Science offers us some intriguing perspectives on divorce’s impact on children. Today’s guest is using science to better understand and support parents and kids through the complexities of the experiences of loss.
On this episode of Children First Family Law, Krista welcomes Dr. Karey O’Hara, a psychologist and assistant research professor at Arizona State University with a focus on navigating the intersection between family law and psychology. Dr. O’Hara’s work mainly focuses on how parents and children cope and adapt when exposed to significant disruptions like death and divorce. She is studying the science of how to evaluate and gauge this impact and provide solutions that can be put into practice. Dr. O’Hara’s research is always paired with active collaboration with courts or other community programs to ensure her research is tested and disseminated to real people to create real change for parents and kids. She has much to teach us in the area of risk and resilience factors associated with children’s coping and adjustment following divorce, informing family court policy, and improving interventions to promote the well-being of court-involved families.
During Krista’s conversation with Dr. O’Hara, you’ll hear about parents’ powerful influence on their children, why it is critical to validate emotions during a divorce process, and the impact high-quality parenting – including love – can have on children’s outcomes. Dr. O’Hara shares the three components of high-quality parenting, what science can teach us about interventions in the real world to help children fare better in divorce, and her research program that provides insight into understanding behavior and emotion under stress. She outlines her work in programs for parents and kids, including Project Brain Team, which promotes mental health and coping strategies and skills in divorce. Finally, Krista and Dr. O’Hara discuss lessons from science about the human and emotional experience of divorce and co-parenting dynamics and their influence on children. They share why there is hope for kids even after divorce and that those outcomes are in the hands of their parents.
Divorce is often complicated and messy, and handling those emotions can be difficult for everyone involved. However, Dr. O’Hara’s research reinforces that finding solutions that work for everyone is possible and offers some tips for reducing the tension.
In this episode, you will hear:
- Dr. Karey O’Hara’s path to her work in family law and clinical psychology focused on children and families
- The powerful influence parents have on their children
- The risk of labels like “parental alienation” and their limited helpfulness for parents and children
- Validating someone’s emotions, which can bring down the emotional temperature
- Protective factors of parents in helping themselves and their children deal with stress
- The impact of high-quality parenting (including love) on children’s outcomes
- How high-quality parenting includes love, appropriate limits, and discipline
- Risk factors for children and parents under stress
- What science can teach us about interventions in the real world to help children fare better in divorce
- Dr. O’Hara’s research program insights into understanding behavior and emotion under stress and then translating that science into ways to deliver real solutions to actual people
- Her work in programs for parents and kids, including Project Brain Team, promoting mental health and coping strategies and skills in divorce
- Lessons from science about the human, emotional experience of divorce and co-parenting dynamics and their influence on children
- Why there can be hope for children even after divorce
- The power of outcomes for kids is in the hands of their parents
Resources from this Episode
www.childrenfirstfamilylaw.com
Dr. Karey O’Hara: search.asu.edu/profile/3192762
Project Brain Team: sites.google.com/asu.edu/asu-projectbrainteam?usp=sharing
Patterns of intimate partner violence in a large, epidemiological sample of divorcing couples.
Measurement invariance across sexes in intimate partner abuse research.
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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Science-Based Solutions For Co-Parenting Through Divorce with Dr. Karey O’Hara Podcast Transcript
Dr. Karey O’Hara 00:00
If you think about just even more generally, we’ve been asking this question, like, is divorce bad for kids for decades now? And the answer is, it depends. It really depends on how it happens. It’s about how parents get divorced, not if they get divorced that really has the most impact on child development and well being over time, and so that, I think that’s really good news, because that means that there’s a lot that we can do. I think one of my favorite things working with parents is that I go in with the assumption that they want the best for their kids, because I’ve been taught time and time again. That’s by and large true. And when we start from that place, I think we can really start seeing people as human beings that are doing the best that they can in really difficult circumstances and without the tools that they need. And why would they have those tools if we don’t develop them, or we don’t study them, we don’t provide them, how can we expect a human being to know what to do in this situation.
Intro/Outro 01:03
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 01:50
Today, on the podcast, we welcome Dr KareyO’Hara, a psychologist and assistant research professor at Arizona State University with a reputation for blending family law and psychology to better understand and support parents and kids through the complexities of experiences of loss. Her work focuses especially on how parents and children cope and adapt when exposed to major disruptions like death and divorce. She’s studying the science of how to evaluate and gauge such impact but also how to provide true solutions that can be put into practice, not just scientific research that sits on the shelf to gather dust. Thus, her research is always paired with active collaboration with courts or other community programs to make sure her research is tested and disseminated to real people to make real change for parents and kids. She has much to teach us in the area of risk and resilience factors associated with children’s coping and adjustment following divorce, with an emphasis on informing Family Court policy and improving interventions to promote the well being of court involved families. We hope you enjoy today’s episode.
Welcome to today’s episode of the podcast. I am thrilled today to have with us, Dr. Karey O’Hara, who is a professor at Arizona State University who’s doing a lot of really interesting and incredibly useful and practical research involving families, family law, and how to help children flourish. So, welcome. I’m so grateful you’re here with me today.
Dr. Karey O’Hara 03:21
Thank you. I’m very excited to be here. I’m a big fan of your podcast so far.
Krista Nash 03:26
I appreciate that, since it’s still pretty new. So the fact that you’re even aware of it, I really appreciate.So let’s just get started. Maybe just tell everybody and give me more insight – how did you get into this work? It seems like it’s such a niche area for people to have landed in. So you started in psychology, right? Like undergrad in psychology, tell us how you got where you are now.
Dr. Karey O’Hara 03:50
Yeah, yeah. Well, I so actually, my sort of passion for this work, I think, started even a little bit earlier than college. In my own personal life, I didn’t personally go through parental separation or divorce, but I saw when I was young, I had a, we had, a close family friend who was essentially caught in between the family law system and the dependency system. And even at a young age, I was thinking, wow, like there’s so much going on here that has to do with psychology and how it’s interacting with the law, and one legal system is telling these, this family, to do one thing, and it’s contradicted in another way, and things like that. And so already I was starting to think like, okay, how do we this whole intersection between psychology and law, particularly in family law, which is so interesting to me, because in the broader field of psychology and law, family law is like a tiny little player that which I think so odd, because we’re talking about families and relationships and children, child development, these things obviously very relevant to psychology.
Krista Nash 04:53
So did you know that when you went off to undergrad, I want to study psychology, because I’m so interested in this.
Dr. Karey O’Hara 05:00
I did. I didn’t know that psychology and law existed at the time. So I actually started, I think, as a criminal justice major, because I was interested in law. I thought maybe I was going to be a lawyer. And then I worked in a research lab as an undergraduate, a psychology research lab, and I was like, Oh, wow, there’s this whole intersection of work, you know, this whole field that intersects legal issues with psychological issues, and that’s where I sort of found my home. And so I got my undergrad degree in psychology, and then I wasn’t sure again. So I got a master’s degree in forensic psychology, and then at that point I thought, I still thought I maybe would go to a JD PhD program and do both, but eventually I landed into just really focusing on clinical psychology. So I’m trained as a clinical psychologist. I focus on children and families in particular.
Krista Nash 05:54
So did you ever practice with people therapeutically, or were you always on that research academic side?
Dr. Karey O’Hara 06:00
During my graduate training and pre doctoral internship, which is essentially like our version of residency, I was practicing, providing therapy and assessment services for primarily for children.
Krista Nash 06:12
YYou’re doing all research, all teaching.
Dr. Karey O’Hara 06:19
Yes, exactly, yeah. So my job is fully academic. At this point, as a postdoc, I came to ASU and I studied, I did my postdoctoral fellowship at the reach Institute, which is a an institute at ASU that’s really focused on research that addresses children and families who are in all kinds of stressful situations, so certainly divorce and separation, but also we have faculty that study things like, what happens when a child when a parent dies? How do children and families adapt to that? What about when one parent is deployed, or if there’s forced migration? These sorts of issues that all really center on, How do children and families adapt in the context of stressful things that happen.
Krista Nash 07:03
So tell me, then, when you’re looking at divorce and other family court situations, separations, etc, what are your initial thoughts as you’re talking to, you know, the audience basically being parents, hopefully some other researchers, you know, I hope I’m getting parents who are contemplating divorce or and how to do it better, or they’re further along, and they’ve already made a mess of it, and they’re trying to redeem that in a way, and make it in a post decree situation better, and also to the bar, right? There is a shockingly low amount of, maybe it’s not interest, but attention, I guess I’d say, placed on the work that researchers are doing this area. I don’t find that most lawyers who are doing family law, maybe they don’t have the time, maybe they don’t have the encouragement to, actually, I don’t hear them talking, for example, about, hey, this is what children need. This is what we’re seeing in the research. So, you know, enlighten us: what do we need to be thinking about as we look at what is your research showing?
Dr. Karey O’Hara 08:04
Yeah, that’s a good question. And I also want to say I think it’s also that onus is on us a bit too, as the academics, we need to do a better job of disseminating our science, which is one of the reasons why this is one of my favorite things to do. Talk to people like you and to people who have lived in professional experience in this area, because I think what is the point of all of this science that we’re doing at the university, if it’s not getting out into the real world or making any sort of impact? So I think, let’s see, I feel like that’s a very loaded question. It is a loaded question. Yeah. I mean, I think one of the things that you’ve said that really kind of resonated with me just now is that, you know, parents, and let’s think about from a parent’s perspective, I have personally, I don’t know about you, but I have personally, in my clinical work and my research work, I have very, very rarely met a parent that doesn’t want the very best thing for their child, doesn’t love their child to the best of their ability. Now, maybe they don’t know exactly how to navigate situations. Maybe they don’t know how to best support their children. Great. Sure that happens all the time, but I think we need to remember that at the core of it, at least this is how I operate in my work. At the core of it, I just make the assumption that parents want the very best for their children. They just may not know how to do that. And so I guess I want to say to parents that are contemplating this, or like you said, have already sort of gone through this process, and feel like they’ve really sort of messed up the situation, that yes and yes, this may have, this is likely, there may have been things that have caused your children a lot of stress, and you have the power to make such a difference in how they fare. From here on out, there’s so much that parents can do that make a difference in their children’s lives. As a child psychologist, I would say one of the most robust findings in child and adolescent psychology is that parents are incredible protective factors. I mean truly, if you look at any context, any area. You’re always going to see that parents have so much influence over their children, for better or for worse, of course, but that’s huge. And so I think sometimes parents feel like they don’t know what to do, or the damage has been done. And I’m not saying that can’t be true, but what I believe in from the research and from my experience so far, is that things can always get better, and there’s always things to do, and my job is really to uncover in a scientifically valid way, what are those things? What can parents do? What can lawyers do? What can other loved ones do to really help children fare, regardless of what’s happened up to now, sure if you’re learning this from the very beginning, then your kids are very lucky, and you’re going to be able to use some of these strategies from the beginning. But that’s not the reality for most people, and so my work is all about really, kind of getting to the nitty gritty of what strategies, tools, programs, things that kids can do to help themselves, and also that parents can do to help their kids. So I would say that’s at the core of my work, and it really keeps me going, because I know that there’s so much that can happen. There’s so much change that can happen for good.
Krista Nash 11:16
So I love that, because we can be kind of pessimistic in this field. I love that. The way that you’re even starting it from the jump is that they’re really, you know, it’s kind of like divorce is going to be among us. There are going to be tragedies and different traumas that kids experience. How do we deal with those and make them better? As opposed to, I don’t know, just that there’s a little, there’s some hope in that message.
Dr. Karey O’Hara 11:39
Yes, I think there’s so much hope. I mean, yeah, exactly. And families that again, I think one of my favorite things working with parents is that I go in with the assumption that they want the best for their kids, because I’ve been taught time and time again, that’s by and large true. I love that. And when we start from that place, I think we can really start seeing people as human beings that are doing the best that they can in really difficult circumstances and without the tools that they need. And why would they have those tools if we don’t develop them, or we don’t study them, we don’t provide them, how can we expect a human being to know what to do in this situation? And yes, I feel the same way. I feel a lot of hope. I know that there are really tragic stories. I’ve heard them. I’ve worked with those families, but to be able to help families turn things around is the coolest thing.
Krista Nash 12:31
I couldn’t agree more. I feel like it’s kind of like being an oncologist, you know, I’ll be like, you know, there are stories that you get it early, you catch it early, you treat it right? They survive. You know, they thrive. There’s others where we’ve got some bad effects that have happened, but we’re still able to stop it in its tracks, or whatever, right? And there’s others that, you know,here are tragic stories too, so it’s like, how can you do this work? It must be so sad. I get this constantly. I’m sure you get this constantly. I get, I mean, I had coffee with somebody this morning. It’s like, Oh, you got to go back to that hard job you’re doing?I just got off a consultation with parents, grandparents of a pregnant 16 year old, and he stories just keep coming, kids who are sick and divorced and all these things. And yet, I’m like, I think it is at heart, it is an optimistic field to work in. It is helping families.
Dr. Karey O’Hara 13:21
Yeah, exactly. And families that again, I think one of my favorite things working with parents is that I go in with the assumption that they want the best for their kids, because I’ve been taught time and time again that’s by and large true. I love that. And when we start from that place, I think we can really start seeing people as human beings that are doing the best that they can in really difficult circumstances and without the tools that they need. And why would they have those tools if we don’t develop them, or we don’t study them, we don’t provide them? How can we expect a human being to know what to do in this situation?.
Krista Nash 13:58
I think it’s interesting too, because as I’ve done more work in this best interests attorney role, as attorneys represent the best interests of kids, people come and say, oh, I want to do that work. How do I do that work? And I’ll say to them really it isn’t so much that you have a law – I mean, yes, you have to have a law background because you have to work in court and do the law things. And it’s helpful if you have some kind of mental health at least insight, even if you’re not trained specifically in that. But the biggest thing you need is the negotiation power of relationships with these parents, because I’m often the only person who’s come in and said, I’m not on either of your sides here; can’t we agree that you love your children? It disarms people from their litigation warfare to look at them in the eye, hopefully, person to person, even in person, and say, I know you love your children. I’m a parent. You’re a parent. I know you want the best. I know that this person you feel like is an enemy, but that person wants your child to do well too. Can we not agree? When you start from that, I do think it disarms the litigation. Sometimes I have to drag attorneys into it, and sometimes I have a situation where I’m like, I really can’t help you, because your warfare is just too great. But I completely concur that parents, they put that armor down, and they agree, I don’t want to hurt my child. What can I do? I’m genuinely worried about my kid, and that’s what the other parent is saying tooo, right?
Dr. Karey O’Hara 15:23
Exactly. Let’s start from that. And they’re having totally normal human experiences. I mean, people get divorced for good reasons, as you well know, and people have really good reasons for not liking their child’s other parent, and they’re reacting to those very normal human emotions. The problem is that their kids get hurt in the process, and they then have to learn how to deal with those totally normal human emotions and the behaviors that follow from those emotions. For most people, they have to learn how to deal with them in a way that they’ve never been taught because we don’t teach that in our society. We don’t teach people how to deal with overwhelming emotions and how to make the best. You know, values-driven decisions in the face of overwhelming anger, we don’t talk about that. I mean, some people are lucky to learn that from maybe parents, or if they’ve ended up in therapy or something like that, but that’s not everyone – most people don’t get that. They just react to their emotions as they come up, right? That’s sort of the normal human response, without the specific knowledge and skills of doing something different.
Krista Nash 16:35
So I want to move to our problem solving discussion – what you’re seeing that works. But before we just get into that, I do want to ask you just about this emphasis we see on parental alienation as a label, because it’s such a hot topic right now, most people working in our field hear this daily from people: oh, it’s alienation. I’ve got people quoting to me the statistics that they’ve seen on alienation. It’s literally almost like labeling someone a narcissist. I hear that every day too, you know, it’s just: I’ve got a problem with contact with my child, and there’s so much alienation going on. I’ve talked a lot with other people, colleagues of yours even, who have done a lot of work in this. So I know it’s not your main area, but what are your thoughts on alienation as a term and sort of the industry and emphasis around it? w I know it can be exhausting for me, because it feels like we’re kind of missing the point as we emphasize “alienation” so much. What are your thoughts on that?
Dr. Karey O’Hara 17:29
I agree with you. I think it’s something that has become bigger than itself, almost, and just something that we’ve gotten so in the weeds on that it’s not useful anymore. I think one thing I want to take a step back and think about is that, you know, let’s think of the stereotypical parent alienation case, where we’ve got one parent who feels completely alienated, and we’ve got the other parent who feels like that parent is not safe to be around their child, and they have really good reasons from their perspective to keep their child from that other parent. I mean, we know you just said you’re a parent. I’m a parent. We’re going to do anything to protect our children. So first of all, you can imagine, from the parent’s perspective, that is feeling like their child’s in danger, wouldn’t we all, if you’re operating under the assumption that something’s going to hurt your child, wouldn’t you all? Wouldn’t all of us do whatever we possibly could, right? And then on the other side from the parent who’s feeling alienated, I think again, as parents, we can put ourselves in that situation. If your child didn’t want to be around you, or you were separated from your child. I mean, that makes my stomach drop just thinking about; , our children are so important to us that you can imagine how from an emotional level, if you’re taking out of the truth of the matter and the logic and all that, but just really going down to the emotional experience of both people involved, it makes perfect sense if you look at it from their perspective. And again, when we think about how most people act according to their feelings, not according to facts, then it makes a lot of sense how people are acting. And so I think it’s always good for me to try to put myself in their shoes, when I’m seeing a behavior that I don’t understand, or I’m seeing this behavior is causing all these problems. How can this person not see this? I’m reminded of my sort of one basic tenet of psychology is that all behavior makes sense in context, and so we really have to start thinking about the context from that person’s point of view, and then when we can meet them there and acknowledge that. One of the things that gets in the way of people acting according to their values, or, you know, what’s really going on in a situation, is having big, strong emotions and being completely invalidated. I don’t know the last time someone told you to calm down when you were angry. It doesn’t typically work. It’s one of the things that can just relate to all of us that is such a normal thing of someone saying to you when you’re having a big emotional reaction, and someone says you’re crazy or you shouldn’t feel that way, or just calm down. t That’s not helpful and does absolutely the opposite. And so I think, on the other hand, what we’ve learned from psychological science is that simply validating someone’s emotional experience, even if you don’t understand it, or you don’t agree, you certainly don’t have to agree with the behaviors that they’re doing, but if you can just try to understand human to human, what someone’s emotional experience is that has really been shown time and time again to be like a fire extinguisher, essentially, and it can bring down that emotional temperature so that people can think more clearly about all the different nuances of a situation that makes sense. That’s a big thing. So I know we got, I got, a little bit off track. When I think about things like parent alienation or any other sort of very polarizing issue, I try to think about, okay, what’s really going on here? What are the psychological and behavioral processes thatt are sort of underlying this thing that we’re seeing in a family, and I think that’s going to get us a lot further with helping people than putting them in boxes or labeling cases or because it’s just so generic that it doesn’t help anybody. It’s just not useful. It might be true, right? Like he said, This is an alienation case. Sure, that could be descriptively true, but I don’t know how that’s helpful.
Krista Nash 21:27
It’s like, and then what, right? Which is really where your research picks up, right? I mean, so tell us about that. You’ve got so many things you’ve done. I’m going to put your CV in my link in my show notes, because I was looking at Google Scholar. All you researchers are so busy, I don’t know how you possibly research all these things. I felt that way with Dr. Saini too. It’s like every single thing we talked about he would say, oh, I’m researching that thing and I’m researching that thing too or I have a paper on that.
Dr. Karey O’Hara 21:51
Yeah, yeah. I’m not at his level yet.
Krista Nash 21:56
But, well, you’re on your way;you’re busy too. So it’s impossible for us in this time to get to all of it, but let’s talk about some of the highlights, what you’re working on now and also what you know to point people in the direction of some of the greatest hits of what you think and have found and e learned and what you’re working on?
Dr. Karey O’Hara 22:13
Yeah, absolutely. So as I think about my research program as a whole, I think there’s kind of two sides to it which are completely intertwined. And so one side, I would say, is more of a basic psychological science, where I’m trying to understand people’s behavior and emotions and processes. Like, how do people cope with stress? How do people cope with terrible things that happen in their life? Like, you know, we can all imagine. We’ve all been through some version of terrible things. How did we get through it? What were the factors that determined whether we are doing well today or whether we’re not or, you know, so really thinking about, what are the risk and protective factors involved with adaptation? How do people adapt to really stressful situations? So at a basic level, trying to understand that. And we’ve kind of added that work my own and other and many other people’s work that I’ve built on, you know, we’re starting to kind of gather this body of research on risk and protective factors in the context of stress. So everyone goes through stress in some way. What? What makes a difference? How do, how do people fare? You know, what makes the difference? Team this child who went through a highly contentious divorce, who did just fine, and this other child who really didn’t, what made the difference there? And so trying to think about those processes, the interpersonal processes, the psychological, behavioral processes, and the things that really kind of come to the top when you think about that body of literature as a whole are things like coping efficacy. When people feel like I’ve got this, like I can do this is hard and I can deal with it. Huge. That’s a huge psychological protective factor, right? When people have when they feel like they’re loved, when children feel like they’re cared for and loved, and they matter to their parents or to some other adult, it can make a huge difference in how they fare, regardless of what the stressor is. And we’ve seen this. And you know, kids who are in Child Protective Services.. We’ve seen this in kids who lose a parent to death. It doesn’t really matter the context. That sort of general principle holds that when children have that relationship with an adult, a caregiver of some sort that is warm and supportive, we know that can carry them through a lot of bad stuff, stuff like that, high quality parenting, which is a academic term, but really it means parents who use parenting strategies that are characterized essentially by like, again, warm support, you know, telling your kids you love them. And then on the other side, also having really effective discipline strategies. So, you know, having consistent rules that you follow through you say you’re going to do something, and this is hard for me. I have a two-year-old so , remind myself all the time, do not say something that you can’t follow through with, right?
Krista Nash 25:07
Yeah, pick which hills you’re going todie on and die on them, right?
Dr. Karey O’Hara 25:11
Yeah, yes, exactly.It’s so tempting in the moment to be like, you can do whatever.
Krista Nash 25:17
I will say, too, I see this a lot in my cases where I come in, where we’ve got this ying yang problem of a super coddling parent who thinks they’re doing a kid a favor, and they now have got the dynamic of meddling in the other parents who might be more of a consequence person, right? And the other parent is, I feel like there’s a real disconnect sometimes between both the parents, right? And kind of how they’re interacting with each other and what the kid is doing between them. . And try to help with these parent child contact problems where, you know, we’ve got kid running away from one parent into the arms of the more coddling parent, right? And I’m trying to defuse this, get the therapist involved, and yet also, then try to train that more coddling parent, that the consequences are okay and healthy and good and important and all these things, right? So, I mean, I see that a lot in these cases that have gone on, most of these are ones that have gone on for years now, the teenager is like cuddling up to the parent that’s easier, of course. The dynamic is interesting because high-quality parenting is not just coddling. And so parents need to hear that message too. So it’s interesting that you mentioned that definition.
Dr. Karey O’Hara 26:30
Yeah, again, thinking about it from that coddling parents perspective, they think, I can imagine, it’s logical, if you’re in that parent’s perspective and or from that parent’s perspective and you think, well, my kids are going through so much stress, I don’t want to add anything. I’m just going to be the easygoing parent and make it easier for them. That makes sense. The problem is, again, from a psychological view trying to get at that process, we know that kids don’t have routines, clear consequences, and follow through, there are problems with them feeling insecure. Parents sometimes don’t think this is true sometime because kids get mad when you hold your ground, of course, but what we know is that children who don’t have that feel less secure in their family relationships. So even though they’re mad in the moment, it actually makes them feel safe, secure, like life is predictable, which, if you think about it, it’s like, if any of us go into a situation and someone says, Okay, here’s what’s going to happen, if you do this, then this is going to happen. You may not like it, but you’re going to have a more sense of control over your life, right? Because you know clearly what’s going to happen.
Krista Nash 27:35
I think it’s interesting. I’ve had a lot of kids lately. I think it’s because it was Christmas time and holiday time, but I’ve had several kids recently – oh my gosh, I have to just look at my notes, because I have to say it exactly right. I was like, What’s going on with your parents? How’s it going? And this little girl said it was just so poignant. We were talking about what she talks to her counselor at school about, right? And she pulls out a little journal book, and she’s telling me about it, and goes and goes and gets her little secret key and it is so sweet. Then she said, You know, I talk a lot about just my parents acting different. Is there a word for being more giving in a weird way, like, it’s really weird that we’re allowed to have whatever we want, to get all this extra stuff, you know, my parents say yes all the time now. So I think it’s just so interesting because another kid was getting, like, massive amounts of some special, I don’t know, like mineral or gems or something in one of these video games. Like the parent, who always said no is now all of a sudden buying them whatever they want on Roblox or whatever these games are, right? And the kid is like, they don’t like it. Another kid’s like, Oh, I missed Christmas, but, but, you know, we got a gaming system at my mom’s, but my dad also got us a gaming system. We all got new iPads. It’s so obvious what they’re doing, right? So it’s the same kind of thing. It’s like, parents, I mean, I get it. I think if I were a parent going through this, I might be like, I’m gonna buy you a little bit. But I think it’s just really interesting that the kids are telling me that they don’t like it.
Dr. Karey O’Hara 29:03
Yeah, and even if they can’t articulate it, like the little girl first, it’s like, something is not right here.
Krista Nash 29:09
Yes, it’s like she paused in a really cute way, like, in a really pensive way. Like, is there a word about how weird it is that they’re more giving? They say yes all the time. They notice that’s disruptive.
Dr. Karey O’Hara 29:23
Exactly, and if it might feel great the first and second and third time, but eventually it’s like, oh, wait a minute, this is not normal, like, there’s something off here. And I think that’s what’s the hard part for parents, because it feels good in the moment. Usually, if you do follow through, if you don’t follow through on your consequence, and you say, okay, whatever you can have it anyways, they’re going to be like, yay. Thank you, you know. And that feels like reinforcing. So it’s tricky, really tricky, yeah, because over time it makes kids feel less secure. We know that from a scientific perspective, but in the moment, it may feel good.
Krista Nash 30:01
Especially in a divorce context it feels good when you get to be the hero and your own perception is that it feels good that you are getting a win. You know? I mean, even in these parent child contact problems, I’m often saying to the favorite parent like, I understand. I think I would under I would feel the psychology you probably feel that you’re mad at this person, this other, this coparent, or you’re, you’ve got, you know, bad feelings about this other person. And so how can you not feel somehow fueled by being chosen, validated.
Dr. Karey O’Hara 30:31
Yes, absolutely, we would all feel that way, right?
Krista Nash 30:37
And then, it brings it back to the alienation. Oh, she’s alienating. Yeah, maybe there are pieces of that, but also, there are so many relational dynamics, right? It’s just normal human processing a lot of times, right? And, yeah, it’s very difficult. But I interrupted you and got you off track. So you were telling me about all the things, about, like, the different stress things, coping efficacy, when kids feel loved. High-quality parenting.
Dr. Karey O’Hara 31:02
One more thing I wanted to say about the high quality parent, because I just read this somewhere, and I love it, and I’ve actually, I think about it all the time in my own parenting, which is that I read somewhere that someone said, When you follow through on consequences, good or bad, you’re teaching your child that they can trust you, because you do what you say you’re going to do, even if it’s something they don’t want, you still demonstrated to them that you did what you said you were going to do. And over time, that creates a belief system in them that my parent is trustworthy, because when they say something better for worse, they do it.
Krista Nash 31:37
Interesting. I hope people listen to that. And I have to remind myself too; I have adult children now that I have the same problems with, right? But, yeah, I should have done better when they were two! I was actually really good when they were two. It’s when they became more logical teenagers, that I started falling apart!
Dr. Karey O’Hara 31:53
That’s what I’m nervous about. You know when she’s tantruming because I said, I told her, if she did this thing, you can’t have this thing. And then she does a thing, and I have to follow through, and she’s having a tantrum, and it doesn’t feel good. And so in my head, I’m just like, you’re teaching her. You can she can trust you.
Krista Nash 32:11
Yeah, you can do it. Stick it out. You’ll be glad when they’re 18 or 15!
Dr. Karey O’Hara 32:14
Exactly! It’s like, this is an investment. It feels bad right now, but it’s worth it.
Krista Nash 32:20
And when I’m constantly telling parents too, you two need to be team. Whatever your kid’s name is, right? Team: joint child. Team children, right? Because these messages that you are sending to this kid, you know, you’re creating this little monster, right? Because you’re so disjointed, and the child knows it. And I guess I don’t totally understand, maybe your research illuminates this a little bit. It’s hard for me to understand. It seems like it would be pretty clear why parents need to have more consistency for these kids, right? So that the parents can be on the same team and not be warring against one another. So that’s part of my problem with all this litigation and depositions and all the warfare that goes on is we’re just creating this. We’re fueling the adversarial breakdown in a way that then they can’t even do the basic things like have the same cell phone rules, right, or the same driving rules or the same anything, and so then you end up with all these. I mean, I have lawyers say to me, you know, I feel like I’m fighting lawyers all the time now. I’m like, You shouldn’t be doing a deposition, and they’re like, do you object? They’re conferring with me. Do you object to the deposition? I’m like, Well, yeah, I do. I mean, I don’t actually legally object. Obviously, you have the right to do it. But that’s not the answer I’m giving you. The answer I’m giving you is that I philosophically, morally object. For example, I have a family where they went and did a family trip, even while they were separated for a kid’s birthday, and it was this beautiful thing, and then the lawyers started assassinating each other, and now the parents are or now we’re at the phase of deposition, and everything is falling apart, right? And there are all these allegations made that lawyers build on that are not totally in good faith, I think. They’re taking a little kernel and then they’re fueling it. I’m not suggesting anything ethical, but really, they’re drinking the Kool Aid of each other.. So the parent is like, Oh, I’m really kind of worried about these things. And the attorney says great, let’s take that and turn it into this big thing. And so now we’re off to the races.They’re saying, well, it’s only a financial deposition. It’s not a big deal. And I’m like, it is. It’s shooting shots into the family system that can’t withstand that? You can only throw so many nuclear bombs into this, and then they won’t be able to talk about what to do with the cell phone, right?. So ell me about some of the things in your research that are moving in a direction where you’re seeing that parents are able to get underneath this and do better, or kids are doing better. And before we get there, did you tell me the second part of your research? Well, that’s exactly it, what we’re doing. Okay, tell me about the second part.
Dr. Karey O’Hara 34:47
One thing I wanted to mention, though, about what you were just saying in terms of this, like family system and parenting, one very robust finding that we have seen in the in the research, is hat there is a correlation between parenting quality and conflict. And again, if we think about this, if you are caught up in conflict, you’ve got some big stress going on your life. Are you going to be the best parent you can be? Are you going to be the best worker you can be? No, we all have limited capacities, like our brains do not just keep, you know, accommodating for all the things on our plates. Eventually we are tapped out. We cannot do anymore. And so if you think about even if it is just a financial disposition that’s still apparent, having to think about it, prepare for it, talk to the attorney about it, that’s taking cognitive and emotional resources that could have been going to their parenting and giving it to the case.
Krista Nash 35:45
Dr Saini and I are going to be talking at some point about his research into incremental trust building and how important that is to start rebuilding that trust to facilitate co-parenting and outcomes for kids. And if you’re doing that kind of litigation, even on a quote,” just financial” side, you’re eroding that trust. You’re making an enemy of that parent. Lawyers genuinely do not understand this. They don’t. I mean, I, you know, I said to this attorney, we’re going to have to have this conversation at a conference where we can just talk about not just this particular case, but just philosophically, generally, and, this attorney wanted to have the conversation now, I think because it was a little offensive for me to be saying you’re anti-family, right?You are. You know, it really requires a sea change in how lawyers, lawyer, right? I know and like, this attorney, a good attorney, good person, good human. I know this person doesn’t want to hurt a family. That isn’t the optics which they’re doing their case, right? They’re just trying to do their job, but they’re trying to do the best job, but we all have these blinders on.
Dr. Karey O’Hara 36:55
Well, maybe we should talk about doing, like, a presentation at AFCCor something. I would love that. Yeah, I would. I’ve really been thinking about this a lot, and I know Dr Saini thinks about this a lot too, but just thinking about, like, the systems perspective of like, how all of us were surrounding the family, how we get caught up in that cycle, yeah, caught up in the dynamic and all of that. And what can we do? I think a lot of the same principles probably apply from what we’re studying, we’re seeing in the parents. And how can we think about expanding that out to the, you know, the parents?
Krista Nash 37:31
Yeah, because all are caught in it.
Dr. Karey O’Hara 37:34
Again, normal human thing, but you all get caught into systems. That’s how this works. So anyway, I think that’s a really good point, just thinking about even legal conflict that maybe the parents aren’t fighting and arguing with each other in front of the kids, but they’re still involved in a lot of legal conflict. At the very best case scenario, it’s taking resources away from their child. Because, I mean, we all have limited resources, cognitive, emotional, time, that kind of thing. And at the very worst, it’s making it actually more difficult for their job. You kind of have to think about that cost. There’s a cost.
Krista Nash 38:13
I feel like the bar needs to do a better job of explaining that, understanding it themselves, because we are somebody, one of my podcasts, somebody called lawyers first responders. And I really liked, I mean, I think therapists are too, but maybe even sooner, sometimes than they get to lawyers, but in the context of what we’re going to do once we’ve decided to get divorced, you know, lawyers are probably first responders. And so, you know, I get the first shot at people. The consult I just did was about a pregnant teenager, and that it was the grandparents, and they’re like, We don’t want this person coming to our house. We don’t want this guy this. We don’t want this. We don’t want this. And I’m taking it all in, and I said, Okay, well, there ar a lot of lawyers whoare going to take your money and they’re going to say, let’s go to war. And I’m going to tell you, you’re not going to like probably what I’m going to tell you, which is that this is a dad with fundamental rights to parent. I’m sorry you’re in this situation, but you need to earn the relational right with the father to engage here, and this is far more what this is about long term than icing this teenage father out at this moment. But lawyers usually don’t see themselves as having that obligation, right? They see themselves as, how do I help you win? That’s my job. And so it’s just broken from the get go, because if they’d gotten hold of almost any other attorney, it would be like, This is what we should do to block this guy. I had another one with a pregnant lady the other day, 30 something weeks pregnant. Husband left her. She’s like, I have another lawyer. But I think she’s maybe being too adversarial. She’s telling me not to put the father on the birth certificate. I’m like, well, one, there’s a presumption that he is the father. You’re in Colorado, if you’re married, which you are. And I asked,and by the way, is he the father? She said, yes, he is the father. Okay, well, just put him on the birth certificate. Two, she says I don’t want him to know when I’m having the baby. Okay, well, that’s not good either, right? Three, she says , I don’t want to come to the hospital to meet the baby. I’m like, well, what does the baby need, right? Do you think your child might want a photo or the attachment contact with her father? And so it’s just like there’s an echo chamber going on that sets these people down and it feels good to them.
Dr. Karey O’Hara 40:18
Oh yeah. And again, that makes perfect sense from that perspective, right? It’s if you’re that mother, you’re, let’s say you’re those grandparents. The first thing I think about when you tell me that story is those grandparents are scared, absolutely.
Krista Nash 40:30
And I said Your daughter is scared too, right? She’s terrified, right?
Dr. Karey O’Hara 40:34
Everyone’s terrified, of course. And if someone, if I was scared that someone was going to hurt my kid or my grandchild, I would want them to be away too. And then, I mean, let’s just start with that, like this all makes sense, and we’ve got all these other contextual pieces that we have to consider. It’s not so cut and dry, but starting with that, like, wow, I can really hear how freaked out you are, and I would feel the exact same way.
Krista Nash 41:01
I almost think all lawyers in family law should have to have mental health training. It’s like you can’t as a family law lawyer in good conscience, and I think even as an individual therapist, maybe this is true, because it’s probably true of therapy too, that you get these therapists that are only drinking the Kool Aid in one person, right? So it’s like, you’ve got this really broken system going on in half of our families, right? And then they come to a lawyer, they go to a therapist, and when they come to the lawyer, I’m like, I’m just going to look at the law. There is not near enough understanding of, like, the law being broken in terms of how it’s going to or whether it’s going to fix your problems, right? Holw are you going to get to the other side of this as whole as possible, which is all anybody wants.
Dr. Karey O’Hara 41:42
Yes, yes, yes. I couldn’t agree more.
Krista Nash 41:49
I’m too old to go get, a PhD at this but I’m like, I need one. I actually did go apply and got into get a master’s in social work. But I tend to enroll in everything. And I’m like, What am I doing? I already went to law school later in life. My husband’s like, we need to retire. I say, we can’t retire. I’m just getting started!
Dr. Karey O’Hara 42:09
You know, it’s funny. So when I was in my second year, I told you I was like, back and forth. Maybe a lawyer. Am I gonna be a psychologist? So I was in my second year of my clinical PhD program. And I was like, You know what I should do both I’m going to take the LSAT. I got into law school because my school at the time was doing, like, a joint, you know, PhD JD program. And then, luckily for my own mental health and physical health, I was like, you know what I’m going to do is I’m going to become a really good clinical psychologist and partner with lawyers and do the work together.
Krista Nash 42:48
That’s good advice, because I am sitting here as I talk to all you amazing PhDs, I’m like, Hmm, do I still have time left to do that before retirement?
Dr. Karey O’Hara 42:58
Maybe this is a good segue into the other part of my work, which is really coming up with usable tools. So translating that science like we know this works from a basic psychological process perspective. Okay, great. That’s all great in theory. How do we actually make that into something that people can use day to day? You know, tools, programs, etc. And one of the things that is really important to me with that side of things, so, you know, translating the science, for sure, absolutely into programs. But the other piece that I think is so critical is my community partnerships. I did not build any programs. I don’t develop programs without community partners, because I am not interested in developing a program that nobody uses, and that is essentially what’s happened in our field for decades. We have incredible programs out there that are literally sitting on shelves in they’re buried in scientific journals about this amazing finding from a randomized, controlled trial showing how amazing this program is, and it literally means nothing, because nobody uses it, either because it’s not available or they don’t know about it, or it’s not usable. And so the very core of everything that I do is that. Yes, I want my programs to be scientifically rigorous, valid and all of that. hey have to demonstrate that they work. Absolutely. That’s non-negotiable. And equally as important, they have to be usable. They have to make sense in the real world. And I don’t think I can do that alone, because I’m, you know, yes, I’m trained as a therapist, I’ve worked with families and stuff, but I’m not a lawyer. I’m not a judge. I don’t know how decisions are made in terms of what programs get adopted at the, you know, Office of the Courts, for example, I don’t know that. I don’t know how judges or how attorneys decide which program to tell their clients about and which not. I don’t know any of that. I don’t do that work. And so I feel like I have to partner with people who are on the ground doing the work to figure out, okay, what do you need? What format do you need it in? What do you need it to look like? I’ll take care of the science, the nitty gritty, but let’s package it in a way that you can actually use it. And so I partner with family law professionals for sure and partner with judges and attorneys and mental health professionals, but I also partner with parents and kids themselves with lived experience, because the other thing is, let’s say that we have a program that is scientifically great, right? We know that it has this statistically significant effect on child mental health, correct? And we’ve done the work with family lab professionals that they all say, like, Yeah, this is great. I’m going to tell all my clients about it, great. And then you get to the parents, and they’re like, this is doesn’t resonate with me at all. Like, who made this? Right? This is so dumb or boring or whatever. Okay, well, now we’ve just lost it, right? We’ve lost that potential effect that we had is gone, because if parents don’t like it, they don’t resonate with it, they don’t think it’s useful, they’re not going to do the things that they’re learning in the program, and then again, it’s all for nothing. So my philosophy is that we need to build programs that are effective from a scientific perspective. e do randomized trials and things like that using valid and reliable measures and tools and things like that. Yes, we also need to make sure they can be accessed. So they have to make sense, and you know, in the setting that they’re going to be used, and then they have to be engaging. People have to like them. You know, they have to feel like that they’re useful, that they’re helpful, and so I think you can’t have a program that will really make a difference in people’s lives if you don’t have all three of those components.
Krista Nash 46:52
Tell us about some of those you’ve done. I mean, I know you’ve working. You’ve got several going, right?
Dr. Karey O’Hara 46:57
Yeah. So I would say they’re in two buckets. One is the programs for parents, and one’s programs for kids. So I think that I think about it as like a tools in the tool chest kind of thing, where if we want, if our main goal, this is my main goal as a clinical psychologist, my main goal is to protect and promote children’s mental health. At the end of the day, that’s what I want. And so if I’m thinking about that in the context of parental separation and divorce, I think there’s two ways to accomplish that. Well, from that basic science, we know there’s two ways. There’s the coping through the child, so that’s like the child level, and then there’s the parenting at the parent level. And so I am simultaneously working on both of those pathways, because I think they lead to the same destination, and I think we need both, because we can have an amazing parenting program, but some parents are not going to do it, or they can’t do it, or they won’t do it, or whatever. There’s lots of reasons why they’re not going to so what do we just leave those kids with nothing? Those kids need something too, right? Or another kind of way I think about it is that these parenting programs parents can do the very, very best that they can, but they may not get it definitely. I mean, you and I know we’re parents, you’re not going to get it right all the time. Let’s give kids those tools, those coping strategies, and also, let’s be honest, we could all use some coping strategies in our life, because we’re all going to come across other stressors, even if, let’s say that you’ve got the best case scenario where parents just turn things around and they do all those protective factors, and kids are doing great with the separation and divorce, they’re still going to come across other stressors in their life. And if they have those coping skills, that coping efficacy, we know that will keep them more protected. And so I think it’s just worthwhile to kind of come at this from two directions.
Krista Nash 48:44
So what do those tools actually look like? Are they classes? In Colorado, we have co-parenting after divorce classes mandated, but, you know, it’s like a four hour online class and that’s it. That’s all we do. I mean, that’s better than nothing, but, you know, and I think the class, most people are like, rolling their eyes, like, really, I have to take this class. And, you know, I can’t get divorced without the class. And most people come back and say, Actually, it wasn’t that bad. And they do these little checks to make sure you’re listening, you know, so, like, kind of engage. You can’t just totally check out. But I think most people consider it pretty rote. Like, oh, I got a couple good ideas. Like I guess it would be bad for my kids if I introduce a new romantic partner too fast. That’s the kind of thing I get back. But I don’t get much more than that. And we don’t really have anything kid centric, yeah. What are you trying in Arizona?
Dr. Karey O’Hara 49:31
Yeah. So the parenting program. So first of all, all of my programs, I’m really thinking about them nationwide and maybe even broader than that eventually. The last statistic I could find was that in 46 states, we mandate or court order parenting programs. Parents are either mandate by state statute or court order by judicial discretion to go to parenting classes, which from a l sort of program implementation perspective is amazing because they’re there. That’s usually the big thing. It’s hard to get the people there, right? The problem is that most jurisdictions are not using evidence-based programs. They’re using programs that look good. Really, really smart, well-meaning people came up with them, but they’ve never been tested. We don’t know that they actually work in the way that they want. Most of the time, you’ll have a research study that shows that people like it, which is great. That’s an important part of it, but that means that you have evidence of that program being one people like – not that it might work or that it protects children. There just really hasn’t been the research; it has not been done on these programs. Again, they look good, they sound good. A lot of people like them. We have no clue if they make any difference in their lives. That’s the big thing. I’m working co leading a task force for the AFCC in trying to get consensus, at least in the family law community, about what evidence-based programs are. How do we know them? How do we build them? How can we know them when we see them, sort of thing, and really, just already making people do this, we may as well make sure it works. It may as well be worth their time and effort, and right now, we just don’t know. We think, yeah, it’s like, we are kind of crossing our fingers. Hopefully this is helpful too. But that’s to me, that’s not good enough, right? And so the parenting programs that I’m developing, it’s a lot of that same kind of setup, where it’s classes, probably online, probably some that are hybrid, where you could join a zoom session or something like that. Some jurisdictions want them to be in person. In Maricopa, they still do in-person programs. So my big life goal, is that we have these evidence-based programs that are made up of high-quality ingredients, things that we know work, and then they’re available in all the different formats, online, hybrid, in person, whatever. Take it however you want it, but it has the core ingredients that we know are helpful. And so those are, that’s what we’re working on now. It takes a lot longer to do the work this way than just kind of one or a few people kind of coming up with a curriculum that they think sounds good. Because what we do is we go through this very rigorous process where we do qualitative interviews with family law professionals and parents, and we say, What do you think needs to be included? What are the topics that would really resonate with you? So we do all that, collect that data, then we build the thing, and then we user test it, so we put it in front of people and say, What do you think about this? Tweak it again, and then we test it in a randomized control trial to make sure that it’s actually having the impact that we think it should have so it takes longer, but I think it’s worth it in the long run. And so for the parenting programs, I have two. I don’t like to call them programs, because I really think of them as program components. Like, I don’t really care what the program is called. I want to know that the stuff in it is good. So for one project, we’re really trying to figure out what works to help parents reduce the conflict that happens in front of the children and the conflict that happens not in front of the children. So really nitty gritty about like, what are the things that? What are the things you can what are the activities, what are the metaphors, what are the things you can teach people that can actually make those behaviors change, right? So that’s one set. And then, on the other hand, I have a newer program, or, you know, they’re modules. Everything that I do is modularized, because I think eventually we’re going to kind of mix and match and like, this works really good for this thing and this. And let’s put them together. And so the other one that I’m working on is kind of on the flip side in teaching parents what to do when conflict has already happened and they want to help their kids. I was really struck by one of those qualitative interviews I had with a mom who was like, Look, I know that conflict is bad for my kids, and I hate that I do it, but I just get into the moment. And I, despite my best intentions, it just happens, and I just feel terrible about it. And and I, you know, I said something like, well, then, yeah, you know, that makes sense. You’re human. What do you do after? And she goes, Well, I do absolutely nothing, because the court says I shouldn’t talk about the conflict. So we just pretend like it never happened. And I’m thinking like, oh god, that’s probably not going well for the kids. So I really heard loud and clear from that mom that she’s like she didn’t say it in these words, but I interpret it as parents need tools to help them, even when things don’t go well, like, what do you do after the fact? How can you repair or mitigate that?
Krista Nash 54:38
I have many parents who just avoid any of the conversations, and they’re trying to be good and obey their lawyers or whatever. But, I mean, kids are like, you know, we missed Christmas with this parent because of this big fight, and then we came back and got gifts a couple days later. And, you know, no one brought it up at all. So, you know, the kids were there. I’m waiting for parents to talk to me about it. Like, sometimes they’re even texting about it with a parent, and then the parent still doesn’t bring it up, yeah, the kids are left with this weird situation of it not being addressed. I often wish parents could be a fly on the wall with me when I’m talking to their kids, because they’ll do things like pull out their phones. They’ll be like, I took notes on all the ways I feel about this.w. And they are thinking, feeling humans who are reacting to these things, and even little kids are like, Yeah, I never got an explanation for that. That’s really weird. Talk about, like, incremental trust building with your kids. You start to become a suspicious person, probably across all areas of your life, if your parents are kind of shucking and jiving stories around and not actually giving the straight skinny of what’s going on, or at least in an age appropriate way, about something that the kids observed.
Dr. Karey O’Hara 55:43
Exactly. It’s awkward. We’ve all walked into a room where people were just fighting, and it’s like, right? You feel it. I had a child one time tell me, I just know my mom’s voice changed so I knew what was going on. I just think again, in that spirit of like, people are human. Yeah, they’re gonna do the best they can. And look, none of us are perfect. We even have the best set of skills. And you’re gonna lose your temper in the moment.
Krista Nash 56:17
What are your programs like for the kids? Is it the same kind of classes, groups, online, coping, kind of a whole bunch of different varieties of that you’re trying out?
Dr. Karey O’Hara 56:27
Yeah, so on the child side, yes, coping, that’s kind of the process that we’re targeting, helping kids help themselves feel better when these really stressful things happen. And so we’re pulling kind of strategies from the larger clinical psych child clinical psychology therapy world to learn about kind of generic coping strategies like relaxation training, for example. And we’re trying to test how that works, or how it could work in this context, to help kids deal with this particular stressor. And in that one, we have a program called Project Brain Team, where we have, we’ve developed, form modules. They’re like little games, online games that kids play, and they learn these different coping strategies. And we’re conducting a randomized trial right now. We have like 30 kids left to enroll. So you know, any kids nine to 12 that want to do this, send them my way. They can earn money and prizes and things. We really want to know if this works. So we’re getting close, but what we’re going to learn from that study is which of these coping strategies are really helping kids.
Krista Nash 57:34
I can probably find you like 10 kids in an hour. I’m thinking of all these kiddos in these situations. I can call their parents and say, Hey, I;ve got this thing you could do. It’s so cool to me. I’m super encouraged about, all these across state line, things that are kind of starting to, I mean, these are squarely states issues, but you know, all of us talking to each other is where this idea generation starts to actually hit families and help them, and that just encourages me so much.
Dr. Karey O’Hara 58:03
Yeah. So that’s what we’re doing in my lab. I have some incredible graduate students that are helping me collect this data, develop these programs, and at the end of the day, we just want to take that science and turn it into something that people can actually use and make sure that it works using our science skills, but really kind of leveraging those collaborative relationships as well to make sure that we’re doing it as a community. I can make something, probably on my own that’s pretty good, I guess, probably, but it’s not going to be as good as if we do it together.
Krista Nash 58:34
Yes, there’s more power with people learning from each other. And I mean, that’s why I really appreciate some of these conferences and the people that pour so much into this collaboration, even internationally, because this is a human problem across our globe. I This isn’t a Colorado thing or Arizona thing. It’s not even a United States thing. And there’s different cultural differences, obviously, but when your eyes start opening to solutions in other places, I feel like time is short. We need to help these kids now. Let’s use everything we have to do it. I’m looking at your CV, and I’m like, Okay, we’re gonna have to try to grab you again in the future, because I really am interested in your longitudinal studies on kids too, the long term impact on them, because that’s vital too. It also looks like you’ve done a lot on incarceration and domestic violence, too.
Dr. Karey O’Hara 59:26
Yes, I started in graduate school really working on intimate partner violence in the context of family law. And then I broadened out a bit to the conflict more generally. But as I was saying, I’m really interested in those kind of core principles, or core mechanisms, of how people cope when bad things happen. And so I also study children’s coping in the context of when a parent gets incarcerated, when a parent dies. Basically, all of it is something to do with something really stressful having happened in the family. How do kids cope with that? And I think that work really helps me think more broadly about the basic processes of how human beings deal with loss.
Krista Nash 1:00:09
Yeah, I have an appointment that’s been going on for a long time where a child’s parent murdered the other parent, one parent murdered the other parent, and the child is being raised in a different state, with the grandparents of the parent who was murdered, and the other parent is incarcerated. And everyone is having to go through so much.I came on when it was already in the family court system. It still is in the court system, but we’ve done a really good job over the last maybe a year or so, to actually try to bring people as humans together to try to work together. t’s the most dicey, complex case that I have had in terms of everyone’s emotions. You’ve got grandparents on both sides. You’ve got all these people, you’ve got psychologists, you’ve got all this really heavy trauma. When I tell other people, this person still has fundamental rights to parent potentially, they’re like, what, why? These are so, so hard, so I appreciate you’re doing that work, because it’s the rare situation, at least in the scope of all these cases, but such an important situation and really, people going through family law disfunction and questioning Constitutional rights to parent need to think about this kind of case.
Dr. Karey O’Hara 1:01:13
It’s a good point that multiple bad things happen to people actually. These aren’t isolated incidents. So I think from a scientific perspective, it really kind of helps me broaden my perspective and get a bigger picture about the process. I had a case where we were treating the child for bereavement because one of their parents died, but their parents had also divorced. So there was like, different losses.
Krista Nash 1:01:49
At the end of the day, it’s a child, and bad things happened; we can boil it down to that, and we can do better. So, I’m going to let you go. I could talk to you all day and monopolize your time, but thank you so much. I’m really grateful. I will link to your stuff in the show notes and everything, so people can go check out your work, and I will go find you some kids. As each of these states and countries are looking at solutions,I am just really encouraged that there’s so much work going on with people like you, and it gives me hope that it isn’t hopeless. That’s just so great. It’s good news for people, just like we started with, so thank you again for being with me today.
Dr. Karey O’Hara 1:02:26
Yeah, thank you so much, and hopefully we can find a project to work on.
Krista Nash 1:02:29
Absolutely. I would love that.
Intro/Outro 1:02:32
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 ChildrenFirstFamilyaw.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.