In today’s episode of Children First Family Law, Krista welcomes Dr. Marsha Kline Pruett, a clinical psychologist, researcher, and nationally recognized authority on child development, co-parenting, and father involvement. Together, they explore what healthy post-divorce fathering looks like and what professionals and parents can do to foster those relationships.
Dr. Pruett draws on decades of experience working with families in the U.S. and internationally, including groundbreaking work with the California Office of Child Abuse Prevention and long-term studies on parenting partnerships. She discusses how early father involvement impacts long-term child development and why gendered parenting roles still influence family law decisions.
This episode also explores the pitfalls of rigid parenting plans, the pressure of 50/50 custody expectations, and how children process family dynamics differently than adults often assume. Dr. Pruett explains how to build trust between co-parents, why gatekeeping harms both children and relationships, and what attorneys and therapists should stop doing if they genuinely want to serve families well.
This episode challenges assumptions about post-divorce parenting and offers a path forward where fathers stay connected, kids feel secure, and co-parents build trust, one interaction at a time.
In this episode, you will hear:
- Early father involvement as a foundation for long-term connection
- Gatekeeping and how it limits father-child relationships post-divorce
- Flexible parenting plans that reflect a child’s real-world needs
- Emotional safety over rigid time-sharing structures
- One-on-one time is more impactful than group settings
- Building co-parenting trust through consistency and accountability
- Harmful professional dynamics when attorneys mirror client conflict
- Benefits of parallel parenting when co-parenting isn’t possible
- Starting fresh, no matter how long it’s been
- Supporting fathers without undermining maternal relationships
Resources from this Episode
Book: Partnership Parenting: How Men and Women Parent Differently-Why It Helps Your Kids and Can Strengthen Your Marriage: www.amazon.com/Partnership-Parenting-Differently-Why-Strengthen-Marriage/dp/0738213268
Book: Your Divorce Advisor: www.amazon.com/Your-Divorce-Advisor-Psychologist-Emotional/dp/0684870681
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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Fathering After Divorce with Dr. Marsha Kline Pruett Podcast Transcript
Dr. Marsha Kline Pruett 00:00
So if you want to break down those barriers, dads, assert yourselves early. First of all, get to know your child and get to know how to do things for your child. Make sure that you can change a diaper, feed a bottle, that you know where their clothes are, that you don’t have to say to mom, where do they keep such and such or what is this? Take responsibility for knowing who that child is, what they need, who their friends are, depending on the age. Once you have that knowledge, use it. Say to mom, I got this, whether you’re divorced or not, I got this, this is my time. Thank you for your ideas. I appreciate them. I may use them. I may not. I’m going to go do my thing. So get involved. Assert your right to be involved and to be there and stay out of competition. Don’t count the hours.
Intro/Outro 00:53
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 01:42
Today, we’re thrilled to bring to you a guest whose work has shaped how we think about families and children after divorce, in particular about fatherhood. Our guest is Dr. Marcia Kline Pruett, who is a psychologist, researcher, author, and nationally recognized expert on child development, co-parenting and the involvement of fathers. She holds degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, Yale Law School and UC Berkeley, and has spent decades working in the family law arena, looking at the intersection of law, psychology and family systems. She’s currently a professor at the Smith College School for Social Work in Massachusetts, and has a long history of clinical practice, working with couples, families and courts on some of the most sensitive issues families face. Her focus on preventative programs and collaborative solutions really make her a guiding voice in the field. She’s also authored two books, Your Divorce Advisor and Partnership Parenting, along with more than 150 articles and book chapters on a range of family law issues, including father’s involvement parenting plans and child adjustment. Today we’re talking specifically about fatherhood, how fathers can stay connected and engaged with their children after divorce, and what parents and professionals can do to support these bonds. Well, welcome today to this episode of the Children First Family Law podcast. I am really excited to welcome Dr. Marcia Kline Pruett, who is a really well renowned leader in family law. I’m so glad you’re here. Thanks for joining me.
Dr. Marsha Kline Pruett
Thanks for having me here.
Krista Nash
Dr Pruitt has so much experience all over the map, but one of the main reasons we landed today to have a conversation was to talk about something that we have not addressed as a separate topic, at least on the podcast yet, and that is fathering, the important role of fathers, the things that we need to think about that I’m a little bit beyond Father’s Day as we’re recording this, but I’ve been thinking about fathers a lot, and just excited to get some insight on that. So maybe start with a little bit of introduction of yourself, of how you came into the work kind of being somebody who understands this area of family law. And then we’ll start talking through some questions.
Dr. Marsha Kline Pruett 03:52
Sure. Actually, I’m glad that we’re beyond Father’s Day, because one of my beefs is that we always talk to men on Father’s Day, when any day should be a good time to bring men on. I like working with fathers, because I’ve been working with couples and families all of my professional life. But about 30 years ago, the state of California, the Office of Child Abuse Prevention, approached me and said that they wanted to put a lot of money into a big project, that they felt like nothing had moved the needle, and they wanted to look at supporting father involvement in a positive way with mothers, whether married or unmarried, and all across the state. So my collaborators, one of whom was my husband, Kyle Pruett, who also is known for working with fathers and writing about fathers, and our two colleagues, whom we didn’t know they were inviting, but it turned out they did, and we all knew each other. So Phil and Carolyn Cowan and the four of us were givenrrants for many years. It was back in the day when you could have 16 years of funding, and we saw 1000 families. And from there, I did the same work in Canada, and Cowan did it in England, and we took a little bit of the work to the UAE, the Arab Emirates, and it just kept expanding. It’s been working in Malta, and some work was done in various places. What’s different about it is that it focuses not just on fathers, but we all believed, and I believe strongly, that if you’re going to bring men strongly into family life, you also have to bring in the mothers, who are often the family gatekeepers and the partners of the men. And you want them present. So we work on strengthening the individual, the parenting, the partnership, the parent, child relationships and the three generation Jen relationships between fathers, grandfathers and children, or mothers, grandmothers and children. And then finally, we look at the balance between stress and social support within the wider world outside the family. And we brought together groups, and we did a 32 hour curriculum, and we had control groups and had fantastic results. So that’s how I got into this. Since then, I’ve been doing a lot of writing and working with a lot of of men who are actually very eager to be part of family projects.
Krista Nash 06:36
So when we just, as sort of a fundamental baseline, when we think about fathering, you know, specifically fathering in the context of family breakdown and restructuring. You know, we’re talking about divorce or allocation, you know, non intact family, essentially. What do we know about? , I wonder if we need more fundamental questions and so you tell me if we need to back up further than the divorce question and say, What about the role of fathers generally in a child’s life, right? And then maybe into what do we know about the importance in the post divorce life? Maybe just address that to whatever extent you think we need to. Because I caught myself there thinking we might be missing like a fundamental premise if we don’t first talk about the role of fathers generally,
Dr. Marsha Kline Pruett 07:22
Sure. So fathers are important from the very beginning of life. We now have done a lot of different kinds of research, including research with physiologic measures that show that children respond to the fathers differently than they respond to mothers from the earliest weeks of their life, and that having a father present makes a big difference for moms, dads and kids. There was one study done years ago by nurses, and I don’t know the citation, I’m afraid, but it it’s has stuck with me all these years that when they brought men in to hold babies that were naked and just a few hours old, those men were less likely to abuse those children or any other children for years.
Krista Nash 08:10
Wow. You mean the men themselves, the fathers themselves, were less likely, but also the children were less likely…
Dr. Marsha Kline Pruett 08:16
….ust fathers were less likely to abuse their own children or anyone else’s children, okay, by introducing them to babies do so often, especially in divorce, bring them into the active role a little bit later, when kids are in toddlerhood. But toddlerhood is both adorable and really trying, and if you’re going to fall in love with a kid, doing it at age two or three isn’t always the time to do it, but doing it when they’re first born, and they make eye contact and they smile and they gurgle and they sleep a lot, and they just want to be held. And it makes a difference to them. If you put them close to your heart, whether you’re men or women, whether you’re a biological parent or not, it makes a difference to the child’s sense, and it makes a difference to the parent’s sense. So men should be involved early on, the differences are huge. There’s lots of research showing that when they get involved early, they stay more involved, and when they stay more involved, their positive outcomes for children, years later, middle school, high school, with peers, with siblings and the men actually have better outcomes. They stay in jobs longer. They have less accidents. They’re less depressed. They’re less likely to have all kinds of problems, and in fact, mothers, if there’s a positive father involvement, are less likely to be stressed and depressed and more likely to be in a really happy shared parenting, sharing parenting. So there’s lots of reasons men should be involved. Now this is talking about positives. Father involvement, not all father involvement is positive, and sometimes it’s positive for the child, but not the parent, not the other parent. And all of that has to be taken into account safety first.
Krista Nash 10:11
Yes, absolutely.I don’t know. I guess all fathers aren’t presented equally, right? I mean, there is a very important dynamic to bring up first. We’ve got so many fathers that are not doing it well and are hurting their children, right? I mean, mothers too. It’s not so many parents. But with that caveat, I think it’s really interesting to hear just about the research on the importance and what happens to the connection and to the individual when they’re babies. Because I think there is this sort of cultural thing. Maybe it’s changing as time has gone on, but I think that it’s interesting to think where you get a lot of dads or moms saying about dads, well, he’s not really into the baby. It’s, he’ll be more into the child when the child’s older, or men saying that about themselves. You know, I’m not really a baby person, and that’s the mother’s thing. So it’s interesting that that really isn’t true about or that they’re missing something important. If they, you know, go in with that kind of bias, I guess.
Dr. Marsha Kline Pruett 11:08
Absolutely, we still have the bias that is changing, but it’s still there, and sometimes it’s from lack of contact and lack of knowledge. We did one of our groups where there was a tough group of guys, and the babies were and children were in the next room while we were doing our group. And then one of the toddlers walked in, and as soon as they did, waddling away, we could all go, ooh, that one needs a change diaper. And the father in our group said, I don’t do diapers. No, I’m not changing diapers. And the other guy said, Oh, come on, it’s cool. You gotta do it. And they laid this baby down with all the men looking at them, and they changed that diaper. They used a lot of wipes. I said, Look, you don’t even have to touch it. Yeah. And a week later, the mother came in and said, I don’t know what you’re doing in this group, but he’s begun to ask to change diapers. Oh yeah, and some kind of miracle happened. Yeah, it was just that he didn’t know any better, and nobody had told him it was okay. And he’s not going to hear it’s okay from his partner, his wife, or even his mother. But when other guys said, Oh man, you are a loser. Come on, you can do this. I love it, then he got right on board and was really enjoying himself.
Krista Nash 12:21
So what about when we start to talk about a divorce situation, or parents that were never married, you know, What are your initial thoughts about what we know about the importance of father involvement and those dynamics and sort of, I guess, you could also talk about the challenges that we face. You talked earlier about, sort of this mother gatekeeping. And, you know, how do we engage a father? Why is it important? And how do we start to get into that where we’re supporting fathers in that post divorce world?
Dr. Marsha Kline Pruett 12:50
Yeah, so obviously it’s more fraught if the parents are never married or separating, but they’re either friendly or they’re both invested in both parents being involved with the child, then it’s it looks a lot like it could in intact families, but there is an important value to having a home together, to having time together, that where you’re living in the same space. And when men don’t have that, it’s harder for them, often, to feel like they have authority and a sense of, I can, I can parent this child, because, you know, they don’t have the kind of opportunities that you have when you live together. Of course, we’re mad at each other, but there’s always two hours from now or five hours from now or tomorrow. So that’s definitely harder, and we see a lot of gatekeeping on both parents’ parts. It used to be mostly mothers, but now it’s both parents, and that kind of gatekeeping is well, now that we’re split up, I’m going to try and get the most time with the child. I’m going to do the most things with the child, and I’m going to make you secondary. There’s a whole movement in our country where parents are often being pushed out of their children’s lives, and we know that that continues, and it continues actually, whether parents are separated or divorced, there’s kind of a divorce, a divorcing your parent for a while, that’s happening at all ages and all stages, and It has serious consequences for everybody in the family. It often starts with divorce, not only divorce, but it does, and it’s the parent who has more involvement or more power or more money or more free time that often is the one that kind of sets the pulse of how time together goes. But what we do know is that it’s really important for children to have involvement with both parents to the extent that they can. When they don’t have that involvement, they feel hungry for it. They can idealize it. They can really miss it, and it’s pain. Painful for children to not have time. I’m talking about fathers, because this is about fathering. It’s true of mothers too, but it’s really painful for children not to have that access to their fathers, even when their dads are often compromised in some way, in their behavior or their mental health or maybe they drink. So children still miss them and want to know who they are, partly because it’s half of their gene pool. And children want to know who they themselves are. And they know that to the extent that they know who each parent is, it’s likepart of that family. I look like that guy, and I do things like her, like this, and I do things like him, like that. Otherwise, there’s sort of a chapter missing in the book.
Krista Nash 15:47
So I function in the role of minors council, your best interest attorney, a lot, and I end up getting a lot of these parent-child contact problems with a child who is just convincedI guess I’d say it kind of depends on the age. But generally, we’re talking maybe 11-13, 15-17, you know, where we’ve got a dynamic, where the child and usually their favorite parent are pretty much like it would be better if this person were gone, you know, this other parent were gone. And I am often saying to the child, you know,, I’m not taking a position in Colorado. It’s in my best interest. So it’s not. It’s the best interest of the child, not the child’s wishes, necessarily. We consider the child’s wishes depending on maturity and those things. But I’m always trying to explain to a child that, and maybe this will help us pivot into some things about this fixation on overnights, or the fixation on 50/50, right? The child is like, I don’t want anything to do with this person. And I explain to the child, look, it is not in your best interest for me to just let you say there’s nothing to see here. You know you have wounds going on here if you have no relationship with your other parent. And so one I guess I’d say, is that true? Right? Am I saying the right things to them? Because I’m always saying we need to do something. Doesn’t mean force. Doesn’t mean there’s a lot of things it doesn’t mean, but it does mean we have to kind of reframe this in a way where you have the opportunity to try to make this better, because it will hurt you if we don’t. And then to the parents I’m saying, you have to get off this blanket 50/50, you know, litigation approach that is ignoring the relational dynamics and just insisting on the sort of rote obedience of a child. Or rote, you know, where the kids gonna lie her head. And so, what are your thoughts on those things? You know, I mean, kids, it seems like they’re not okay. Even if they say they’re okay, it’s just like they’re putting their blinders on. Do you agree with that, that kids need to kind of be having contact or resolution, you know? I mean not talking about a child in an abuse situation, obviously, but in a lot of these situations, let’s talk about that part.,
Dr. Marsha Kline Pruett 17:59
First you know, talking about one of the most fraught areas of family law and of psychological intervention. It’s really hard to change a child’s mind the longer it goes on, and it often goes on long if the family is litigating in the legal system. So what some parents do, unfortunately, is they keep dragging the other parent through the legal system. And the longer it goes on, the more the child begins to say, I don’t want to see that parent anyway. What I try and tell those parents when I work with them is that it’s not that they don’t love you. It’s not you. They’re rejecting what they want; it’s out of the conflict they have been put in the middle, and being in the middle is so painful, going between parents, hearing parents talk about the other parents so negatively that they might take sides in order to just not have to deal with this anymore. And which side they take. It might be the parent they’re scared of. It might be the parent the closest to it might be the parent who needs them the most. There are all kinds of dynamics that we have found that happen, and you can’t predict it without a full assessment, knowing what the story is.
In my experience, most kids do want a relationship with the other parent, but they also push back when they’re and we can get into the 50/50 thing in a moment, but a lot of kids, if there’s conflict in the family, don’t want that 50/50 thing. It’s hard enough on kids when parents both agree to it and want it and support it, and then the kids usually support it and want it as well, but when the parents are fighting over it, then the kids really don’t want it. And they go from, okay, I don’t want 50/50, to I don’t want anything, right? So that’s one of the dynamics and those kinds of child parent dynamics that you’re talking about, we’ve identified a huge spectrum of them where sometimes the child is just going through a phase where they identify more with one parent. They’re more aligned. We’re more alike. We like to do the same kinds of things. I want to be with that parent more. And then there’s also times when the child begins to be in a coalition against the other parent, like, you know, I’d rather be with, with mom, against dad, and mom and I just understand each other, and dad just doesn’t get it. And then it goes on to a rejection, and I’m rejecting that other parent. I’m rejecting dad, and I don’t really want to spend time with him, and at the kind of far end of the spectrum is something that’s often talked about in family law, is alienation, which means one parent truly works actively and consciously to undermine any relationship between the child and the other parent, but children are often refusing their parent or involved in really ambivalent conflict or internal responses to parents way before there’s alienation. It may just be part of all those other things I just talked about, and there some of them just happen in families. But what happens in families normally is that these dynamics shift over time. Alliances shift over time, but they shift when they become rigid, when they’re not shifting when they’re not allowed to be just for a particular amount of time, like I had a child who went through maybe a year and a half where my husband could not read to them, like I had to be that too. Has to be mom, has to be mom. And he has all these skills. He was a child psychiatrist. Who’s a pediatrician. The kids loved him. We’d already raised a couple kids. This one was like not having it, and one day they were just over it, and we both just sort of normalized it. And he would come in and kiss her, and sometimes listen and sometimes say, can I read instead of mommy? And every once in a while she’d throw him a bone, but most of the time it was like, no. And then it was done, and everyone went on, and the relationships continue to be close between everyone. If there’s a conflict situation where I could counsel that, say they don’t love you, they don’t want to be with you, and then keep making the most of that, I solidify that. But what I do is I take away their chance to have just a developmental stage that gets to move around.? So, the same kid, when they got into early adolescence, found them, found me harder to deal with, right? I was like, you know, mom is too much like me. Yeah? Right. Mom wants me to do this or that or the other, and so it was nice to go up and back. It’s the fluidity versus the rigidity that’s really a problem. And so in divorce, ifeither parent or both parents support a rigidity, then what happens is the child becomes rigid in their ability to cope, and that rigidity does not serve them well, and so they don’t cope, not only in that situation, but over time, they cope less well in other situations, possibly. And so then you’re creating something that becomes part of their style or part of their ability to manage life, and you find more and more issues, and eventually it might be tied into anxiety or depression or aggression. And so know that children who are close to both parents are healthier than children who are close to one parent. Now, in some cases, they don’t know the other parent, or there’s a reason or the other parent was, you know, not well or not healthy. I’m not talking about those cases, but in all other situations, it’s really helpful for the family to kind of let this evolve, and for you not to jump on it. If you are you or the parent and say, this is because the other parent isn’t loved or isn’t good or isn’t positive. It may have nothing to do with that, or it may have something to do with that, but that’s not the whole story either.
Krista Nash 24:00
So think of a little bit about, well, I guess I’m not wrong when I tell these kids like you, it’s better for you to kind of work some of this out, right? Like you do need to try to re-engage this idea. Like, if you just left me alone, I would be fine. I mean, that’s that’s a fallacy, right?
Dr. Marsha Kline Pruett 24:18
Right. It’s the same thing in families where you’re living with two parents in the home, often, kids will say, certainly, at certain ages, I don’t want to go see grandma. She’s old. She doesn’t talk to me. It’s boring there. There’s nothing to do. There’s no one to play with. Parents don’t say, oh, okay, you never have to see grandma, right? They say, okay, so we won’t stay as long, but you have to go see your grandma. You have to know your family. Suddenly, in divorce, it’s okay for you to not know or not be with one of your family. And that does not serve children well. It serves children well to say this is your dad, and you have to see him. This isn’t a choice. I get to make the choice whether I live with him. You don’t get to make the choice whether he’s your dad. Now you might reduce the time they spend together, or you might change the circumstances. You should do things that help make that more comfortable for a child, no question. But just letting them make that decision is also part of making decisions that create these little…. when I was in China, they called them little emperors, children who get to dictate all kinds of matters because they’re allowed to not just give their opinion, but to make decisions about relationships. It’s one thing to decide what you want to eat for dinner. It’s another thing to decide you don’t want to see your dad, especially when you like that dad pays for your school, or goes to pay for your camp, or you know you like doing things that are good for you, but otherwise you don’t want to be bothered. We’re really then developing kids with a lack of empathy that doesn’t bode well for them in their future romantic relationships or in their families, right?
Krista Nash 26:06
So, I know we’ve talked on this, on this show before, with other guests, about a little bit about, sort of the tender years doctrine and the sort of, you know idea that mothers were, you know, somehow more equipped, or more genetically equipped, or, I don’t know, you can say this way better than I can to sort of be this sort of young age caregiver. And there was certainly a gender dynamic in culture that favored mothers of young children to a certain age, talk to us a little bit about that. And f where that is now, to what extent you think that you’re seeing that, and maybe when we’re thinking about fatherhood, what the e bias is going into those thoughts? I mean, we hear a lot about, well, I’m the mother, I and we still have a lot of that going on. I’m the mother. I’ve taken care of them, I’ve done all the doctoring, I’ve done all these things. There’s no way that he could meet this child’s needs and parent. And so fathers get minimized, I think still in a lot of our dynamics, even with that tender years doctrine kind of having been a little bit to the side. But tell us your perspective on those topics.
Dr. Marsha Kline Pruett 27:10
Yeah, again, you know, there’s no one answer, right? The tender years doctrine has been sort of cast aside in that we don’t think that mothers are the only parents for young children. Children only know a father, and they grow up just fine. And in fact, dads do things for children that moms don’t, and vice versa. But we still know from research that mothers have a biological advantage, and I’m talking about times when mothers give birth to children, there’s another side I want to say. I want to recognize same sex families and adoptive families.
Krista Nash 27:50
So many different important combinations now, right?
Dr. Marsha Kline Pruett 27:54
And all can be very healthy, and usually are. But if you’ve carried your child for nine months, parents feel certain ownership or excusing ownership, but I hope it doesn’t come out too negative, but I’ve carried this child. This child’s been inside me. I know them. They are a part of me. Children will never be a part of their fathers in that same way, and there’s real truth to that, so that mothers do feel entitled, and I don’t like the word ownership, but they feel a connection that they believe is so strong, right, that it’s unique to them. There’s still a lot of good research that shows that even though it’s changed a lot between mothers and fathers in the last 30 years, mothers still do more of the parenting work. That is even when dads are more involved in bathing and reading, mothers tend to more often be the ones who set up doctor’s appointments, who set up play dates, who, you know, keep track of all the things that you have to keep track of the indirect parenting, and they also do a bit more of the direct parenting. Part of that is because women traditionally didn’t make as much money as men. So when you’ve had a baby and couples are deciding which one of us should stay home, it makes sense to have the parent who’s making less money stay home. So that was often the choice.
Now, if couples are making the same amount of money, they might make more balanced choices. They might take turns being home for a day. I once saw a family where the child stayed with mom’s family one day a week, dad’s family the next day a week, mom the next day a week, dad’s the next day a week, and then when they all went to work, they went to childcare once a week. But, you know, Mom and Dad were clearly balanced, and their families were balanced. Not that many families do that. There’s also, it’s still more likely that people move closer to the mom’s family than the father’s family. You know, if there’s a young couple, they often move closer to the mother’s family. So all that is in play, but children also need the kinds of things that their fathers give them, and if their parents are working on it together, one of the things that we’ve found in research is that good co-parenting, first of all, starts in the womb. So Jamie McHale found that when mothers talk about my baby, my baby, I’m pregnant, this is my baby. It’s going to come then, versus our baby, our baby’s going to come then. They are more likely to be generous co-parents if they use the our instead of the my and that two years later, that predicts co-parenting. A number of researchers have shown that good co-parenting actually leads to better parenting, not the other way around. I could be a great parent and my husband could be a great parent, but we may not do it well together, like he may do his thing well, I do my thing well, but we don’t do great together. we work well together, our child is likely to get the best of both of us, and part of that is because we’ll spell each other. We’ll share things with each other. Can’t tell you how many times my husband has gently put his hand on my arm and he’s like, Honey, yeah, don’t follow up. Don’t. Don’t ask that question. Let it be or I have sort of said to him, you know, wait a minute. Don’t. Don’t go there. You bring out the best in each other, right? You want your child to have the best of both of you. You’re more collaborative than competitive, same as in family law, if you do collaborative law, if you do negotiation and you do mediation, it’s going to be better for the whole family, and it’s going to be cheaper, and it’s going to be a stronger outcome than if you fight, fight, fight, and get really competitive and use up your kids college money, and you know, Whatever money was given to you by great Aunt Molly. And, you know, all of that tends to not work out as well, right?
Krista Nash 32:06
Interesting, I love that. It’s really interesting, that the great co-parenting starts in the womb. And I it’s, it’s wonderful to see too, like that. I’m always telling parents like, look, if you’re not a good co-parent, you are in some ways failing as a parent, right? I mean, it’s like, it’s not good for your children. You can’t be a perfect parent if you can be a great parent if you’re not a good co-parent in this situation. So what are some of the barriers that you see if you’re talking to fathers, let’s say or fathers are listening, who are struggling to engage meaningfully or sort of break into these family dynamics, or their own children to be able to kind of raise the bar a little bit, or the other parent is attempting to, you know, minimize that the father as that as equal, or maybe not even equal, but at least an effective part of the kid’s life. What are ways that parents or fathers can actually start to make some changes? What are productive things to do to make this situation better so they can show up for their kids more?
Dr. Marsha Kline Pruett 33:10
Yeah, it’s a great question. So mother-child relationships are a pair. That is how a mother feels about her child is right, is between them. But we also know that father-child relationships are triangles, so fathers mothers and babies. It was shown years and years ago that if you have a father and say, go take care of your child. This child’s three weeks old, the dad will just do it. But if you bring the mother into the room and say, go take care of the child, he looks to her for permission, he lets her go first. We know that men who really love their wives tend to be really positively involved with their children or their girlfriends or whoever they love, but the angrier they are at the women, the harder it is sometimes for them to be involved parents when they are a triangle, so that when there is a divorce or separation, one thing that happens is men suddenly want to be involved and start doing things, and then I’ve heard so many moms say he doesn’t really mean that he never did that when we were married. Why didn’t he? If he did, if he acted like this and we were married, we would have never gotten divorced, but he couldn’t do it in the triangle. Another example is when I saw a mom say to her dad, I’m so glad you’re taking the kids to the park. I really need a break, so go take them and do whatever you’re going to do, but here’s their blanket, here’s their snack. Here’s their bottle. Make sure that they t you come back by 1030 that’s when they like to go down for a nap. Make sure that you keep the top open to the top of the carriage. Don’t give them too much sunlight. By the time she’s done giving all her things, the father turns around and goes like this, like what can I do that she won;t be upset?
Krista Nash 34:59
? And chaos for those not watching on. Exactly, right. Just chaos is happening, right?
Dr. Marsha Kline Pruett 35:05
So if you want to break down those barriers, dads assert yourselves early. Say, first of all, get to know your child and get to know how to do things for your child. Make sure that you can change a diaper, feed a bottle, that you know where their clothes are, that you don’t have to say to mom, where do they keep such and such? Or you know, what is this? Take responsibility for knowing who that child is, what they need, who their friends are, depending on the age. Once you have that knowledge, use it. Say to mom, I got this, whether you’re divorced or not I got this. This is my time. Thank you for your ideas. I appreciate them. I may use them. I may not. I’m going to go do my thing. Dads tend to be more playful and to rev kids up, and moms tend to be a bit more soothing. Not that they’re not playful, but they are a bit more in the nurturing realm with children, while dad is often in the Hey, I’m going to show you how to do things in the world, kind of realm. And again, there are lots of mothers who act like fathers, or fathers act like mothers, and those differences are not hard and fast, but I’m talking about broadly and actually, over populations, over countries. There’s kind of, there are roles that get set. So practice the other role, if you’re more of the nurturing type, then, you know, if you’re more likely to sit and read a book and rock in the rocking chair, you know, get down on the floor and start rolling around with your kid if they’re old enough, if you’re more of the opposite, you’re more like playful and make your kid laugh, and they love to do things you surprise them all the time. That’s great. But also settle them down, make sure that they’re getting ready for bed at a time where they have a chance to bring down their excitement so that they can get to sleep, especially if you’re a divorced parent. You don’t want the kid going home saying, I’m exhausted. I didn’t go to bed till 10 o’clock, right? And maybe they were put to bed at eight, but they were just jacked up and they didn’t go to sleep. So get involved. Assert your right to be involved and to be there, and stay out of competition. Don’t count the hours. Parents count the hours a lot. This whole thing about 50/50 is something parents very much want. I get it when you lose time with your child, it’s painful, and you really want it back, and you want all that time. But kids don’t say, oh. mom just came through the door. She was busy. Krista was lawyering today. I only got to see her for two hours. I don’t love her as much as I love daddy, who was home all afternoon. Kids don’t count like that, yeah, and so don’t count hours. In fact, we know that the quality of the relationship is more important than the quantity, especially among sensitive parents. If you’re a responsive, attuned parent to your child, you don’t need as much time to get right in there and pick up where you left off and know who they are and have a good conversation. If you’re a bit more awkward and you don’t, you need more time to get to know them, that’s when you actually need more time. But lawyers often do the opposite. They say, wow, he’s a great dad. We’ll give him lots of time. He doesn’t really know his kids, so we’re going to give him less time till he gets to know his kid. He does need time to get to know his kid, but it’s the exact opposite. So really use your opportunities to know your child and let go of the counting time. Yeah, because if you have less conflict, your child will really thank you for it.
The other thing is, when children are living in one home with two parents, usually mom goes to baseball with this kid, and dad goes to basketball with that kid, and then someone runs home and gets a third child to go to ballet. You divide and conquer, right? You make things work, and everyone does it. You then have kids in a divorce situation, and you say you’re going to have all three kids this weekend, and their ages are 10, seven and five. Good luck. They’re all going to the baseball game, and they’re all going to sit and play on the sidelines, and then you all have to go here and they don’t suddenly do better at sitting through each other’s stuff just because there is a divorce. If you guys are lonely for your children and your children are lonely for you, then you take child number one Saturday, and you take child number two, yeah, and then switch them. And people say, oh, but where our children do not have a relationship. I want them to be close during certain ages, like what we call school ages, young school age kids actually are closer when they’re not doing everything together. They fight all the time, especially if they’re a boy and a girl. They fight, fight, fight. They need a break from each other. The best way for your child to know you, and for you to know your child is to have time alone together, right? So make sure they spend Sunday together. But each of you take one child for Saturday, and then, instead of this thing of like, I’m so sad I haven’t seen my kids in 10 days, you’ll see your kid every three days, right? But you make a schedule that’s more like a non-divorce schedule, and that works out better for mom, better for dad, and better for the kids. And it still needs help, sometimes driving or a babysitter, but it’s more like what the family was, and it feels more natural to kids than to be, okay, everybody to the right, okay, everybody to the left.
Krista Nash 40:37
Yeah? Like this lock step approach, yeah, I don’t think in all the cases I’ve done, I’ve rarely seen parents do that division. So I think that’s a really creative and good thing to think about, because we’re so lockstep in a particular approach that that’s my time, that’s his time, that’s the other parents time. It makes it really hard. I hesitate to even ask this question, because it could, like, lead us into a totally different topic. But what if we have parents, like, really, actually, who are not in the same area of the world, like they’re physically, you know, and let’s say, for the sake of our topic, that the father is living further away and not involved in the day-to-day with a kid. Is the advice the same? Like, really, quality, engage. How you can, you know, come to town and go to their games, try to be involved, make the most of what you have. I mean, are there any things other than that that you would say to a remote dad who is not or remote parent who is not as engaged in the day to day because mother relocated to her hometown with her parents, or something like that?
Dr. Marsha Kline Pruett 41:38
Yeah, be engaged using electronics. You know, do zoom, do FaceTime, go there. They shouldn’t have to do the traveling. And you want them to know your life, but actually their world, if it’s mostly in one place, you need to know their world, not necessarily they know yours. So you do the traveling. You get there for the game, you make sure that you show up, and then you try and have more vacation time together. And when you have vacation time, don’t always go do something fancy. Sometimes just stay at home together at your place, but work it out around the child’s home. This idea that kids will feel best if they have two homes. Works the best with kids between about eight and 11, younger than that, or sometimes down to six, but younger than that, not so well. And teenagers don’t really do as well either, especially if you live a little bit apart. They want time to be with their friends. They want time to come home and do homework. They don’t want all this, this juggling, not because they don’t love both of you, but because they just want to be in one place. They have energy they need to put into their life, not yours.
Krista Nash 42:51
It is very shocking to me how on one hand, maybe I could count, maybe even just a couple fingers in all of the cases I’ve done on relocations and on multi-state situations. How few parents are the ones that bear that burden to actually show up for their kids in that child’s life? I mean, it’s just like you need to get the fight is always about getting on the plane and what time the flights are and what the days are, and the kids are constantly shuttling around like used car salesman, you know, just one place to the other, and you get so much resistance from that. So I think that’s just really sage advice. I wonder, are there any for the Father? What message would you give to a father who might be kind of minimizing his own role in a child’s life? Are there any developmental stages where a father is not making an important you know that’s less important than others. Or is it like no father, you’ve got it wrong. You know, you’re super important throughout the whole thing. What would you say to dads listening, who might be like, well, they don’t need me that much.
Dr. Marsha Kline Pruett 43:52
You are so wrong. They need you from the beginning. We know even that when children are forming attachments, they form attachments to their fathers the same time they form attachments to their mothers, starting, you know, about six to eight months of life, and that when children have really good relationships with their fathers, they tend to have more secure attachments to their fathers, but also their sibling relationships are better and their friendships are better, but that doesn’t come out for six more years, but that’s been building. That’s because of some of the ways in which fathers and the way fathers use their bodies differently, that’s building up. So it’s kind of like pick your plaque on your teeth if you want a negative one, you know. And it starts building and to say, okay, it’s not a problem, or I don’t need it now, you know, I don’t need to go to the dentist. Now, that’s true, but the more it builds up, the more serious problems you have, or the less time you have. So they’re needed at all of those different stages, changes, and we know that when kids need discipline, fathers do it. Play a very important role. When kids need limits set, fathers play an important role, and parents play an important role, helping each other stand firm when you need to stand firm, be gentler when you need to be gentler. So saying that you’re not important at any stage is wrong, and the closer you are when you’re younger, the more likely you are to have a good relationship. When you’re older, you have money in the bank so you can make mistakes, you can screw up, you cannot show up, and your kid says, It’s okay, dad, I know you’re trying. I know you had work, but if you just, they’re just getting to know you. And it’s like, why is this guy not showing up? When he says he will, he’s not going to give you that sort of second chance as easily. So you need to be there to build it up. All along, just like with any friendship, look how precious old friendships are. They’re different in nature than those that you just make, and you’re just as happy with those ones that you just made. And they’re really important, right? They don’t have that kind of old feel of safety, right? And being known. There’s nothing more important to a child than being known, it’s interesting. You talk about everything.
Krista Nash 46:23
I’m sorry to interrupt you. It sounds like it’s interesting. You talk about the bank issue, you know, and getting money in the bank, because I had Dr. Saini on and he talked about incremental trust building with parents. And I wonder if you have some thoughts on that. I know we only have a few minutes left, so I want to cover maybe two more things, maybe this, and then maybe just a brief sort of what you wish family law attorneys and people would do to make this situation better for children and their fathers. But I first would ask just this problem of maybe it is this triangle thing that you mentioned with the mom, the dad and the child, but there’s so much distrust, , often from the mother. Again, we’re talking there’s lots of combinations of families, but oftentimes a mother is like, this guy is clueless and or I don’t trust him for a variety of reasons. Either he’s hurt me, or I just think he’s a ding dong, or I know I can do it better. You know, I’ve had mothers say there’s no way he can do the kindergarten homework folder, you know, like, kind of ridiculous levels of,, it’s not going to get done my way. So I get how hard this is. It would be hard for me, and I get that. But how does that trust building like, what do fathers need to know about that you kind of addressed it, you said, you know, you got to get equipped and you got to do it. Is that your message, is there anything else fathers do to kind of, prove that they got to show up and show mom that you can do it. You have to build the trust back up. Oh, don’t you think that’s a big piece of it?
Dr. Marsha Kline Pruett 47:49
Absolutely. And Dr. Saini, I’ve done some of that work together. So whatever. He’s
Krista Nash 47:54
It’s your research. Yeah, he’s talking about, there you go.
Dr. Marsha Kline Pruett 47:57
I should have known we’re in it together. Yeah, there you go. But, you know, there’s a difference between doing it, not doing it, the other parents’ way and not doing it. So it’s fine to do it whatever way you need to do it, but if you’re going to build up trust, you need to communicate what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and when you mess up, to take responsibility for it. That really helps build trust. Yeah, to say I’m really sorry, and I’m going to do what I have to do to make sure it doesn’t happen again. If you keep saying you’re sorry, but doing it again and again and again, trust is out the window, maybe for good. So like I said, show up, but also be aware. Just say you’re sorry, right? See what matters to the other parent. Don’t be petty. Give them more of what they’re asking for. If you can, one of my favorite sayings used to be, it’s no skin off your nose, exactly, I know, just if you can give it, give it, right? So what if they didn’t put their dishes in the sink? Again, that is annoying. We all know it’s annoying, but really is it worth making a thing about right? Think of all the things that they do well for your child or for you, right?
Krista Nash 49:07
That’s what’s important. And when it comes to co-parenting, it’s like, look, I’m telling people all the time, especially when I’m representing a parent as the attorney for that parent, which maybe can pivot us into our final, you know, admonition against family law attorneys to not be jerks, basically. But, you know, I’ll say, like, cut it out. Cut it out. Don’t be a jerk. Like, let her go to the funeral, let him go to the wedding, let the other parent bring, you know, a present by like, whatever you can do within your own power to keep the peace and sort of do unto others and all that stuff, right? Like, can we not give a little bit of grace here on you know, the person needs a little I mean. I literally was just sending an email before we got on saying, like, why is this the problem with Grandfather coming to town, that we’re not letting this team? Why am I having to get texted from the child and the mom? You know that this grandpa who’s here for two days can’t see this child. I don’t even understand why I have to write this email. Wow, right? And there’s lawyers on both sides, right? It’s like, give a little bit. This doesn’t have to be a war. So I know you have to go. So let’s wrap on. Like, tell me about lawyers and you’ve got a law background as well, masters in law, and you’ve certainly been around the block with family law for decades here. Like, what do lawyers need to know to be better to help families and kids and fathers?
Dr. Marsha Kline Pruett 50:23
Don’t take on more cases than you can handle. Okay, lawyers often are very unresponsive to families. I hear about it all the time, and I experience it sometimes you don’t have a right just because you’re busy, to be too busy to get back to someone weeks later. That’s just disrespectful, and it teaches disrespect.
Krista Nash 50:44
It also leaves a gap in the problem solving. So I don’t usually give credit to lawyers. I’m usually like, you’re just being a jerk about it, but maybe it is true that left to their own devices because they don’t have a responsive attorney, like in my example I just gave you, the attorneys might not even be involved because they’re too busy to respond. Because maybe an attorney would say, yeah, let the grandpa see the kid. What’s the problem? But they’re not responding. So now we have warfare being stirred up,
Dr. Marsha Kline Pruett 51:10
Right? So that’s one thing. Remember, we talk about parallel process. Parallel process is when the clients act a certain way, and because of the power of the dynamic without realizing it. The lawyers also work that way, and then sometimes the mental health people also work that way. Be aware of when you are sucked up into that process and do not repeat it, right? Do not get caught up on some of the really petty things. Do not always say yes to your client, just like you can’t always say yes to your kid, yeah, at some point say, you just can’t act like that, right? It’s like, this has to. This child gets to see their grandfather. It’s no big deal, right? Let themsee the grandfather. And what you are doing is so much, you know, we’re going to hurt everybody’s trust for a long time. Yeah, so do that. I really recommend it. There’s so many neat interventions and ways that courts work better than they do when just left to their own devices. In Massachusetts, where I live, there’s the Family Resolution Specialty Court known as FRISC, where lawyers work closely with the judge, work closely with mental health people, and they work as a team. That’s worked really well. I did some work in Connecticut, which showed that if you do mediation just a little bit, it usually gets the family further. We knew that since back when California started it years ago, but then the funding was cut, and so now it’s not used as much for people, but engage in non-adversarial techniques. Adversarial techniques were designed for other kinds of clients, other kinds of issues, not for families. I don’t actually believe that the legal system helps families all that much, no, 100% really and don’t, do not engage in, do not take on, and judges do not accept custody evaluations or parenting evaluations that go on for months that don’t follow the standards of best practice. Yeah, that costs a fortune and that by the time they’re brought in, so much has changed. Yeah, I think, I think evaluations have been really harmful.
Krista Nash 53:30
That’s why I love my best interest role, because it’s like fluid and moving and problem solving immediately, right? So I agree with you. So okay, well, I know we have to wrap because you have to go, but I’m so honored to talk to you. I’m gonna have to have you back on since you’ve so much experience. Thank you for your time today, or any parting words you’d like to say?
Dr. Marsha Kline Pruett 53:49
Let’s keep doing this work together. Families need it. They depend on us, and we’re all going into this future together. I’m looking forward to it. Thanks, Krista.
Krista Nash 53:58
Thank you for all your work. Okay, we’ll talk to you next time. Take good care.
Dr. Marsha Kline Pruett 54:01
You too. Bye.
Intro/Outro 54:03
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.