situation, this is a real class. So we ask them for examples, so we don’t go through all of the old hurts and resentments, but we do have them take, you know, an example of something that they could apologize for or that they feel like they have not forgiven the other person for. So we do get into some of this a little deeper work, but it’s really to get them to start to let go of some of that and to see how that would feel to be able to do that,
Jill Reiter 33:07
I think, to practice the skill sets. Because just in our culture, we don’t learn to apologize properly, and we don’t learn to accept apologies properly. We don’t learn how to give feedback, for instance, when children are on the playground, so many parents are with siblings, you know, a child hits another child and they go, Oh, I parent says, tell your child, you know, tell the other child sorry, I’m sorry. And the other kid goes, it’s okay. And that’s what we learn. We don’t learn those skill sets of conflict resolution. And how do we really do a good, thorough apology without making an excuse, then how do we accept an apology and give feedback for that? And what is that acceptance and forgiveness process really look like? So again, I really want to reiterate that this is not therapy. It’s not a therapy session. It’s outlining and teaching that this will be a part of your process as you move into healthier co-parenting. And there may be, you know, the examples that people bring, we allow them to choose their own examples for the apology piece. Some parents apologize for, you know, being two hours late, coming down the mountain with their kids and exchanging them late. Other parents apologize very deeply for having had an affair or having been absent or not being involved in a medical appointment or some emergency crisis. So we allow people to work in their own sort of safety zone, but also really being clear about the expectations that they’re going to need to practice this skill going forward, and that that is work that they’re going to need to do.
Krista Nash 34:47
I’m looking at your I’ve got notes here on your on your program, and I’m looking at some of the things where you say what you will learn. So I’m just actually going to run through these, because you just touched on a couple. But it looks like you’ve got, it sounds like these are all part of your curriculum, but structure for. Communication, defining features of healthy co parenting, boundaries, divorce from a child’s perspective, acceptance and forgiveness, how to apologize, which you just touched on, Jill, emotion management, how to problem solve. The effects of post divorce conflict on children. How to help your children adjust to divorce. Child Development and changes in children through divorce, overview of grief and loss, psychological adjustment to family disruption and when to utilize alternative dispute resolution options. But that’s an awful lot that you tackle and not much time, and probably for not really that much cost compared to some other options. So is this curriculum kind of structured around those topics?
Dr. Shelley Bresnick 35:38
Yes, it is. It’s not like we just have discussions about all these things. We have worksheets, we have exercises that we have them do. It’s a very interactive class.
Krista Nash 35:50
It’s interesting too to think about. You know, so often we’ll send people, and maybe you can talk about how this differs. You know, when I usually refer people from the cases on which I’m working, I’ll say to these parents, these kids, look, you know, I know that you’ve been in therapy on your own, or I know you a parent will say, Oh, I don’t have a problem with my kid the spot my spouse does. So my spouse and the kid need to go to therapy together, and that’s all we need to do. And I’ll say, Well, really, you might be having an effect, Mom, you know, on maybe there’s some things you can learn. Maybe the core of the parent child contact problem, for example, might be something that is dad and child related, but certainly there’s things that you could do better. And so we want everybody to be engaged in this. I think maybe what I’m resonating with, what you’re talking about, is that you’re helping people understand that the stuff that they bring in is going to affect their co-parenting. Maybe we don’t have to unpack it all right now, but you do need to address it at some point, right? I like that. You’re then, hey, let’s focus on the child. Let’s focus on the strategies to do this better. But we’re not going to just fix all these old hurts immediately in this room or all all these wounds, right? I mean, so is that a real distinction in terms of this kind of work with your class versus the actual therapeutic work with family systems therapy? Yes,
Dr. Shelley Bresnick 37:09
I think that’s fair to say. Krista, I will just add that there is a lot of material that we cover, and then we also have booster sessions that we highly recommend parents continue after the class, after they’ve completed the class. So those would be, you know, a 50-minute session, basically to help them utilize the skills that they learned and understand what obstacles may be getting in the way if they’re not feeling like they’re using these, these new skills, you know, the way they should be. So, so we do offer that because we recognize that it’s not easy to to change their approach to one another when they’ve been in a relationship and had the same dynamics for, you know, many times years.
Krista Nash 37:59
I’ve read a book. Because, you know, in my free time, I’m just like, you know, watching murder trials to learn to be a better lawyer and reading books about divorce. My kids are like, you need some better other hobbies. But over the weekend, I was reading this, you know, kind of tongue in cheek, kind of crass, actually, book about divorce. It was actually a really good reminder of sort of what people go through. Because I forget, you know. And one of the things this author talked about was, you know, let’s talk about co-parenting, you know. And she’s, you know, kind of, it’s sort of a humorous book. And she’s like, it’s like being stuck on a group project for the rest of your life with, like, the last person you want to be on a group project with, you know, like, in school. I thought that was pretty telling. I’m like, Yeah, you do have to get through it, you know, to get the grade and to do the most important thing of raising your kids. You know, it’s like, Oh, this isn’t over. I can’t just get rid of this person. And I was thinking even just about this group project analogy, taking one step forward, you know, sometimes by bringing in some other resources into a crappy group, right? Maybe it can change the dynamic in a way that that group can actually function, right, which is sort of how I’m viewing myself sometimes, or the things you do. Because I guess parents kind of know it in their gut. I have kids with this person, I’m going to be stuck even when I get divorced, but I think they often think that the conflict that they’ve had in the marriage is not going to overflow, like it’s going to somehow be better, right? Do you find that to be something you see ad well?
Jill Reiter 39:22
Well, I don’t know. I think people come in, at least the people that were getting referred to us come in, and I think they realize that there is just a continuation. They don’t want it. They clearly don’t want to continue. They’re bothered by it. It’s painful for them. But I think sometimes it’s even exacerbated, because they have had an expectation that, oh, once I move out, or once we’re separated, I’m going to be able to parent my kids just the way I want to do it. And the other parent is then criticizing the parenting. And there’s just so much that goes back and forth with that. You know, one thing that I washinking about when Shelley was talking, and we both have said, this isn’t a therapy program, but there are these pieces that are deeper. You know, one thing that I have found is that our program brings together this nice bit of practicality. So we have sort of this design of how to communicate together and really focus on these details about your children that depending on their age, sometimes there’s a lot of details to be focusing on when children are younger, or sometimes when they’re high schoolers, but then I think our best effort is maybe to just create some insight through some of the work that we do around that acceptance forgiveness, that maybe I do need to go to therapy. Maybe I do need a little bit of support on my own, maybe it would be helpful for me to let go of this and move on. Because I think when they are so intractable and they come in and they want to hang on to those pieces that make them feel justified and that fuels their anger, sometimes I see a shift in that. I think we both have seen a shift that when we do some of that apology work, and we’re also employing these strategies of them working together on a weekly basis, or every other week basis, of communicating with their kids, the blending of those skill sets and practice hopefully are going to move the needle a little bit.
Krista Nash 41:21
I like that. Yeah, that’s really, really good. So I’ve heard one other person say it was probably on another of my podcasts that parents have a hard time uncoupling. That when you’re shifting over to good co parenting, you have to get uncoupled somehow from some of this other drama. So I don’t know if it is that. I don’t know if that’s an industry term or somebody just made up. And that makes a lot of sense to me, that people get hung up on the how to do that, right? I mean, it’s really complicated. We don’t really tell people how to navigate through this. So what does it cost to do the program? Does it vary, or is there a basic cost for the 10 hours? At least, I know that it probably changes from time to time. What can people expect on that?
Dr. Shelley Bresnick 42:00
Yeah, we require a deposit of $2500 for the program. The booster sessions are extra. And, you know, parents pay those as they go along. But the $2500 usually covers the class. If, for some reason we need an extra session, we’ll add that in. But the $2500 generally covers it.
Krista Nash 42:22
Do you have an example,even just a hypothetical or, you know, because I know we all always have to be careful about talking about real cases of a success story. You know, when you two get together and you’re like, This was great. You know, a family comes in that was really broken, and we’ve seen, have you seen that kind of longitudinal, either immediate success at the end, or you’ve heard years later, hey, that really worked, and we’re charging along, doing so much better now. Well, I actually can make an example.
Jill Reiter 42:47
This was so long ago, but both parents were remarried at the time, so we had, I had four people in my office on a regular basis, and gosh, when they came in, you know, when I did the child voice session, I think the kids were like middle school and early high school. And, you know, the kids were just really focused on, I really want, I love all of my parents. I love my step parents. I love my mom and dad. And I really want them all to be able to come to my extra curricular activities. I want them to be able to get along. I want to be able to, you know, if I forget my baseball gear, I want my parents to be able to to exchange that while I’m at school, and not be fighting about it and not blame me and not get really angry with me about it. And I just really don’t want my parents to be crabby with one another when I started out the sessions. Oh, everyone was so there was so much anticipatory anxiety coming in by the end of the time, they actually wanted to contract with me, to come in on a regular basis, all four of them to talk about how to manage these two kids, because they were getting older. You know, one of them had, like, snuck out and was drinking late at night, and they wanted a forum where they could come in, and they felt so comfortable after all the work that we did. I’ll never forget this. They came in the one time and they said, chill. We have such great news. We were all at high school registration. We were all four of us were there, and we all went through all the stations with our child, and it was really great. And we went out for lunch afterwards, and we took our kid. They were so proud of themselves, and they just felt so good about it, and the fact that they wanted to extend and use our the forum and the in the relationship that they had built with one another, to come back and actually work on struggles in parenting, so not really with each other, but how do we deal with these kids? So that was, that’s probably one of my favorite stories.
Krista Nash 44:42
And you know, when they first came in, you said they had anticipatory anxiety. But what was the, what was their tenor when they came to you? Were they, I mean, were they like, we’re not even speaking, we can’t work on anything together. Was that the way co-parenting was going at that point?
Jill Reiter 44:57
There was a lot of volatility. There was a lot of really negative conversations. People were not emotionally regulated in those conversations. There was a lot of animosity. There was not a lot of restraint that they were using in their communication. And, yeah, there was a lot of hurt and a lot of anger and a lot of defensive posturing.
Krista Nash 45:17
Shelley. Do you have stories like that too?
Dr. Shelley Bresnick 45:19
Well, I was just thinking of one case that I can tell you about real quickly. It was a mother, a father and a step mom who came in, and there were two kids who were middle elementary school and late elementary school, and the mother had some real hesitation about even participating in the program, because she felt that it was going to be two against one. It was dad and stepmom against her. She felt very threatened by stepmother. Felt like stepmother was kind of stepping in too much and taking over with the kids. So there were a lot of feelings and perceptions coming in. But once we, all three of them, started working with me, they started to see that they really did have the same goals for their kids. They were really working separately, though, because they weren’t communicating, and if they started communicating, things could be better, and they were able to do that. And I do remember one of the best sessions that we had was when we talked about acceptance and forgiveness, and each parent made an apology, and there were tears, and it was very effective. The tone in the room just became noticeably lighter. There was more warmth. I mean, they came in, and it was like I was wondering how this was going to go, but yeah, by the end, they were just on a much more friendly basis, able to communicate more, felt a lot more hopeful about where they were going.
Krista Nash 46:52
. Is there a time, a particular time in a family’s trajectory of co-parenting that you think your program is best suited to or is it anytime?
Dr. Shelley Bresnick 47:03
Well, I will say that litigation, if they are in the midst of litigation, that really puts a strain on the relationship, and it makes our job much more difficult, because part of what we’re trying to do is build some trust between these parents and and allow them to give each other the benefit of the doubt more often, and that is really difficult to do when they’re in the middle of litigation and they are afraid that the other parent is just looking for ammunition to use against them. So it’s very difficult then to go into a class where they are being asked to share with one another to work on something together,
Krista Nash 47:45
Which is why, I’ll just point out. I mean, that makes me think of two things. One, that I just did another episode with Michael Saini, who has done research on trust building, and hespeaks a lot about incremental trust building and the need for that. And you know, I think that parents can go listen to that, or attorneys can go listen to that podcast to learn about that, because it is such a fundamental problem if you don’t have trust. He talks about your test Trust Bank being, you know, either all at once depleted, or over a whole bunch of micro events depleted, and how it’s virtually impossible to co-parent well, with someone you don’t trust. So how do we then create parenting plans and things or approaches that allow for the building of trust so that banks can be brought up? And I hear that with kids a lot too. I think it applies to kids and their parents too. Like, how do I trust? It’s not just a co parenting thing, but I also think it’s interesting just to your perspective on that litigation causes so much stress on a system, and inherently those custody evaluations in Colorado, the periods and the CFI, you know, that’s our main mechanism of going and getting the supposed voice of the children, like we talked about before, into court, and yet they’re inherently adversarial, and the parents get trained by their attorneys, if they have them, or by the system, to be adversarial and point out all the worst parts of their co-parent, and then you get this report that is inherently going to make that worse, because it just puts it all in black and white. So there’s something deeply broken about that. You know, we’re trying to do something that helps, and yet, we’re actually doing something that doesn’t help, right? I mean, it might get to good outcomes in litigation that are more informed than with if the court didn’t have that. So it’s not that it isn’t helpful information, but it’s not helpful to the co-parenting progress. Have you had people that have come in post child custody evaluations and had a lot of hurt through that? Have you seen that absolutely?
Jill Reiter 49:41
Yeah. I think, I mean, I don’t think anybody wants their dirty laundry aired if nobody wants a 40 page report where they feel like they’ve been put through the shredder. Yeah. And, you know, some parents come in where they feel really justified and validated and vindicated, but I think even in. In those situations. You know what we talk about a lot is positive intent and Shelley, and I don’t want PRE reports, CFI reports. This is a class. We’re not doing therapy with these people. We don’t want to read any of that stuff. We want to go from this day forward assuming positive intent. And that’s another reason why the confidentiality piece of our program is so important, because people there are going to be trial and error. You know, when we are practicing we have a feedback exercise. When we’re practicing, that feedback exercise, here’s what I heard you say, or, you know, a brainstorming exercise, for example, we want people to be open enough to explore new options, because this is what we’re working for, is a change in their communication and in their system. And if we don’t acknowledge that some of those hurts came out in those evaluations, then it’s hard to move on, but we don’t want to stay focused on any of that.
Krista Nash 51:04
Jill, in a recent situation in which I’ve been working with you, you talked about a homework assignment that parent and child were doing about remodeling a house. I love that. That’s a really active example, because sometimes what you all do is the secret sauce of what you do with parents and kids. It’s hard for me to explain to people, but when I get that kind of example to grab onto, I’m like, okay, that makes so much sense, you know? I’m always trying to take those examples. When I’m trying to convince kids that they need to do this, or parents to do it, that that’s something that we can as humans just grasp onto. Like, okay, it’s going to look different, you know? And it’s a little like my I use the stained glass analogy, same kind of idea, you know, it’s like, it’s a pile of glass. You didn’t think you’re ever going to have your family crushed into. How do we remake this into something that we can all flourish in? Right? What do you want the house to look like? Kid, what do you think? Parent,hat do you think of that? I thought that was just a really interesting example that I could grab onto in terms of, like, what a homework assignment would look like, right? Or I’ve heard you talk about things like, you know, what’s the most fun you’ve had together? What are things you like to do together, you know? And what are things that make you laugh, you know, just ways to bring it down. And I don’t know that’s probably more therapeutic, but still, I think those are things I can grab on to that parents can really resonate with. Are there other examples like that, that you sort of use in the curriculum, that you think parents would also resonate with things like remodeling a house.
Dr. Shelley Bresnick 52:26
Well, I think when we work with co-parents, we approach it as your relationship needs to change into a business relationship. It needs to be more like you’re dealing with a business partner and you’re in the business of raising your children together, and usually they both have the same goals, the same, you know, generally, the same values about what they want for their children. But they need to treat one another as if they were a business partner, and you need to act professionally, almost with that person. You need to treat them with respect, and respect is in the name of our program, and that is something we do really emphasize, is being respectful, because that is one thing that seems to have gone out the window with most of these parents,
Jill Reiter 53:13
The other important piece of that homework, and it’s a little bit along the lines of what you were saying. Christa, we have at the end of each session, we have them develop a group goal. So that is both parents together, or if there’s three parents or four parents, what is their group goal? And they’re all responsible, it can’t be well, I contributed this to the group goal. It’s ‘what did we contribute’? How did we switch if we had a negative interaction and we feel like somebody’s coming at us. How did we turn that around? What did we do to help change the dynamic at that point? And then they each have an individual goal, and then we look at that goal at the beginning of the next session and say, Okay, how did each of you do? And then maybe my goal individually is to stop passing messages through my kids to the other parent and to be more transparent and to give more information and be more communicative. And so at the beginning of that next session, I read my goal out loud as the parent and I rate myself one to five, one, I didn’t do a very good job. Five, I did a great job. And here are the factors that contribute to how well I rated myself. And as the facilitator, I always ask the other parent, then, do you agree with parent A that they met that goal, and how did you experience that change in that parent? So we get some real movement there sometimes too. So that remodeling, it’s not always us saying, okay, here are some things that need to be remodeled, because there are clearly some things in our description of positive co parenting and the parenting assessment that we say these things definitely need to change, because it’s hurting your kids and it’s destroying your your co parenting relationship. But then we allow them also to do some self reflection after what they’ve heard in the class. Us about some healthier dynamics, and we let them choose their own individual goal and how they’re going to go about that. So here’s the objectives that I’ll employ to really make that goal a reality.
Krista Nash 55:12
I love that. Do you think that the program works for people who are I’m always like, I wish I could get a hold of more families pre-decree, meaning, like before they blow it up before they’ve been at each other for 10 years. Do you think that it can also really help people like that who are early in the process of establishing their co-parenting dynamics?
Dr. Shelley Bresnick 55:32
Yes, I definitely do. I think we but both Jill and I have talked about how it would be so great to get people earlier on in the process, the divorce process that they’re going through, so they can establish these better habits right from the start, or address the problems they’re already having before there’s a lot of animosity that has built up through litigation or any, you know, other evaluation process. But we just don’t see a lot of people coming in earlier, unfortunately.
Krista Nash 56:05
Well, that’s why I wanted you to as part of why I wanted to have you on is because I’m really just hoping to, I’m just trying to throw resources at parents to get something other than just what attorneys are telling them. And I think maybe we should end with that, because I know we’re running out of time. I could talk to you all all day, and might have to have you on again. But have both of you work in court involved families so much, and you have a lot of insight about courts. Is there anything that you would say to attorneys about their role in all of this, in terms of what they should be thinking about when they get people because I had Terry Harrington on, for example, and she talked about how attorneys really are first responders, and we are in the seat of being able to guide and direct these families in one way or the other. It’s like you start going, let’s get on this train, or let’s get on this train. And sadly, many, in my view, many, many, are in sort of an echo chamber with this client that comes in and says, This is how bad this parent is. And then we’re off to the races with child custody evaluations and litigation and depositions. And, you know, Terry and I both said we literally have neither ever noticed a deposition in any of our cases because it’s toxic to family systems in the future. What are your, you know, maybe, as we close, do you have messages you think attorneys should really think about in terms of their effect, their opportunity right of injuring or putting a case on the right track?
Dr. Shelley Bresnick 57:27
Yeah, I’ll start with that one. I do think that if attorneys can talk to one another and avoid filing motions and try to work out whatever issues have come up, settling, stipulating whatever they need to do, that is so much more helpful, because you’re right. Krista, when parents get geared up, they think they’re going to court. They’re pulling out the weapons, and that’s what we don’t want. We want parents to be working together cooperatively, not fighting with these weapons that they have access to through the legal system, if attorneys could help them with that. And just keep in mind that these are families. And I’ve said I feel like family law attorneys, family law is an area where they need to have more artistry than they have, all the tools they have, all that that they can access, but there’s more art to working as a family law attorney, because you’re working with a family, you’re working with children. It’s a very delicate situation, and I just wish more attorneys could think about that and really think about what’s best for the children, and not just, how do I advocate for my client?
Jill Reiter 58:36
I would piggyback on that. And one of the things that I do when I start a family therapy case with resist, refuse dynamics is I have a five way zoom. It’s both of the clients and the attorneys and myself to start the case where I go over expectations and protocols. But what I want to say to attorneys is, if you focus on the other parent versus your client in terms of client control and helping them learn what they can do to make the situation better, you’re going to hurt the kids. It is so important, and I know that your clients are hiring you to be their advocate, but what I think attorneys forget is that advocacy also involves helping your clients see that they have a part in this, that they are culpable, and you are doing them such a disservice, you’re not serving your clients well if you don’t help them. Learn to look in their own backyard, first swim in their own lane, work on what they can get therapy to help them with their resentments and their anger, just focusing on the other parent being a bad parent and fueling that fire is disastrous.
Krista Nash 59:49
Well, that’s really, really well said by both of you, and I just think it’s so important I might have to have you back on to I don’t know, I’m starting to kind of consider another lane of like talking to the family law bar more in particular. Days, because I’m trying to do two different things here, of helping parents understand that they need to demand something different, because everything is riding on it right, and you’ve done all this unintentional damage to your children if you don’t do it well. So I’m really happy that you’ve come on today to share this wonderful class, this co-parent, with respect and also just provided such insight. And thank you both for the way you actually help all these families. If we didn’t have you, we’d be in such big trouble, and we got to find a way to scale this before you both run off to retirement, because you’re going to leave me with not enough solutions. Is there anything you all want to say in closing?
Jill Reiter 1:00:37
No, thank you so much for having us on. I’m so grateful.
Krista Nash 1:00:40
Thanks for doing this. And yeah, Shelley, sorry I interrupted you.
Dr. Shelley Bresnick 1:00:44
Yeah, no, just thank you so much, Krista. Just for your interest in this class and your dedication to helping families and children in these situations. We just need more people who are committed like that.
Krista Nash 1:00:55
I appreciate that, and I’ll definitely be sending people to try this out more, and it hasn’t been top of mind for me either. And so I just go right to the family systems therapy all the time. So I’m going to be trying to be a little bit more nuanced about that and see if we can help some families and send some people who call me as well. I’ll put it again for listeners. I’ll put the resources on the show notes. And I thank you both for being here, and I look forward to and I’ll invite you back to talk again at some point. So if you also, if you have any families you think would be interested in this, who you might still be in touch, who have done booster classes, you know, and might want to talk about how they transformed from having bad co parenting to good co parenting. I’d be more than happy to have them come on and talk about how they really are glad that they are on the other side of that to encourage other people, so just a thought, if they’re willing to breach their confidentiality, and you know, enter the internet with their stories. So thank you both, and I look forward to talking with you again soon. Thank you so much.
Jill Reiter 1:01:53
Take care. Bye, bye, bye.
Intro/Outro 1:01:57
Krista is licensed in Colorado and Wyoming. So if you are in those states and seek legal services, please feel free to reach out via ChildrenFirstFamilylaw.com that is our website where everyone can find additional resources to help navigate family law as always, be sure to like, subscribe and share the podcast with others you think would benefit from this content.