028: DefuseDivorce and Keeping Kids Out of the Middle with author Dr. Benjamin Garber, PhD

April 14, 2025

Keeping children’s best interests at the forefront in family courts should be a common goal, but unfortunately, they are often caught in litigious battles. Understanding the processes behind court proceedings can often smooth out the rough edges, and today’s guest specializes in advocating for kids and serving their needs.

On this episode of Children First Family Law, Krista welcomes Dr. Ben Garber, a superstar in the family law landscape around the globe. Based in New Hampshire, Dr. Garber is a licensed psychologist with decades of experience understanding and serving the needs of children, including authoring ten books on subjects in child and family development, divorce, and family law. He also handles various forensic evaluation roles, consultation, and expert testimony. First and foremost, Dr. Garber is a children’s advocate as a clinician, consulting expert, writer, and speaker. He is active in family law organizations throughout New England and the United States.

Krista and Dr. Garber begin their conversation by exploring Dr. Garber’s extensive body of work, including ten books. He shares the winding road he took to land in the family law niche and why it’s been so rewarding. You’ll hear how the dynamics of high-conflict families impact children, the benefits of a divorce without creating more harm to the children, and some examples of the solutions Dr. Garber’s site, DefuseDivorce.com, offers for parents and professionals. Dr. Garber outlines why “advance orientation” in a divorce scenario can improve outcomes for families, how parental anxiety hurts kids, and why information is the antidote to anxiety. Dr. Garber and Krista share some video clips from DefuseDivorce.com, and finally, they explain why consistency and being an anchor for your kids can create good outcomes for your children in a divorce.

Divorce is complex, and kids often get caught in the middle, but understanding the ins and outs of the process can help reduce anxiety on all sides. Don’t miss Dr. Ben Garber’s expert advice on handling divorce while keeping kids’ best interests at the forefront.

In this episode, you will hear:

  • Dr. Garber’s vast body of work, including ten books
  • Why Dr. Garber chose this particular career path
  • The dynamics of high-conflict families and how they impact children
  • Divorce can be done without so much harm to kids
  • DefuseDivorce.com solutions for parents and professionals, 
  • How “advance orientation” improves outcomes for families
  • Parents’ anxiety hurts children, and the antidote to anxiety is information
  • Examples of resources from DefuseDivorce.com: resist-refuse dynamics; orientation to parenting plan evaluations; how to produce a parenting plan
  • Consistency is key – being an anchor for kids – to have good outcomes for children in divorce

Resources from this Episode

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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DefuseDivorce and Keeping Kids Out of the Middle with author Dr. Benjamin Garber, PhD Podcast Transcript

Dr. Benjamin Garber, PhD  00:00

Seldom find maybe I’ve never found a parent who doesn’t say, my kids come first, but their actions often betray that, because it’s so easy for your ego to get bruised and for you to feel like once upon a time, I promise to love, honor and cherish this other human being in front of the public. Now that we’re divorcing, I have to prove to the public that I’m justified in rejecting that person. The real test is the real question that has to be asked and really genuinely answered is, do you love your child more than you hate a child’s other parent?

 

Intro/Outro  00:36

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  01:24

Today, on the podcast, we welcome Dr. Ben Garber, a superstar in the family law landscape, both in the United States and around the globe, based in New Hampshire. Dr. Garber is a licensed psychologist with decades of expertise understanding and serving the needs of children, including authoring 10 books on subjects in Child and Family Development, divorce and family law. Dr. Garber also handles a wide variety of forensic evaluation roles, consultation and expert testimony across all of his roles. Dr. Garber, though, is first and foremost a children’s advocate as a clinician, a consulting expert, a writer and a speaker. His goal is to help parents, professionals and courts better understand child development and family dynamics in order to put children’s needs first. He is active in family law organizations throughout New England and the United States, and truly, as he quits, but accurately, states around the planet today, he specifically shares his diffuse divorce online programs that are providing new resources that help parents orient themselves in the divorce process and help children flourish when their parents do divorce better. We hope you find his perspective refreshing, that divorce truly can be done well and kids can flourish if parents and family law professionals heed his advice. Well, welcome to today’s episode of the podcast. I am thrilled today to have Dr. Ben Garber with us. Dr. Garber, I think lives in, works mostly out of New Hampshire, but has a massive presence, and I am so grateful that you agreed to join the podcast today. So welcome.

 

Dr. Benjamin Garber, PhD  03:02

Thanks. Krista, I’m thrilled to be here. Thank you for the invitation. 

Krista Nash  03:06

I am just really honored, because I want to share with everyone, first of all, that, Dr. Garber, we have a fixed topic today that we’re really going to talk about, which is really something that everybody who’s working in the divorce family law landscape, and parents going through, particular parents that go that are going through these situations, should go check out, and that is called defuse divorce, like defusing a bomb, D, E, F, U, S, E, divorce, and.com, so we’re going to talk about that, but I first want to just share that I’ve been doing as I’ve been preparing for this, some research on Dr. Garber’s scope of work, and I’m going to hold up my big stack of my investment in his books for those watching on video. This is, I think, eight of 10 of them. I’m going to link to these in the website and on my show notes, but I want to just point some of them out. The newest one is called, well, I don’t know if this is newest. Is it newest? The Holding Tight, Letting Go?

 

Dr. Benjamin Garber, PhD  04:03

No, no, the newest is the novel that you have there. 

 

Krista Nash  04:06

This one? Okay, so there’s a novel called Twisted Allies, which is you said your attempt at fiction in this area, right?

 

Dr. Benjamin Garber, PhD  04:12

Yes, maybe I could say for your listeners, I do indeed live and work in New Hampshire. I’m a New Hampshire licensed psychologist. For better or worse, call me crazy. I spent all of my time involved in family court matters working in the best interest of children. So the books that you’re holding and the conversation that we might have in a moment, including the novel called Twisted Allies, it’s all about understanding how kids manage and adapt to and are sometimes grievously injured by what adults do to each other while they pull their kids in the middle of their conflicts. 

Krista Nash  04:49

And so you couldn’t be a more appropriate guest for what we’re trying to do here with our efforts. And so we’ve got twisted allies, and we’ve got so many other things. I mean, there’s a developmental psychology book for Family Law professionals that I highly encourage my peers to check out. That’s this one here. Probably can’t see it. I’m gonna have to link it. There’s another book called Holding Tight, Letting Go: Raising Healthy Kids In Anxious Times, which I think is also just a really important book for people to look at. I am going to go through and start to highlight some of these myself and probably just do a show with just me reading some of this insight into the record. And then, of course, we’ll have Dr. Garber back. There’s a Healthy Parents ABCs, Healthy Parenting Made Clear and Easy To Read. I’ll hold that one up, and another book on Healthy Parenting: Caught In The Middle- A Letter To My Divorced Parents, which I particularly love, given that it’s got the voice of the children in it. And then this one is, I think Dr. Garber told me now going, or just about to go out of print, but I have found this to just be absolutely so insightful, Keeping Kids Out of the Middle-Child Centered Parenting in the Midst of Conflict, separation and divorce, so a whole bunch of different things here, high conflict litigation, warnings about that. Dr. Garber has done so much work. So first, with that introduction, I would like to just have you give a little intro about how you even got into this work. And then we start, I mean, like, Why? Why land in this of all your options of being a psychologist? How did this grip you for your life’s work? 

 

Dr. Benjamin Garber, PhD  06:17

I’ll try to give you the halfway, abbreviated edition, let me see, I did really well in a small high school in Wisconsin. I matriculated amongst 30,000 students at the University of Michigan in a day and age when computers housed whole buildings, there was no such thing as a cell phone, and there was no such thing as individual orientation for incoming freshmen. So I signed up for intro calculus like all of my peers, unaware that the 29,999 others had had a pre-calculus class that I’d never had in my small high school, and I was so ignorant and maybe shy at the time that as I failed calculus freshman year in college. I didn’t even know how to drop the class, so I failed the class. Had an F on my report card. What’s that?

 

Krista Nash  07:11

I said, Oh, no, that’s terrible, right?

 

Dr. Benjamin Garber, PhD  07:13

Oh, it was horrible. I was in tears. I thought, this college thing isn’t for me. I called my parents and I said, I’m going to France this summer. I had always studied French. I love languages. My mother said, No, you’re not. My father thought he was going to be really smart. He said, Okay, hold on, you can go if you get a job there, thinking I would never get a job there. So I got a job there, leading white water kayak trips down the south of France on a river called the Ardèche, which is fodder for a whole other podcasts you might have, but while there speaking French, I became fascinated by how language affects how we think. So I came back to Michigan, renewed and sun tanned, loving kayaking, speaking French, and took courses that helped me begin to understand the intersection between Language and Thought, which puts you both in psychology and linguistics. I ended up with two degrees from Michigan, one in psycholinguistics, and I’m still fascinated by how language affects thinking, which is actually relevant to the work that I’m doing here today as we speak. And the other degree is just psychology, developmental psychology and such, which taught me that it’s not sufficient to ask the question, how does language affect thinking? You have to also consider emotions and context and relationships, and we are so much more complex than that. So I went to Penn State in developmental psychology, managed to get a clinical psychology degree. Along the way, I did an internship in Connecticut. Here I am in New Hampshire. Began as a newbie psychologist, a clinician working in a clinic where it seemed as if eight out of every 10 kids, especially boys, referred for psychotherapy or being diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. This was the 1980s or 90s. I’m old. Yeah, that is just not statistically and demographically possible. Turns out, when you look beneath the surface of the thing, at least half of the kids with that diagnosis come out of homes that are full of chaos and conflict. I am not saying that ADD and ADHD are not real. They absolutely are. However, those diagnoses, even today, are grossly over-diagnosed, because psychology and medicine take an individual diagnostic perspective on things. They tend to look for the problem within the person. Diagnosis refers to a pattern of thinking, feeling or behaving that happens within you, like appendicitis or strep throat or ADD, ADHD, whereas half of those kids didn’t know who was going to be in their home that evening, or where they’re going to get supper, or whether mom was going to beat up dad or dad was going to beat up mom. And that sort of anxiety when you sit in school really gets in the way. Focusing on ABC, 123, and what’s the capital of Germany. So it’s easy to call that distractible kid, add and give him a stimulant medication, but that misses the boat, and in fact, contributes to the family problem, because then you can stigmatize and target the child as the cause of the problem, rather than really understand and identify and be responsible for this family is having problems. The problem isn’t a matter of diagnosis within an individual. It’s a matter of dynamics, which are patterns of thoughts, feelings and behavior that occur between people. Once you start looking at dynamics and relationships and conflict with families, people beat down your door for services because everybody else, sanely and wisely runs away scared from that stuff, working with high conflict families puts you in the direct line of fire. These are very litigious people, armed with lawyers and motions and hearings and trials who say that they are focused on their kids. Often they genuinely are, but who are simultaneously eager to prove that they’re right in the other parent is wrong, and how dare you take the other parent side, no matter how it seems, I’m involved in family litigation constantly, it’s I’m surrounded by here in my office, no matter how it seems, I never take mom or dad’s or the other parent’s side, no matter who hires me, no matter where I work, and I work all around the world. I work for kids.

 

Krista Nash  11:28

Yeah, that’s what I do, too. And I appreciate that, and I appreciate how hard it is. I find it really interesting how people landed in this area, because it’s just always such a meandering path for each of us into this landscape, and yet, it’s refreshing to find so many kindred spirits who are genuinely trying to do better for kids, and what parent doesn’t want to do better for kids. So Right? I mean, most parents, you know, they might not know how to do it, but at least they can get behind the fact that doing better for kids is important, you know, and that they want their kids to flourish, 

Dr. Benjamin Garber, PhD  12:03

And I don’t know how much interruption you’ll tolerate here, you’re welcome to cut any of this out, but I seldom find maybe I’ve never found a parent who doesn’t say, my kids come first, but their actions often betray that, because it’s so easy for your ego to get bruised and for you to feel like once upon a time, I promise to love, honor and cherish this other human being in front of the public. Now that we’re divorcing, I have to prove to the public that I’m justified in rejecting that person. The real test is the real question that has to be asked and really genuinely answered is, do you love your child more than you hate the child’s other parent? Yeah.

 

Krista Nash  12:47

I mean Exactly, and that’s why I am going to eventually read this book into the record, as I would say, as an attorney, right? This one, I marked it all up. We do need to get to diffuse divorce, so all the listeners need to keep with us so that they can listen to this great thing and see these awesome resources on diffuse divorce. But what I love in this, it’s divorce does not need to harm our children, but co-parental conflict routinely does. And I just love that. I mean, you talk about in this that you know that these people, there’s an interest of winning against that person more than you know, that becomes the thing that trumps the decisions that occur, right? And it just gets completely and you say, right in here, divorce does not need to harm children. Every year, more than a million children experience this in the United States alone. Is what the stats were way back then. It’s probably higher now, right? 

Dr. Benjamin Garber, PhD  13:36

2010 publication, and it remains true. I write and say the same things every day. I’d like to think that people are listening, but the same patterns repeat over and over and over again, for better or worse, you and I and other like minded souls, because we end up preaching to the choir more often than not, are out there trying to convince people put your kids needs first.

Krista Nash  13:57

Well, let’s transition then into tell us about DefuseDivorce, because this is such a practical thing that I wanted to bring you know, there’s so much theoretical conversation that occurs around the research, and I think that for parents going through this, sometimes there’s just this grasping for, how can I actually find some help right now? How can I do this better? And I think this is something I know you’ve been putting together with so much attention and care to try to and I really am interested, too. And you know, you’re such a heady intellect in terms of talking to me about the fractal mathematical things, and I want to hear a little bit about that, because I find it fascinating. But I also just want, I want you to present it in terms of like, let’s tell parents what this is, and attorneys who are listening as well, that they can send people to this to actually get some real help to make the system, this whole process better. So tell us, give us, give us some introduction to DefuseDivorce.

 

Dr. Benjamin Garber, PhD  14:56

I’d be glad to, and I love the opportunity, but I can’t help but respond first. First of all, any intellect or not, all the theoretical stuff is in the background. It’s the foundation that allows us to build practical stuff, like the Defuseivorce.com. So here’s what we’re talking about, Krista. Let’s pretend for a second, even though you and I have never actually physically met in person, let’s pretend that once upon a time we met, we fell in love, we got married, and the marriage part is incidental, because that’s just legal record keeping. But we had a child. What’s your favorite kid named Krista? Pick a name,

 

Krista Nash  15:31

Um, Sarah

 

Dr. Benjamin Garber, PhD  15:32

Okay. We had a little girl named Sarah, who is presently eight years old. I made that up. This is all fictitious, of course. So you and I fall out of love, and we fall out of the ability to respect one another and communicate together and cooperate together and to put Sarah’s needs first. And so we each hire attorneys who are, I mean, you no disrespect. You’re an attorney, and certainly I know and work constantly with attorneys, but there are a lot of attorneys out there in family law in particular who endorse the idea, which isn’t true actually, that they’re responsible to be zealous advocates for the parents whom they represent. And a zealous advocate is a vicious beast who throws everything on the fire in the interest of winning, when, in fact, family law is about the kids and it should never be about slash and burn litigation. So we go to court, and the court, and by that, I mean the judge, he or she on the bench in a black robe with a gavel, is dramatically overburdened, overworked, underpaid, and out of his or her death, because nobody knows all of the stuff that goes on in families. I don’t mean particular families, but you have to be a master of child development, drug and alcohol use and abuse, interpersonal dynamics, psychopathology. You’d have to live 10,000 years and have a perfect memory to master everything necessary to genuinely begin to understand a complex family system. None of us do that, so the judge, for want of time and energy, often refers or orders families to various services in the hopes that those services will either settle the matter so that they don’t have to continue with litigation or and or provide the court with more concrete information which can help the court make solid decisions for the child. Like custody evaluation, better known these days is parenting plan evaluation. If you’re in California, it’s a 730 evaluation. If you’re in Florida, it’s a social investigation. Different states, different jurisdictions call them different things. We’re talking about the court ordering the parents to engage a specially trained, usually a mental health professional, to study the entire family system in order to advise the court about the future care of the child.

 

Krista Nash  18:01

And I’ll just pause for those listening in Colorado, where I predominantly practice, that’s those are Child and Family investigators CFI). Is our lower, quicker, less intense offering in that manner, and the higher level of that is Parental Responsibility Evaluations (PRE).

 

Dr. Benjamin Garber, PhD  18:18

I understand that CFI’s don’t make recommendations. 

 

Krista Nash  18:23

They do. They do make recommendations. It’s CLRs that don’t make recommendations. Well, CLRs don’t make reports. So CFIs and PREs both do make recommendations and are experts, which is what sets them apart from the CLR role, which is the best interest attorney.

 

Dr. Benjamin Garber, PhD  18:38

Okay, thank you. So courts order families who are in high conflict to engage in various services, and the judge banks his or her gavel, and you go away and you call it the professional, and you say, I’m supposed to get this evaluation or mediation or engage in parenting coordination or 10 other things. There’s a gap in that process because no one informs the parents or the family what this thing is that the judge just ordered. So we’re supposed to go get a custody evaluation, or we’re supposed to hire a,PRE, CFI, what is that thing? Right? So you go ask your lawyer, and the lawyer might tell you whatever he or she knows, or you can Google it. I suppose what I’ve learned from this question, as this gap came to my attention the last year or so, is that other fields recognized this more than 50 years ago, and for those 50 years, have been not only providing what we’ll call advance orientation, not advanced. We’re not talking about some higher level of learning. We’re talking about advanced, as in preliminary to orientation and these other fields have engaged in rigorous and impressive research that has shown us that when a consumer of a service, this is sort of my elevator pitch. Right here, when the consumer of a service has the opportunity to engage in advanced orientation, the consumer is more likely to be satisfied with the service, and the service is likely to be more efficient and more effective. That’s astonishing, because research and actual practice in nursing and medicine and dentistry, public health, in genetic screening and in a host of other related fields, shows convincingly that 30 to 60 minutes of advance orientation can do things like decreased number of days in the hospital post surgery, decreased surgical patients need for narcotic medication and the risk of opioid addiction, decreased anxiety on the part of pediatric dental patients who have to undergo pediatric procedures so that the procedure is not only quicker, but less expensive and less painful, simple, advanced orientation in the form of written information, spoken information, video information, virtual reality or augmented reality information has a huge impact on how the consumers of a service partake in the service and the success of that service. So I’ve just published a paper that you’re welcome to share with your listeners/viewers, which starts with a very unprofessional title. Why the heck aren’t we doing this in family law? And now we are. So I’ve created defusedivorce.com and I’ve partnered with more than 50 family law professionals from around the world of every size, shape, color, language, orientation and guild affiliation, lawyers, social workers, psychologists, court personnel. I’m sure I’ve missed many different guilds there, but lots of different and very varied folks create online video advance orientation programs for parents and families engaged in custody and divorce related litigation. It’s really cool and it’s really exciting, because, you know, I know, but maybe your listeners don’t know, our family law courts are dramatically overburdened. The cost of getting involved in litigation with or without an attorney, with or without a child custody evaluation or PRE or CFU is tremendously high, and the risk of recidivist litigation, revolving door court appearances is tremendously high. The stress of all that wears on everyone, most particularly the children, diffuse divorce.com by virtue of providing very inexpensive, very brief, easily accessed, online, advanced orientation has the promise of reducing all of that.

 

Krista Nash  22:49

Yeah, I think it’s really interesting too, because as I’ve played around with it, I think I’m very good as an attorney at preparing clients and helping them understand the process. I’m very intentional about it, but I was struck in going through a couple of the things that you offer on Defuseivorce, I was struck. It made me take my own notes to think, oh my goodness, I am so seeped in this system now that I’m not even explaining these basic things to parents, right? The things that I think that I’m just skimming over. I was very blown away, really, by how solid the explanation was. And I’ll have you share some of it. I will say that I think we’re going to share some screens here. So if you’re not watching on video, you might want to go over to YouTube and watch this one on video, because we are going to share some actual pieces so you can look at it, but otherwise you can just look at diffuse divorce yourself, but I also found it just to be so incredible that you took the time to go get all these different voices. So there are lots of different clips of family law attorneys, psychologists, various people like Dr. Robert said, more than 50 people who come in and in a really concise way with varying language and perspectives and the way that they present it do a great job of explaining a whole array of different things to get people oriented to and even though you have to buy it, I will say, when you think about what you are paying for these child custody evaluations and criminal responsibility evaluations, and you’re paying attorneys, if You’re paying an attorney. I mean, you could buy the entire body of work on diffused divorce for less than you’re going to spend at mediation or in an all day session with your attorney or whatever. I mean, even in a few hours, probably. 

 

Dr. Benjamin Garber, PhD  24:33

So let me modify that. I love what you’re saying, and I actually want to get you to write that down, okay, on the website, but we charge $97 for each video, and you’re going to pay hundreds of dollars per hour for a lawyer or for a custody evaluator. If your investment of $97 can reduce even one hour of the process that you’re involved in, you’ve come out ahead… 

 

Krista Nash  24:59

And also, I will say it will explain I actually was just talking today to somebody. I’m finding even in my own consultations and in my own work as a Child Legal Representative, doing best interest work, or when I’m wearing the hat of an attorney for a parent, or doing, you know, amicable divorce service work, I’m able now to send people to my podcast, right and say, I want you to go listen to these five videos that I have, or podcasts I have about sobriety issues, if that’s the issue, and that’s going to save you a lot of money with me, not having to do this with you directly. And then you can put your questions together and bring them to me. So it is a beautiful thing to go listen to these things, watch these things, engage in these things, and you can keep going back to them too. You get your it’s not like a one off. You can go back to diffuse divorce over the course of time. How long are the subscriptions? Is it one year, one year? So you have a year to buy it, access per year. Therefore you will save money, because these things will be explained to you in a way that when you go to your attorney, you already know what you’re doing. So a lot of benefits. 

Dr. Benjamin Garber, PhD  26:02

Let me add to that, please, more than just saving money, the information that we provide is intended to help the people involved in the process be better advocates for themselves and for their children. If we say in the fuse divorce, or perhaps similarly, if you say in your podcast, what about this? Or the evaluator will look at that and it’s not happening. It gives you the foundation. You the consumer of the service, you the litigated parent, to be able to say to the court or to the lawyer or to the evaluator, hey, what about this? 

Krista Nash  26:34

I’ll give you an example, like I’ve been talking to a lot of people on the podcast about the importance of going in person to see children and being in a home. Hopefully, that’s what your program teaches. We’ve got a lot of blowback going on in Colorado right now about who’s doing these evaluations, statutes changing, people unwilling to put their necks out anymore to do it. Very, very much. A dearth of individuals doing this. So now we’ve got other people coming on saying, I will do them, but I will only do them virtually. I won’t do any interviews in person. I won’t ever go to the home. I won’t do any visits to the children. And I just have a real problem with that. So these parents, though, they don’t necessarily know that. So their attorneys will hire somebody that that’s their perspective, and they don’t understand the importance of doing this in an in person way. And so they don’t know what to ask for that. If they did, they would insist, because there are things that you learn from being in the home with a child, or things that are more comfortable to be revealed to you in that thing. So that’s just one example I would provide. 

 

Dr. Benjamin Garber, PhD  27:32

Now let me make a couple quick points, and then, with your permission, we’ll share some videos. Please. The professionals out there who are watching this program, listening to this program, reasonably wonder, well, aren’t we talking about informed consent, where informed consent is a necessary process that every provider has to offer to every consumer effectively to make sure that the consumer is aware of their rights and responsibilities engaged in the process. The answer is no. The programming that we provide at Defuseivorce.com and advance orientation generally is not the same as informed consent. We are not about informing consumers about their rights and responsibilities and literature and Medicine says No surprise here that informed consent often increases consumers anxiety? Well, your doctor just told you that we’re going to remove your hangnail, but you might die. Oh, no, of course, anxiety is the enemy. As anxiety increases, Krista, we all know this at a gut level. As anxiety increases, clear thinking diminishes your ability to speak out for yourself, to understand what’s happening to act rationally and effectively and efficiently diminishes. The antidote to that anxiety is information. Our goal at defusedivorce.com is to provide consumers of family court services necessary upfront information so that you don’t go in blind like a victim. You go in like a well informed consumer, ready to ask sound questions?

 

Krista Nash  29:07

Yeah, absolutely, really. I think from my perusal of this, at any stage in the process, it would help a parent. It would help a parent in a pre decree situation to be able to meaning that they haven’t done anything yet, or that you’re even contemplating divorce, get more information. There’s a dearth. That’s part of why I started the podcast. It’s just so hard for people to find information, and they’re grasping for it. They’re on Google, just looking for what do I do to help my kids? I want this to not mess my kids up. And so at any phase, though, even if you’re post decree, you can learn about it. There are lots of different states that this applies to. I think that’s really important and I think we as a family law bar would do well to observe some of these things too, and go in and watch these things or judicial officers, because it is so easy for us to forget how intimidating This is and how the decisions I hear frequently. I think. Because I’m more out there now on this bandwagon that litigation is bad. It’s like, don’t litigate, don’t litigate, don’t litigate. It’s so bad. We need a unified court. We need to find ways to not just have a bunch of civil litigation judges managing this for people, it’s so nuanced. It’s so intricate. There’s so many layers to it involving emotion and mental health and systems work right that we can’t just treat it like a regular lawsuit, right, which is what we do. And I’m getting pushback for a lot of attorneys where they want to defend themselves to me now they’re like, well, that’s not who we are. We believe in kids. We want kids to flourish too, but we just want to go have this deposition or we are filing for punitive contempt, because, you know, we have the right to do it. You know what I mean? Like, we’re trying to be defenders of our client, or we’re trying to be, what was the word you used, you know, zealous advocates or whatever. And that’s our job, and that’s what my client wants, even just yesterday in court, I’m like, Well, I don’t need to be part of this financial conversation or the contempt conversation, but I do want to point out the injury that this is when we have anxious parents and what is happening to them when they have to face this for weeks and months and years on end, and how it affects their ability to parent, right? So I mean, the family law bar, I think should go listen to this stuff too and take more seriously their responsibility of understanding why people like me are saying these things to recognize the damage that gets done, right?

 

Dr. Benjamin Garber, PhD  31:25

So I am actively beating the bushes. I’m out there talking to judges, lawyers, evaluators and ordinary clinicians, mental health folks just down the street who might not be involved with and might even run scared from court involved clients, but many of the adults that we see are involved in the court process. And if, even just the regular, ordinary clinician out there can send clients to diffuse divorce.com to learn about what’s happening, anxiety diminishes and rational thinking improves. So Krista, I’ve lined up four brief clips. 

Krista Nash  32:04

Okay, how much time we have share? Yeah, go ahead and let’s go through some of them. Okay.

 

Dr. Benjamin Garber, PhD  32:07

The first one is a general promo describing what we do at Defuseivorce. It’s the longest of the four. It might be three minutes. Is that okay? Yeah, absolutely okay. So bear with me, and if I hear your voice, I will interrupt it. Let me see if I can make this happen. Hold on, please. I’m going to share and let’s make sure you have sound. Okay. Can you see that screen? It is coming. Yep, there we go. Now we can see it very good. All right, yes. So two minutes, 46 seconds. Bear with me here. Welcome to defuse divorce.com. I’m Dr Ben Garber. I’m a New Hampshire licensed psychologist. My practice is devoted exclusively helping families and courts better understand and serve the needs of children like yours. I’m also the proud founder and director of diffusedivorce.com thanks for being here@diffusedivorce.com we understand that the many services commonly associated with divorce and custody litigation can create tremendous anxiety for all involved, and we understand that anxiety can get in the way of sound decision making, mature functioning and your ability to advocate for yourself and for your children. We take it as our job at diffuse divorce.com to help you to diffuse the anxiety associated with divorce and custody litigation. We do this by providing advance orientation online. Advanced orientation is like having a menu that describes to you all of the choices and the language that’s used to describe them. Diffusedivorce.com hosts programs online that teach you about each of these various services. For example, what is parenting coordination? Why won’t my children spend time with me? What is reunification therapy? What is parental alienation? And basics like how to talk to your children about separation, divorce, relocation and remarriage. Our goal is to help you translate the psychobabble and make sense under legalese, so that you can diminish the anxiety that gets in the way of making sound decisions for yourself and for your children. Years of research in many different fields have taught us that when consumers like you have the opportunity to engage in programming like this, the services that you engage in are likely to be more satisfied, more efficient and more effective. The bottom line for us here is that diffuse divorce.com programming hopes to make the divorce process less time consuming, less stressful and more cost efficient for everyone involved. Scores of family law professionals from around the world have generously contributed their wisdom, their insight and their expertise to make our programming current and helpful. Thank you once again for visiting diffuse divorce.com I’m Dr Ben Garber, please don’t hesitate to reach me at any time if I can be helpful. Good luck with your divorce related. Process, and thank you once again for putting your children’s needs first. I’m going to try to turn that off now. I’m still sharing screens, and I shouldn’t be, so I

 

Krista Nash  35:10

will reiterate to people too who aren’t seeing it. So when what we just showed you could hear Dr Garber’s intro, what showed on the screen, in case you’re just listening to this is the home page that has a variety has the orientation. Then there’s a variety of classes or training modules. And show us a few more of those right now, but you’ll see I love one of them is like, how should we tell the kids? How do I talk to my kids about this? So again, like I said before, at almost any phase, there’s material for you on there. Another one that I hear about all the time is, you know, Why will my child not want to spend time with me? What do I do about that? Those are the things that are involving, you know, whether we have all these buzz words, alienation, estrangement, you know, attachment issues, reunification issues, these are all the, you know, the top 10 words that people say in consultations, you know, with family law attorneys and a lot of parents come in with that, because there’s a sort of favored parent, sort of dynamic going on, so there’s help for that on here as well.

 

Dr. Benjamin Garber, PhD  36:08

That was a perfect segue. Krista and your listeners won’t believe it, but we didn’t practice that. I’ve lined up for you. This is only 49 seconds long. This is a clip from a program called Why Won’t My Children Spend Time With Me? Parent alienation is not the whole story. I’m pleased to have co narrated this with a social worker/lawyer colleague from North Carolina. I’m going to give you just a tiny sample of that program right now, once I push the right buttons, situation where your child becomes aligned with one parent and resists or refuses contact with the other, alienation. It’s kind of like saying that your tummy ache must be due to cancer. In fact, of course, it’s possible, we hope not, but it’s possible that your tummy ache is due to cancer. But what’s really happening can’t be determined until an impartial professional with skill in evaluating the question looks at the entire system, and that’s why we’re here today to talk about understanding the entire system so that we can begin to address all of the many variables that can result in a child becoming aligned with one parent and resisting the other, or polarized? 

 

Krista Nash  37:26

We should have planned that. We didn’t even plan that. That was great. You want to take a guess at the next one. Is it? How can I? How should I talk to my kids? Well,

 

Dr. Benjamin Garber, PhD  37:33

I could pull that up for you. What I’ve got lined up here are two pieces. We have one program, which I refer to as our Primary Program. We began really by creating a program for parents who are court ordered to engage in a parenting plan evaluation, which goes by all these other names, basically a child custody evaluation. But before I show you a clip from that, I want to show you a really cool segment from an accompanying program for parents to share with their children in advance of parenting planning, evaluation, to give the child the opportunity to understand some of the basics about what the heck am I getting involved with here? So let me see if I can make that happen. 

Krista Nash  38:14

That’s good because I think that’s the big thing we miss. Is prepping kids for that. 

Dr. Benjamin Garber, PhD  38:19

And we potentially add to their anxiety by throwing them into a room with yet another professional who’s asking very intrusive questions. So just a moment, please, what’s a custody evaluation?

 

Announcer  38:32

“Remember, we just talked about the word custody. A custody evaluation happens when your parents need some help deciding when they get to see you and who gets to make decisions about you. It’s kind of like when you’re on the playground and you’re having a disagreement with a friend, maybe you want to play a game one way, and your friend wants to play a game another way, when you’re having trouble making a decision a teacher or a principal may come over and help you guys out. A custody evaluation is similar, and that your parents are asking for some help to make decisions about when they get to see you and who gets to decide things all about you. Who is the custody evaluator? A custody evaluator is a grown up who is assigned by the court to help your parents when they are having trouble making decisions about you.” 

 

Dr. Benjamin Garber, PhD  39:33

I’m particularly proud of that program Krista, because it was built to speak to kids, including kid actors whose faces have been cartoonized, and a wonderful young psychologist from Philadelphia, Chloe Hawes, who was kind enough to narrate the program and work with me to create the answers for the kids, as if the kids themselves, they are out there in the world.. We’re asking the questions directly to her. 

 

Krista Nash  40:02

I want to tell you, just as an aside, how extreme this can get. I’ve done the child custody evaluations in the past. I’m not currently doing that work for a whole variety of reasons. I’m doing the best interest work far more regularly. But when I was doing the work of the child custody evaluations, I went to a house one time, and there had been apparently no preparation at all of what this kid should expect. And I walk in, and the stepmother hands me a letter, and it says, in that little kid scroll on the front, in weird spelling and backwards letters to the my fairy godmother. Oh, so she hands me the letter I open, it’s got glitter everywhere. Glitter goes everywhere, which is a whole nother story, you know, why? Why the glitter, right? But the glitter goes everywhere, and it’s like, dear fairy godmother, you know, this is what I want you to do. And the parents, or the dad and the stepmom had positioned me as the fairy godmother to help this kid get her wishes. I mean, I was like jaw to the floor, right? So, and that’s such an extreme example, but parents genuinely do not know what they’re supposed to tell their kids, if they’re supposed to prep their kids for all of those things. Such an extreme story, but I’m sure that’ll shock you. I don’t know if you’ve heard anything that bad.

 

Dr. Benjamin Garber, PhD  41:15

Well, the glitter takes it to a new level, because you’re washing it out of your clothes. The problem is, as I referenced earlier, that you and I and our colleagues who are listening often end up preaching to the choir, which is why I’m working hard to try to get diffusedivorce.com programming built into court orders so that this isn’t just the really caring parents learning how to be more caring, but everybody involved in the process needs to have the opportunity to diminish their anxiety and better serve their children’s needs. To that end, let me make that my own segue. Our flagship program, the original program, the one that comes up most often, is intended for parents who have been ordered to participate in the child custody evaluation to teach them about what that evaluation process. It doesn’t say it isn’t informed consent. We’ve already established that it also is not coaching, which in our field, means telling a litigant what to say to fool the court. None of that is here. This is, as the earlier clip said. This is like giving you a menu so that you can see everything that’s available and learn the language before you go out to dinner and have to order a meal. This program, I’ll show you minutes, 16 seconds of it in just a moment, talks about who is the evaluator? What is an evaluation? What are the component parts of the evaluation? What’s an adult interview, what’s a child interview, what’s site testing? Will the evaluator talk to my friends, neighbors and employer? Will the evaluator talk to my kids? What’s likely to be said, those sorts of things, not what to do or what to say, but what to expect, because when we know what to expect, we’re less anxious, we’re better prepared, and the process is more efficient, more effective, less expensive. And here’s a total tangent. One of the reasons there’s so few people in all jurisdictions willing and available to provide this service to litigating parents is because of the risk of the professional having a licensing board complaint or a civil suit filed against him or her advance orientation in other fields causes the consumer of services to be more satisfied with the service and to file fewer complaints.

 

Krista Nash  43:36

Yeah, because that is one of the biggest problems of why people are leaving the industry, we’re not going into it. 

 

Dr. Benjamin Garber, PhD  43:43

For an hour’s video and $97 we can reduce the risk of getting sued and losing your license to practice, we’ll have more people willing to practice, and some of that overall pressure will diminish. But that I’m getting grandiose there, let me show…

 

Krista Nash  43:59

I wonder before you  show it. Do you have anybody using this who are the actual child custody evaluators who are using it as an orientation video to say, honestly, I’d rather pay for the 100 bucks myself out of the child custody evaluation, and say, I want you to go watch this as an orientation for what I’m about to do.

 

Dr. Benjamin Garber, PhD  44:17

Yeah, the whole program is just a year old, and it’s taken us half that time to get programs up and the website polished. The website right now, I told you earlier, is in transition, so forgive the glitches and such. We’re working on it. But even at this early point, I could name for you a handful of evaluators around the country who are gung ho involved in requiring the consumers, the parents, the not patients, the litigants, involved in child custody evaluation to sign on for a diffuse divorce.com program, because we know that it saves time, effort and money later down the road, right? Uh, one fellow, a dear colleague of mine, who I won’t name in Florida, is eager to add. Add to our programming. I heard yesterday from another woman in Oregon, someplace west of me. I’m in New Hampshire, so everything’s West, who looked at one of the programs and got back to me and said, This is terrific. I’m going to require all of my consumers to engage in it. I’m glad to brag. I do a lot of things professionally, including writing and speaking and testifying and consulting and such. Of all of that work this program has captured and held enthusiasm more powerfully and longer than anything else. I really believe that making this happen will be a benefit to the kids out there, and that’s what it’s all about. Krista, I know you share that belief. Yeah, this is a minute, 16 seconds from our flagship program called Preparing To Participate in a Parenting Plan Evaluation. Let me share the screen, gather information about every facet of the family. Evaluator will remain objective and impartial. Evaluator will listen, observe and ask questions, and the evaluator will make the evaluation process as transparent as possible. Evaluator will organize, interpret and summarize a great deal of information gathered in the form of a final summary report that will be delivered to the court. The evaluator will not provide psychotherapy, even if he or she is sometimes a psychotherapist by training. Evaluator will not make suggestions to you about what to do or how to behave prior to delivering a final summary report, unless there’s an emergency, evaluator will not keep secrets with you or with your kids. Everything that you say, everything that the evaluator observes or learns through the process, will be shared with the court. The evaluator will not be your new best friend and will not take sides for you or against you, and certainly, the evaluator will not trick you, spy on you or manipulate you.

 

Krista Nash  46:58

Really helpful things, I can see that that makes a lot of sense in terms of orienting in advance to create better expectations and understanding and decrease anxiety, right? And help the system. 

Dr. Benjamin Garber, PhD  47:12

That’s right. I could go on and on. I know that your time is limited. I have, we have presently, I believe, six programs available at diffuse divorce.com we have another six to eight somewhere in the process. I’m recording one tomorrow with a lawyer from Dallas, Texas, on the basics of the litigation process. What’s a hearing, what’s a motion, what’s an ex parte? Anything. Do I need a lawyer? What are the alternatives if I don’t want to go through the litigation process, that should be up and available online within the month. And that lawyer in particular, I think, should be finally be sharing her name. Attorney Elisa Reiter from Dallas, is just a powerhouse, an excellent educator and eager to partner with diffuse divorce.com for all the purposes we’ve been talking about here. 

Krista Nash  48:03

I think she’d been on clips on other ones you already have on the site. Oh yes, yeah, I think I recall seeing her. And as I was saying earlier, we forget the very basics of those orientations, like, what happens if I go through I gotta go through security, right? I mean, even down to those kinds of levels at the courthouse, right? When do I have to go to court? I know it’s different, different jurisdictions. So some of this you couldn’t get into too specifically, but there are general things that we forget are intimidating, right? Or even some of this Latin language all the time, you know. What does that mean? What are you going to expect when you go into the courtroom, you know? And you really, I mean, I’m giving you all kinds of ideas for as it grows. But you really could divide it down into state and have a state attorney from each place say, this is how it works in Colorado, this is how it works in Texas. Because I’ve been thinking about that too. Why do we both need to do this? Right? I’ve been thinking that I need to just hire somebody to go research all the states so that I can have all of that information in one place. You know, for example, like, at what age does my kid get to choose? Right? You know, just a best interest state like Colorado is there is no age I get all the time from kids like I heard when I’m 14. It’s totally my decision. But there are other states where it really is more probative a certain age, right? There’s very, very different, different places.

 

Dr. Benjamin Garber, PhD  49:19

So, so just on that subject, let’s have a whole discussion about that. I’d be glad to come back. It used to be in Georgia, at 14 t the default was that a child could choose. It was a rebuttable presumption. It still is the case in Quebec that at 12 you have a rebuttable presumption that the child could choose. And generally internationally, the expectation is that a mature minor’s voice should be given weight, but no one ever stops to define mature minor, right? But you and I will, because we’ll have that conversation next time.

 

Krista Nash  49:52

Okay, we’ll do that well, and let’s end with some optimism. Tell me how you could encourage parents going through this. And or family law attorneys and the bar you know people in this field as to how that they can have hope and go through this better.

 

Dr. Benjamin Garber, PhD  50:06

I will do as you’re asking. I’m positive,

 

Krista Nash  50:10

I’m positive unless you don’t have optimism, right?

Dr. Benjamin Garber, PhD  50:13

I have optimism but I’m pausing because these days, there’s so much other stuff to push past to get to the optimism. My optimism rests in my belief that kids are inherently good and that parenting for all of the 1000s of books and videos and trainers and professionals, including myself out there, we’re glad to say, buy this. Do that. Here’s 12 different flavors of parenting. In the end, parenting isn’t hard. It’s about, obviously, food, clothing, shelter, and then constancy. Kids can be okay when they have at least one constant emotional anchor through it all, people who studied children who survived the Holocaust. Michael Rutter and Anna Freud looked at kids who experienced trauma beyond my imagination. The ones who were okayy, because no matter what happened, they could always go back to mom or dad who simply was there to hold them and reassure them. No fancy words, no. No iPads, no, no Wifi, no gimmicks, no gizmos. Constancy being an anchor, if you and I can get that message out, or more to the point, if the parents the world would put down their swords and their shields and do just that, our future would be bright. 

 

Krista Nash  51:44

I love that, and the fact that there are people out doing this work, and have devoted so much of their real life’s work to improving this it’s like divorce is a reality. It’s something that these family breakdowns are going to happen. It’s like saying the poor are going to be among us, right? Divorce is going to happen. What do we do with it? How do we approach it? You know, and that’s what I’m always trying to encourage. And I’m just I feel optimistic that people like you are out there doing this work, and I hope that parents, and especially people working in this there’s such a powerful impact of the people working and I had one podcast guests call attorneys, family law, attorneys, first responders, you know, take that more seriously so that you’re sending people to the right resources. You’re setting the tone, you’re helping, and that parents could go find this stuff on their own and have a higher expectation of attorneys and really try to do this in a way that focuses on kids. Is my great, great hope. Well, listen, I appreciate you being with us. I am so privileged to know you, and I will have you back, if you will be my guest again, I’m sure you’ll have plenty more to talk about. I’ve already written down doing this whole best interest age choice talk, I think would be really important for people to hear.

 

Dr. Benjamin Garber, PhD  52:56

Well, be careful what you wish for, because not only will I eagerly accept your invitation, but I’m going to invite you to contribute to DefuseDivorce.com, you and I are going to join forces in the best interest of children. So public, watch out. The Krista Nash-Ben Garber show is coming.

 

Krista Nash  53:16

Let’s do it. I want to just link arms with all of you, and I’d be honored. So all right. Well, thank you again, and I wish you a wonderful rest of your day and week. And I encourage everyone to look at the resources that I will put on the show notes and check out DefuseDivorceand all of its wonderful resources.

 

Dr. Benjamin Garber, PhD  53:34

Before you close, can I give people my email address? So please don’t hesitate to reach me at Ben@DefuseDivorce.com,, or BDGarberPhD@familylawconsulting.org 

Krista Nash  53:58

All right. Thank you.

 

Intro/Outro  54:01

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 Children First Family law.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.