In this episode of the Children First Family Law podcast, Krista Nash talks with Dr. Don Gordon, a clinical child psychologist and Executive Director of the Center for Divorce Education. Dr. Gordon shares how his personal experience with high-conflict divorce shaped his mission to help families reduce stress and improve parent-child relationships through evidence-based education.
Their conversation centers around “Children in Between,” a widely used court-mandated parenting program, and its new companion course for kids. Dr. Gordon explains why emotional literacy, stress reduction, and safe communication are critical tools for children during separation and divorce. He also discusses the neuroscience of fight-or-flight responses in parents, how to interrupt reactive behaviors, and why involving kids in conversations about their feelings changes outcomes for life.
Divorce doesn’t have to break a child’s emotional foundation if we give families the tools to manage it with care.
In this episode, you will hear:
- Parents need training for co-parenting under stress, not just general parenting
- Children benefit when they learn how to name, share, and manage emotions
- Divorce stress impacts a child’s long-term relationships and mental health
- Online programs can support families with low-cost, effective tools
- Teaching emotional regulation improves how parents and kids relate
- Kids internalize conflict when they feel caught between two parents
- Loyalty conflicts do more harm than divorce itself
- Involving both parents in emotional coaching gives kids double the support
- When parents model calm responses, kids learn resilience
- Proactive education reduces litigation and emotional fallout
Resources from this Episode
www.childreninbetweenforkids.com
www.childrenfirstfamilylaw.com
All states have different laws; be sure you are checking out your state laws specifically surrounding divorce. Krista is a licensed attorney in Colorado and Wyoming but is not providing through this podcast legal advice. Please be sure to seek independent legal counsel in your area for your specific situation.
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Teaching Kids to Cope: The Program Born from One Father’s Divorce Story with Dr. Don Gordon Podcast Transcript
Don Gordon 00:00
There’s some evidence that the kids do learn these strategies for reducing their own stress, and that they are talking more to their parents about their feelings, but also that this is going to help them in the long run, in terms of being throughout their adult lives, to be able to be emotionally literate and expressive. They’re much more likely to have a good couple relationship when they pair up later on, if they’re able to talk openly about their feelings. The stereotypical, you know, strong, silent male is not a very good partner for most women, because she feels like she doesn’t know it. So the long term effect of kids learning emotional literacy is pretty significant, and the parents have a big role to play in how much the kids remember and use the skills. So if they’re going through the program with the kids, then they can prompt them, and they get the situations and check in with them how they’re feeling, or so I noticed you’ve been crying a lot lately. Have you thought about that method, about how to change your thinking? So you cannot stop thinking about this thing. It makes you sad, or they remind them of some of the stress reduction techniques when they see them. So the kids will benefit more if they have a parent that prompts them to remember, remember the content. So in that way, it becomes a lot deeper than a 90-minute program.
Intro/Outro 01:12
Welcome to the Children First Family Law podcast. Our host, Krista Nash, is an attorney, mediator, a parenting coordinator, and child advocate with a heart to facilitate conversations about how to help children flourish amidst the broken area of family law. As a child advocate in demand for her expertise throughout Colorado and as a speaker on these issues at a national level, Krista is passionate about facilitating and creatively finding solutions to approach family law matters in a way that truly focuses on the best interests of kids. Please remember this podcast is provided to you for information purposes only. No one on this podcast is representing you or giving you legal advice. As always, please enjoy this episode and be sure to like, subscribe and share the podcast with others you think would benefit from this content.
Krista Nash 02:01
Hi everyone and welcome back to the Children First Family Law podcast, where we focus on what matters most, helping children thrive during and after family transitions. We’re joined today by Dr. Don Gordon, a clinical child psychologist who is internationally recognized as one of the top experts in the field of parent-child relationships for more than three decades, his research and work has focused on developing and refining family and parenting interventions, including being perhaps the leading pioneer of the development of online co-parenting programs. Dr. Gordon serves as Executive Director of the Center for Divorce Education, the entity that provides nearly every state in the United States with the court required for our online parenting class called Children in Between, which parents usually have to take when getting divorced. Stemming from that work, Dr. Gordon and the Center for Divorce Education have now created a class for kids called Children in Between, for kids which children or their parents can complete online in just 90 minutes for $20.
What makes today’s conversation especially powerful is that Dr. Gordon is not just speaking from professional experience. He’s also lived it. He vulnerably shares personal reflections from his own high-conflict divorce, which took place when his son was very young, and the mother’s relocation out of state with their son added additional conflict and challenges that divorce experience of his own profoundly shaped Dr. Gordon’s mission to give families what he wished he had at the time: structured, practical tools to help parents do divorce better and help children tap into what they need in the highly emotional and conflict-laden world of divorce and its aftermath, from addressing the emotional fallout of parental conflict to giving kids a voice in the healing process. Dr. Gordon’s work is transforming how we educate and empower both parents and children.
Hi everybody. Welcome back to today’s episode of the Children First Family Law podcast. I am pleased to have Dr Don Gordon here with us, who is coming to us today from Oregon, and he is going to share a lot of really valuable information for parents, co-parents, about his life’s work and some new resources that he has that can really help parents do this really hard work better and kids who can really have, I think, better outcomes. So welcome to the show today. Thanks for joining us.
Don Gordon 04:22
Oh, happy to be here, Krista. I’m happy to be able to chat with you and about the areas that we have some things in common. Yeah, similar goals. I’m looking forward to talking about that.
Krista Nash 04:32
Absolutely well, so tell us a little about your background and what brought you into the work and what keeps you passionate about it.
Don Gordon 04:38
Oh, it’s interesting. I got my doctorate in clinical child psychology and also family psychology. So I’m a family psychologist, and I’ve had academic jobs and private practice and things like that, but I’ve gotten interested in this divorce work, because my work initially was working on delinquency treatment and prevention. And we knowthat most of the delinquents that we were treating, and we’re using family therapy, didn’t have fathers in the home and had no, almost no contact with their biological fathers. And so in order to prevent delinquency, I thought that if we can keep the fathers involved when the parents split up, then we can reduce delinquency. And that got me into co-parent education and about, how do we motivate both parents to stay involved and work with each other, and the kids benefit if they do that. So that got me into it, and then I went through a high-conflict divorce myself and my colleague at the time, Jack Arvind, not he had a really easy divorce, and they agreed to joint custody right off the bat, which, back then, was unusual, so we decided we want to teach parents to have the kind of divorce he had and not the kind of divorce that I had. So we came at it from different perspectives.
Krista Nash 05:50
So what do you think I mean, since you shared that little glimpse about your own life, I find I always find that really interesting, because we can talk very philosophically about what a lot of these psychologists and professionals have to say to parents, but I love that you share that right off the jump, that you know you’ve been through it. So what would you as an initial matter share from having gone through a high conflict divorce yourself, like, why do you think it was so bad?
Don Gordon 06:13
I wanted to have joint custody because, based on the research, I thought that was the best for kids, and we both stayed very involved, and they split the time almost equally between us and my ex wife didn’t she wanted control and sole custody and and so we couldn’t agree, and we had to go to court, and I asked the judge to require to impose joint custody, and he wouldn’t, because he didn’t believe in it.
Krista Nash 06:33
And this was probably like, was this, like, a really long time ago? Was this more?
Don Gordon 06:40
Yeah, early 80s, yeah. So really, you know? And then back then this judge, he thought that only mothers should have custody, no matter what. So I didn’t care for that attitude.
Krista Nash 06:50
So did you end up having a good like, did you get much time with your kids?
Don Gordon 06:54
Yeah, I did. Son and and until she moved away a couple years later and moved. I was living in Ohio, and she moved down to Georgia and took him, and I was unable to get the court to stop that. So suddenly, you know, I’m only seeing him four days a month, you know, every other weekend, which was terribly inadequate for him and I. How old was he when she moved? He finished first grade, so he was around seven, and he and I were really tight, really close, really. It was hard on both of us. And then she moved and she went to law school, really. So after going through a brutal divorce, she decided she wanted to become a divorce lawyer.
Krista Nash 07:31
So I promise you, I’ll move quickly soon onto your actual work life, but if you, if you’ll permit me a few more questions about what you experienced. Sure. Do you have a good relationship with your son now?
Don Gordon 07:42
Really good. Yeah, really good. And I would drive to Georgia every other weekend for many, many years, from Ohio, from Ohio, wow. How long was that drive? About 12 hours.
Krista Nash 07:53
Oh my gosh. Well, that’s commitment. I’m sure he learned over the years that you were passionately committed.
Don Gordon 07:58
Oh, yeah. And then his mother being in law school, as you know, she didn’t really have any time to do anything but to study. So it was necessary, not only emotionally for me, but it’s necessary for him to have somebody who’s going to pay full attention to him for several days in a row.
Krista Nash 08:14
Yeah? It’s like, okay, I’ll show up and you can go study. Right? Yeah? So that gives me some interesting flavor and context behind understanding then in your work, that keeping fathers involved is really important. In fact, I just had Dr. Marcia Klein Pruitt on talking about her research into fatherhood and how vital it is to outcomes for kids, and a lot of people on the show talking about adverse childhood experiences, which I’m sure is part and parcel of what you’re talking about, that kids that are delinquent or adults that end up in criminal situations, there’s a pretty high correlation between what their family of origin looked like and whether they had close parents in their lives, right? So tell us a little more about that.
Don Gordon 08:56
I think the kids who have adverse childhood experiences that divorce is one of those, and so many kids are in that category. You have it accompanied by a lot of parental conflict, or parents manipulating the child, it makes it worse. And then, as adults, they’re more likely to have problems with mental health problems, substance abuse problems, employment problems. So what happens when they’re kids? You know, it really has a huge effect. You know, as a family psychologist, I see that all the time has a few huge effects on their adult life. So if you can make the divorce more humane and more sensitive to children’s needs, then you can really alter their life trajectory in a big way. And what I love about and why, the reasons why I worked with divorce education. It’s really good parent education, and it’s required that parents have to take it in most counties, they have to take a parenting class. That’s a rare situation, because usually you offer classes and only the people who want to go to it. And if you’re offering parent education to the community, usually it’s only the most proactive, good parents who are going to those classes, the ones who show up for parent teacher conferences and PTA meetings, and they don’t really need it. The ones who need it are not the ones who are likely to go so having a court system that makes parents do it is just wonderful. So it’s just a great opportunity to have an effect on a lot of people, where you can impact the child’s adjustment for a long time.
Krista Nash 10:16
So let’s talk, then about the Center for Divorce Education, because that’s pretty that’s what you’re talking about. Is that the entity that ends up offering horses? How many states, if you know, the Center for Divorce Education, managing the court ordered horses for parents?
Don Gordon 10:30
I think all, all but about maybe three or four states. There’s 46 states in the country that have some kind of mandatory parent education. So the ones that are who don’t have it in New York and California too, that don’t have it, which is really unfortunate, but there. So we’re, we’re in all those states, and it’s the online program children between that that’s used around the country. It’s a four hour class that parents have to take, and courts will approve that program along with others. Then parents pick from a list of approved programs, and then take them…
Krista Nash 11:02
Yeah, we have that. I’m based in Colorado, and we have that in Colorado. And I will say, a lot of parents will say, Oh, I don’t need a parent class. I’ve been a parent for a long time. And like, no, no, it’s not a parenting class. It’s about parenting in between, right? Children in between. It’s about how to co-parent. Maybe talk a little about just the differences between what a parent might come in with a preconceived notion, like, I already know how to be a parent. I don’t need to take this class versus what they get in actual practice, right?
Don Gordon 11:27
Yeah. You know, a lot of parents believe I already know how to be a parent, and then that’s not always an accurate belief, because a lot of times we just simply repeat the kind of parenting that we got as kids growing up. But anyway, what’s different is that they don’t know how to be a parent during this process of divorce, which is the second most stressful event in an adult’s life. So they’ve got no experience with that, so they need some good guidance to get through that highly stressful process. And their and their brains, and I can get into this later, their brains are wired to perceive a threat and to go into fight or flight or freeze mode, and that doesn’t help anything when parents do that. So we let parents know this is a unique situation, and you need a set of skills to help you and your children get through it. You can’t just fly by the seat of your pants the way you normally do. You have to use special skills to keep yourself from overreacting to your co parent, to be able to learn how to communicate respectfully, so they’ll listen to you to be able to problem solve together, to solve problems without getting too emotional. And so that’s how this is different. This is not your ordinary parenting class.
Krista Nash 12:30
So what’s the number one most stressful thing? You said it’s the second most stressful thing, death of a spouse.
Don Gordon
Yeah, I was gonna say death.
Krista Nash
Yeah. Okay, if I’m a listener, I’m going, well, if it’s second, what’s first, right? But I mean that that alone says a lot when you think about all these stressors that people experience, that divorce would be second is pretty high. Yes, we think of all the other traumatic things that can happen to people, right?
Don Gordon 12:52
Yeah, when you go through a divorce, you’re losing two things that are really important to most. People are threatened. One is income, your ability to make a decent living, as your assets will be split up and you’ll have two households now in expenses. The other thing is access to your children. So when you threaten people with losing their finances, a lot of rent and access to children, they can easily go into a panic mode. It’s worth getting stressed about those things, but you have to learn how to manage that so that you’re not in a place of stress when you’re interacting with your co-parent.
Krista Nash 13:23
Yeah, that’s really well said. So all right, so then let’s, let’s shift a little over into what inspired the creation of Children in Between. For kids, so Children in Between is the parenting class, right? Right. Okay, so then, and that’s in about 46 states, we think, right, yes. Okay, so when did you all start thinking maybe we should do this for kids and tell us about how that works?
Don Gordon 13:48
Very good question. It was about three years ago that they thought about getting a class for parents. But what did children need to learn about this process? And one of the most important things they need to learn is to be able to express their feelings about what’s going on. And most kids don’t have a good feeling word vocabulary, so they don’t know how to express what’s going on internally. And they need to be able to express these feelings to their parents, because their parents are doing things that could make things better or worse, and parents are often unaware of what their children are feeling, and they tell them, the parents will tell themselves myths like, oh, I don’t need to worry about my kids. Kids are resilient. That’s a damaging myth. The fact that kids are not talking to you about their feelings doesn’t mean they’re okay, that they’re fine. It usually means they don’t know how. They don’t know the vocabulary. And then on top of that, if the parents are stressed by each other, and they’re in a fight or flight mode. They’re unable to emotionally attune to their children. They simply cannot pick up what their kids are feeling. So for all these reasons, we wanted a program where kids could learn to express their feelings, and they could learn how to calm themselves, how to de-stress, and we teach them evidence-based medicine. Methods for reducing their stress that work for kids and adults. We also intended that this program be used by parents and kids together, so that parents will learn how to help children express their feelings. And many parents are not good at expressing feelings, and so parents can also learn how to express their feelings, and then they can have more genuine, real conversations with each other, and the parents will know the nuances of what the kids are doing. You know, a lot of parents, when they think their kids are upset or worried or sad, said, Oh, don’t worry about you’ll be fine. Well, that is kind of dismissive. I understand the motive for that. We don’t like this. We don’t like it when our kids are distressed, so we want to reassure them. But it’s also can be dismissive, where the kids are thinking, mom or dad doesn’t want to hear about this, so I’ll just keep it to myself, so we let them know that this is a lot going on with your kids, and it’s important to have conversations with each other about what’s going on. We want both of the parents to do this with the children you know separately, so they each learn how to encourage the children’s emotional expression, and they can talk also. They can express their own concerns to the kids as well. They’re appropriate.
Krista Nash 16:07
What were you talking about? What the brain does? I’m looking back at my notes about how our brains are wired for fight, flight or freeze. How would you describe to parents or also to professionals going through this, like what is happening with people generally, when they have this major stress life event occur, and they’re reacting, right? So we Yeah, how do you describe what’s happening? I know everyone’s a little bit different, but those are, they’re fairly typical things, and when those stressful life events are occurring.
Don Gordon 16:35
Yeah, this description is in the programs about how the brain works, and parents really love getting this impression because they didn’t know it. But the amygdala is a part of the brain that’s job is determining if we’re emotionally safe and if we’re not safe, it sends us into the fight or flight mode in which we’re we’re we’re operating from our lower brain centers, you know, Lord like time to get out of dodge and run, not our higher brain centers where empathy and compassion and kindness reside. So we’re in a lower brand brain center. We’re not showing any of that. We’re not showing compassion, empathy, understanding, you know, a good reasoning ability. We’re just in a survival mode, and our brains are wired to do that, to keep us alive. It’s a good, good thing. They’re wired that way. But many, many threats that are going along, and divorce are not about survival. You know, like parents, your ex is pulling up in front of the house to pick up the kids, and she’s half hour late, and you immediately start thinking about this so inconsiderate, she doesn’t care. Then you’re getting yourself all wound up. You’re getting yourself into fight or flight mode, so you’re ready to fight. And so when you’re when she comes up the door, you’re probably going to get into a fight with her right then and there, in front of the child. But your brain is wired to do that when it’s triggered. So we teach parents how to recognize this, how to spot these triggers early, and to do things that calm themselves down, for instance, like taking several deep breaths to calm themselves down so when the parent comes through the door, you don’t lose it. And to do use skills like self talk, like you rehearse ahead of time what you’re going to say. To use an I message, where you talk about your feelings about them being late, instead of accusing them or calling them names. And then, so you’re using an I message. You’re using self talk to decide what you’re going to say, so you plan what you’re going to say, so you don’t get off track. And then when you do that, you’re better able to problem solve together. The parent who is late is more likely to be able to have a civil conversation with you and maybe take responsibility and apologize for being late, and maybe the two of you can problem solve about what do we do next time that you’re going to be late? Let’s have a plan, right? So all of that planning is possible when you’re not in a fight or flight state, right?
Krista Nash 18:46
Like calming your physical reaction down, right? Can be more rational in your response.
Don Gordon 18:52
You get your prefrontal cortex, which are your higher brain centers, you get them involved. And most of the time, that’s what we want. We want our prefrontal cortex to be working and involved, so that we can live, you know, artfully, instead of handling the situations with no skill and living very crudely.
Krista Nash 19:09
When parents begin to understand more that this is actually a physical thing happening to them, does it help them understand it and take more control of it, to actually see that there’s something they could do differently to kind of make use of a different part of their brain.
Don Gordon 19:25
Yes, like in getting them to pay attention to their necks, their hands, their shoulders, their necks, you know, maybe their stomach, where they’re feeling tension. The stress is causing the muscles to tighten up, and they can physically feel their neck worth tight. They may do some neck exercise to loosen their neck up so the sooner they can tap into their body and where their body’s telling them their stress, the sooner they can implement a strategy that before you go into full fight or flight mode, once you’re in full fight or flight, yeah, go ahead. Once you’re in full flight, it’s hard to change it. Once you’re in full fight or flight mode, it’s in.
Krista Nash 20:00
Interesting, because in all the years of working in family law and in different firms, I really haven’t had people talk about this. I mean, I get that it’s in the class that they take, but a lot of people are like, just checking that four hour class off the box. And I don’t find that lawyers are the ones who are fronting these people most of the time, or judges are fronting these people if they don’t have lawyers, right? We, there’s a lot of professionals in the system who might be able to also reiterate that people should be aware that this is what’s happening to them, right? Like I get consultation calls, and I guess I try to, I mean, I do try to be empathetic to what people are going through. But this could actually give professionals like me some of the language that might help us help those, those people going through this, you know, for them to understand like this if you might want to go take a look at this now. And really, when you say, go take the parenting class and send me the certificate, you could point out some of the benefits that are in it, so that people can really, you know, I get people reacting all the time in ways that are exactly what you’re saying. And it just helps me as a professional to advise them better, I think, yeah, yeah.
Don Gordon 21:05
And it doesn’t, you know, there’s a good chance that most parenting classes that they might go to don’t go over this, don’t cover this, yeah, and they’re not, and they’re not focused on teaching skills. They’re just focused on imparting information.
Krista Nash 21:17
Sure. So what? What are some of the most common emotional and maybe behavioral challenges that children experience during divorce?
Don Gordon 21:25
Fear. Not knowing what’s going to happen with all these changes. Mom or Dad has moved out, or they’re fighting, and then one parent’s about to move out, so fear that they’re going to lose their friends, they’re going to go to the same school or not another one is deep sadness that they’re going to a parent they’re used to seeing every day is not going to be there. So they worry, they worry a lot, and then sometimes they’ll get angry, especially if they get older, like teenagers, will get angry. Why are you doing this to me? My life was okay, and now you’re throwing it up in the air angry about that. But worry and fear and sadness are the most common, particularly with young children who don’t have good they haven’t developed good coping mechanisms for dealing with stress.
Krista Nash 22:07
Is there? Are there experiences or things you mentioned something about teenagers and something about younger kids? Are there? Is there more of a fine point on that in terms of what parents should expect? I mean, this could be, these could be books written on this one topic, I’m asking you, but are there general things that parents should know about kids at certain age ranges? You know, infants versus toddlers versus elementary versus middle versus high school?
Don Gordon 22:32
Yes, we go over that, and then r, how children at different ages react to parental separation, and they’re quite different. And you know, you know, we get into middle school and teenage years, the kids and their peer relationships are really important to them, and they’re really worried their peer relationships are going to be disrupted, particularly if a parent moves and they lose those peer relationships they’ve also gotten. They’ve had a few coping mechanisms that younger children don’t have, and they really young children, like toddlers and three and four or five year olds, need frequent reassurance that their parent is still in their lives. So having them go two weeks without seeing a parent is much too long. So they shouldn’t be going more than a day or two without contact with one of their parents. And the nice thing about technology is now FaceTime is a good way to do that Zoom so the parent and can see each other, or they’re getting ready to go to bed at night and they’re crying. They’re missing other parent. They can get on the phone, do FaceTime with that parent, but that parent can read them a bedtime story.
Krista Nash 23:31
Yeah, we deal with that a lot with, like, I do child advocacy. You know, it’s called different things in different states, but, you know, we’ve got a lot of times, even in a two state kind of situation, where a parent has relocated, you know, for a really little kid, or a kid who’s a teenager who’s got a job or wants to see their boyfriend or wants to spend time with her friends, this idea of spending the entire summer can be really difficult, you know. And that’s true if somebody lives all the way across town, it’s not so much that they don’t want to see their parent, it’s just that you’re dealing with a lot of autonomous forces happening, especially with a teenager, and so that can be challenging, too, and you’ve got the attachment problems with little kids, right? So it’s just more complicated than sometimes parents might think it might be. So I think it’s really good that your class talks through that thing. Can other people take the class? Even if they’re not in the court system, they can go on and take it, can’t they?
Don Gordon 24:24
Yes oh yeah, they can. Okay. And we love to see that happen, because basically, if they go, if they’re going to go to court, they’re going to be better prepared for the stresses of that and better prepared for their children. But people are already divorced for several years. They still make a lot of mistakes, and one of the things that we emphasize in the children between programs is that parents unwittingly involve their children in loyalty conflicts. They’re not doing intentionally, but they don’t know that they’re doing, for instance, asking the child to be a messenger, to carry a message to the other parent, particularly if it’s an emotionally loaded topic, or, you know, saying something critical. About the other parent to the child, but the child identifies with both parents, so they take that criticism to heart as if it applies to them. So informed parents. Here’s ways that parents commonly involve the kids in loyalty conflicts, and when they see a scenario where that’s played out, then they recognize themselves, and then they stop doing that’s very beneficial to let the parents know about what kind of loyalty conflicts they’re doing. And that’s what the research has said. That’s the worst aspect of divorce for children, is when they feel like it’s not okay to love both parents. They have to hide their love from one, you know, from one parent to the other.
Krista Nash 25:38
Yeah, absolutely, yeah. It’s not divorce that hurts them so much as it is that loyalty binds and loyalty challenges and they have to hide the love exactly what you said. So how did you start then pivoting into doing this for kids, so into having these classes, or tell me what it looks like to with what the program is in terms of Children in Between for kids.
Don Gordon 25:58
Well, we basically have a class for kids. We have like, five, five or six chapters in the program, and each chapter is hosted by a different child, so it’s a child that, basically a teenager, is talking to kids about what they’re going through. And to make it more interesting for kids, we have an animated character called Orbie. And Orbie is this… We had a Disney animator create this for us. This is this expressive orb, this blue orb that’s very expressive. It’s very wise. And this very wise, basically a mentor for the children. And Orbie and the child hosting the chapter, are teaching these skills to the kids about emotional expression and about reducing. There’s different ways they can reduce their stress. So that makes it more interesting to kids that they’ll stick with it. Because the kids are not mandated, unlike the parents, they’re not mandated to take this class. So you have to hold their interest, and it has to be personally relevant to them. It has to be emotionally impactful, and that helps the kids pay attention and stick with it. So we use the child actors to do it, and it was filmed during Covid. So all the filming had to be done remotely and they had to tell the parents and go into a home how to work the equipment and stuff like that. So we won a W3 award for the quality of video film during Covid.Krista Nash 27:19
So how many kids have been doing it? You were mentioned as we were prepping that. You know, a lot of parents aren’t signing their kids up for it, so you do tell them all about it. Now, in the parenting class, yes, hey, we have this kids class, yeah. And so then what happened? They’re like, whatever. They just don’t do it.
Don Gordon 27:39
They don’t feel motivated to do it. Yeah, yes. And I think because they’re in the middle of this divorce process, again, these are people who are in their court mandated to take Children in Between so they’re in the process, and they’re only doing what they have to do because their lives are so chaotic. They don’t have a lot of free time. They don’t want to do anything that’s not necessary. So they, I’m guessing, they don’t see this kid’s class as necessary. May they think of themselves? Well, maybe later on, I’ll get this, but right now I can’t deal with it, so parents are just too frenzy. But the feedback we’ve gotten from several dozen parents who’ve used the program and reported on it, it’s been really positive. They said the kids are learning and using these strategies. The kids are expressing their feelings more, and they’re having good conversations with the kids. So the things that we were hoping to happen are happening according to the parent report. We still want to do a controlled study, and Dr. Marsha Klein Pruitt is ready to help with that and to analyze the data and to publish it if we get it, but we probably need a court to mandate so that we have enough parents and kids to use the program. And in Cincinnati, they were going to mandate it, but the presiding judge, who was retiring, always wanted a kids program. But there’s a few judges in the court who didn’t agree, and since it wasn’t unanimous, they decided not to mandate so we’re still hoping that we can get a controlled study, because as a former academic, I tend to believe stuff that’s shown by science to be effective and it’s not a placebo effect.
Krista Nash 29:07
Absolutely. I wonder if there’s ways to get in, through other ways, through therapists or other entities that are helping kids.
Don Gordon 29:16
You know, that’s a good idea and people like yourself, you know, a best interest attorney for kids. You know who you have a lot of credibility with parents and people like yourself would be a good, a good possibility. In other words, collaborative, collaborative law attorneys as well.
Krista Nash 29:31
What does it cost to do for the kids class? $20 Okay? And is that per kid?
Don Gordon 29:37
Well, no, just well, one family for it’s good for all the kids in a family. Okay, so $20… the age range for this program is seven to 14.
Krista Nash 29:44
Okay, seven to 14 years old. And then you said there’s five or six chapters. So how long does it take a kid to go through it?
Don Gordon 29:52
About an hour and a half. And they can log in and log off several times. The program remembers where they were, so they can,
Krista Nash 29:59
You know, it’s interesting. I mean.I had Ellen Bruno, who did the Split films, oh yeah, on my show. And I’ve, I bought a subscription basically, to her films, and I’ve been making people go through them, you know, like, I’ll send it to them when I get assigned as a child advocate, or when I’m the parenting we have in Colorado, we have parenting coordinators, decision makers. I get those appointments as well. And so I’ll be like, the first thing we’re going to do is you’re going to watch the Split films, and then you’re going to, when we start our meeting, we’re going to talk about what you thought about that and how that relates to your children, right? So same kind of thing. Like this could be really an interesting thing for you know, I might go watch it. It certainly would be worthy, even if that’d be another thing you all might want to think about is giving attorneys the ability to buy it for their clients. You know, some kind of subscription where, I mean, I suppose I could just front it for people, but it’d be nice to send it to somebody where they didn’t have to put a credit card in and buy it, but I could have a subscription. I think Ellen Bruno’s is like $450 a month for a year. Excuse me, a year. You’re like, that sounds good. A month, for a year, for an unlimited amount of me being able to send it to whomever I want to send it to, I would think the best child advocates would be totally willing to make that investment. Because, you know, it’s kind of like my podcast, like I do it to try to make people thrive more. And so it’s like, I don’t need to tell you these things for an hour. Go listen to this podcast about what you need to go listen to for parent and children education, you know. And hopefully it’ll have some traction. But that’s really interesting, that I could send families to that and say, hey, I want the kids to go watch this. And would you recommend the parents watch it separately with the kids? Like, let’s say the parents aren’t getting along. The kid watches on their own, or what? How is it best used?
Don Gordon 31:42
I think the best use is for the parent and a child, or children watch it separately and not have the other parent present, because chances are somebody, one of the parents will get triggered.
Krista Nash 31:53
Okay, so well, you’re so both parents should, should watch it separately and the child should watch it separately.
Don Gordon 31:59
No, no, both parents. A parent should watch it with their child or children, and then the other parent at a different time. Watch it with the child or children. Not both parents in the presence of each other.
Krista Nash 32:10
Okay, not the parents, but maybe they get along. Watch it twice. You’re saying,
Don Gordon 32:15
Right, right. So the child’s more likely to learn those stress reduction methods and emotional expression methods that they’re getting a second time. We also tell parents they can watch it by themselves first before using it with their child if they’re worried about what the content will be. So they want to be careful about what the children hear.
Krista Nash 32:35
Yeah, I like that. So they’re more prepared, and they’re not reacting like your dad always does that or whatever. So does one $20 you know, access? Does that allow a parent to watch it multiple times? Yes. Child watch it multiple times?
Don Gordon 32:48
Yes. Watch it, yes. Then the other parent has to pay their $20 Oh, okay, okay, that’s not it. And then we debated about what to charge for this. Yeah, we wanted to find a price point that wouldn’t be so high they would be stressful for parents. Yeah, although, if they’re indigent, they want it for free, we’ll give it to them for free, but we want to find a stress point, a price point that was, wasn’t too high, but high enough that they would have some skin in the game, and they’re more likely to complete it if they if they had to pay for it, if you give somebody,
Krista Nash 33:21
I mean, $20 is totally reasonable. I mean, right, yeah. I mean, when you think about, especially when somebody’s becoming really heavily court involved, and, you know, the courts are bringing in people like me, it’s like, if you watch that class and it helped you a little, you know, any of these professionals that are coming in and helping are lots of money per hour, generally, unless there’s state pay access, which is not the case in a lot of states and and with a lot of people that are not indigent. So, yeah, I mean, that seems to make sense that, you know, a little bit of skin in the game and it would go so if, even if, it just improved things, even a little bit, I did this morning a call with a principal of a school where parents are really conflicted about how a child is going to be handled at school, and, you know, one parent saying one thing, and the other parent saying something different, and the kids saying a third thing. And so the principal is able to say to me, you know, what really helped would be this kind of contract, you know, between, if you could help us navigate that. I’m thinking this could be an interesting part of the contract of like, how we together are going to send, as parents, a similar message to the child and allow the child, for example, like, let’s say we’re talking about emotional regulation, you know, the chance to think before saying something, or have some space in his or her room for a little bit. Or this contract between parents, even to not weaponize things between the child or make decisions together before they bring Johnny into it. You know, I think, I mean, I imagine those are things that would go very far toward good co-parenting.
Don Gordon 34:52
Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. And the fact that the parents are using this program with their kids means that they have similar goals. They want the child to make a good emotional adjustment to this traumatic event of family separation, and they’re learning some tools that they can both use to help their child get through it and with emotional expression. When they communicate with each other about their feelings, they’re gonna do a better job of it.
Krista Nash 35:17
Yeah, sure, it helps them as well. Now, why would you say that it’s important to speak directly to children about how they’re managing these these events in their life, rather than just helping the parents?
Don Gordon 35:28
So the children feel seen and heard about this terribly important event that’s going on and and because, you know, most kids, unless they’re teenagers, they’re going to keep their feelings to themselves, and the parents aren’t going to know what they’re you know, what they’re worried about, what they’re fearful about, what they’re angry about, whatever. So unless the kids are expressing it and or unless the parents are really good at tuning into their children’s body language, then they can ask probing questions. But most parents aren’t that good about tuning into the body language.
Krista Nash 36:00
I find it really interesting that parents I talk to, there’s often so much blame that goes on about what their child brings to them with their emotion, parents are so quick to blame the other parent for that child’s actions, like, what’s that about? I mean, instead of like getting together, it’s so common for parents to turn to the fault of the other instead of like, it almost feels like, it feels good to blame the other like that, rather than getting underneath what is going on. Like it’s so rare, actually a team approach, where the parents are like, Hey, what’s going on with this child? I’m noticing this instead, it’s this, like calling my lawyer because I’ve noticed that the child is having mental health problems or not sleeping or not eating or whatever. What? Like, this weaponization of and blame. Have you seen that? Like, why do you think that happened?
Don Gordon 36:54
Yeah, I think that one of the reasons is that we don’t want to think that we’re making a situation worse, that it’s our fault if we have a convenient scapegoat there, which is the co-parent, then to it’s, it’s simpler to say their fault instead, more and most accurately, it’s probably a little bit of each parent’s messing up that caused it. But that’s a more complicated explanation. So when you’re stressed you want you’re looking for a simpler explanation. Also, they’re not good at giving the other parent the benefit of the doubt. Yeah, maybe they did that when they were married, but the trust has been broken, so they’re not like that, willing to give the other parent the benefit of doubt and figure well, my kid’s having problems. It must be something the other parent is doing. They also might be feeling guilty if they’ve discouraged the relationship between their child and the other parent, if the other parent is really doing a good job and it’s showing a lot of good, good intentions. They don’t want to think that that they’ve misjudged the other parent. So it’s better to see the other parent as an ogre, or there’s somebody who’s making lots of mistakes, but, but so there are a lot of reasons why people want to blame the other parent and and if they’re in the habit of being in fight or flight around the other parent, then the the attack and counter attack response comes first, and that sets off the other when the other parent picks up that they’re being blamed, they’re going to get defensive, right? And one, one guy named Warren Farrell, did some really neat work. He’s done doing some really neat work with couples on the brink of divorce, and he does a workshop with them in Esalen, in California, and these are people who are planning on getting divorced. And what he teaches, the main thing he teaches them is to be able to listen to a parent when they are criticizing you, instead of getting defensive, reflect back what you heard, taking the other parents seriously when they criticize you, and that really increases trust when people do that. It’s hard to do, but people can learn to do it.
Krista Nash 38:42
Yeah, I’ve seen, I’ve had a couple other people on the podcast who are doing that work, like Trina nNudson is doing this, and with BeH20 and yeah, is doing this with her program in Boston. And Al Levy is doing it in Alaska. A lot of this isolated me. It seems to me like the Center for Divorce Education has a lot of existing track running into the courts already, so there might be a head start, if you will, toward judges, for example, requiring this. You know, if state legislatures are willing to require it, like they have the co-parenting classes. Were you around when those co-parenting classes started becoming required? Like, how did everybody break into that becoming something that the court insisted happen?
Don Gordon 39:26
Well, I was around the matter of fact, we had, we were just developing the Children in Between program in the early 1990s when a program in Kansas called Pain Games may have been the first co-parenting program, and judges started ordering parents to go to that. And then shortly after that, there was a program in Cook County, which is Chicago, that focused on their children, that was developed by Dave Royco, and they started ordering parents into that. So this is, this is happening in the early, early 90s, and then it caught on so rapidly that by the end of the 90s, most, most counties in the country were requiring. That’s pretty rapid growth. And I think it just made perfect sense to judges that the parents need help going through this difficult process.
Krista Nash 40:12
Yeah. I mean, as a society, we need parents, we need to give people the resources that they need. I think it’s interesting because some states, and certainly countries, particularly countries that have a bigger social state where things are like paid for more right by the state. There’s a lot, there are a lot more resources given right that. And so it’s an interesting dynamic. When you look at how much like we, look at our dependency and neglect world, I am kind of always amazed when I look at that. In Colorado, even we have a massive organization that’s a government run organization that takes care of the dependency and neglect kids, which makes sense, because it’s the state coming against those families to try to protect the children. But because divorce is a civil issue between two parties and not the state, we end up with so much less resources for it. Although I was interested, I just interviewed the honorable retired judge Peggy Walsh out of New York, who shared with me, of New York having a lot more resources they put toward their domestic cases, where kids each get a lawyer, and the judges talk to a lot of the children and things like that. So there are some places in the United States where that’s happening, but largely we don’t give the help. You know, we’re like, okay, you’re going to break your family apart. That’s fine. We’re not going to give counseling to the kids. We’re not, you know, it’s this massive canon bomb through a family and through society. But we don’t end up giving that many resources. Parents really do have to go find their own resources a lot of the time. Yes, yeah, yeah, which can be really, really hard. And I think parents identify that they need the help and that there is help out, there should be encouragement to them and something that they can go do. I love the idea of doing it before you get divorced, like, let’s go take a class about how we’re going to communicate and do this best for our kids, because we are, we are stuck with each other in that right, right?
Don Gordon 42:00
We’ve had a lot of anecdotal reports for parents who use our Children in Between program while they’re in the divorce process, and they’ll write us and say these communication skills were so helpful. If I had gotten this course before I filed for divorce, I would have worked harder on my marriage. So that’s a missed opportunity. So would you that’s where attorneys can play a nice role, if they can get them to take the course before they file.
Krista Nash 42:26
I love that. Yeah, and they might be able to take it together, because they might not be triggered as much as it would be later, right? So, like, they might be, like, together and say, How are we going to do this together? And an hour and a half? I mean, that’s pretty amazing, that’s all it is, is an hour and a half like even that split film. I mean, I think that’s like not even an hour and a half. Well, yeah, not even an hour and a half for the two films. So if you invested three hours in this class and the split films, right, less than probably 100 bucks for all three of those things, parents actually could get a really serious head start at understanding the impact of divorce on their children and really thinking about that first. Because what always happens is people run off and they get Googling, like, how to protect themselves, and they get into this, into this, I don’t know, road or path, that’s all like litigation driven and off to the races. Then have you seen that happening in a way that’s destructive for kids.
Don Gordon 43:21
Oh, yeah, y one parent will, they’ll get a letter from the other parent’s attorney that oftentimes is aggressive, and they and then, then they’ll likely respond aggressively, depending on the attorney, yeah. So then it’s tit for tat back and forth, and then pretty soon, parents are asking for a custody evaluation, a guardian ad litem. They’re asking for these expensive procedures gearing up for a court trial. Many attorneys have the skills, and you’re, you sound like you’re one of them to help parents settle, yeah, and into point out that you do the consequences of the conflict for the family. And so, you know, I wish more attorneys were that sensitive instead of, you know, going to be happy to go to battle.
Krista Nash 44:06
I know people feel if they call me a divorce attorney, I get very upset. I’m like, I’m a family defense attorney. Folks, okay? Like, break up your marriage, but let’s not burn down the family, right? Like, don’t have to do that. I think it’s a high calling, honestly. And I’ve got a lot of people who I like and respect, but they’re like, Well, this is what this person wants. That’s my job. And I guess, like, that’s not how I practice, you know, I, I want to help you understand the impact that you’re having and try to do it in a way that’s least destructive. And sometimes that means we go to court, but usually it doesn’t right, and it’s, it’s obscene, the amount of money that gets spent on the conflict for years and years and years, like so much money. And it kind of reminds me, as you’re talking about, like, taking vitamins instead of doing, like, massive full body surgery down the line, if you just ate your vegetables andvitamins, you actually could prevent this massive, big course correction of where you would end up if you go into a lawyer’s office and just, you’re off to the races, right? It’s like, would you rather try that? I mean, I suppose it could always fail, but if I could convince parents, like, why not try it? Taking some of these classes, have your kids take the classes, like, it’s not going to hurt, you know it? Yeah, I don’t know what negative there would possibly be to trying some of these things before you can always go litigate, right? That’s right. You can’t always go the other way, right?
Don Gordon 45:29
When you’re showing good communication skills and you’re not reacting to aggression, you’re setting a really good example for your kids, because they’re watching you, and they’re more likely to learn how to do that themselves. If you provide the exam, even if the other parent is not cooperating, you can provide an example of being considerate and kind and calm in a situation where the other parent is losing it. Do you feel like you got a lot of parents who say, why? What happened? Why should I do all this stuff, and the other parent isn’t responding? We said to set a good example for your kids, because it’s the right thing to do.
Krista Nash 45:58
Yeah, absolutely. You started off our episode today talking about your own family situation. Have you? Have you seen that you feel like you did things pretty well when you were going through this? Or were you? Are you like speaking now to people like saying, do it better than I did it. What are your reflections personally on having gone through the eye of conflict, divorce with such a little boy?
Don Gordon 46:18
of the things I didn’t do well at all was encourage my son to express his feelings about what was going on, and so he kept a lot of stuff to himself, and I didn’t want to think that he was suffering. I wanted to think that he was going to be okay. So maybe I wasn’t probing, because I didn’t want to find out that, oh, he’s deeply sad. But when he was with me, he was very happy, because he and I had a really good relationship, and probably pretty happy when he’s with his mom. So I’m seeing a kid, when he sees me, he was happy. And I think, well, he’s not really struggling with this, but I think I could have done a lot better job. And because of the conflict that he saw, he didn’t see so much conflict, you know, between his mother and me in person. What he saw is we went to court a lot, and he saw that. He knew about that, and so as a result of that, to this day, he’s very conflict avoidant, so it’s affected his marriage. And of course, his wife loves it, because she gets to make all the decisions. So I see long-term damage that I did had I friend of mine, he got divorced from his wife. He was having an affair, and his wife was really angry, and so she moved the kids several states away, and he didn’t go to court to try to get any visitation, and he said it’s better for kids not to have conflict than to have conflict. I said, No, no, your kids are going to feel abandoned if you don’t fight for them. I said, if you have a choice between exposure to conflict or feeling abandoned, I think it’s better to have them exposed to conflict.
Krista Nash 47:40
And what happened with that family?
Don Gordon 47:44
He passed several years ago, but he ddidn’t have a very good relationship with either son because they saw him.
Krista Nash 47:53
Are there certain things where you have to be able to show up to say, I showed up for the child. But I do think attorneys, this would be a whole nother topic for us to discuss. But I do think attorneys tend to not have very creative problem solving toward that, because, as in the role of the best interests for the child position, I can come up with things often where attorneys say exactly what you said, Oh, you got to go to court, potentially to show your child that you’re showing up. But there are, if we did a better job as lawyers, I think there are other creative ways to help that child know that the parent showed up short of going to court, especially if the outcome of what’s going to happen in court is pretty transparent. It’s pretty apparent, right? Like we know this parent is going to get restricted, or we know that this kid is going to be able to relocate with mom three states over rather than going to court to fight about something that when you don’t have a very good argument, there’s other ways to show up in ways that doesn’t like create this massive court battle. I guess this is my perspective. I think parents get stuck sometimes when attorneys are not creative at saying exactly what you said, like, I have to go to court to show for my kid’s whole life that I tried to show up, right? And I’m like, Yeah, but we could have done this a different way. Like, do you really have to drag everybody through court and custody evaluations and all these different things, right? But right anyway, that’s for another time, but just a couple more questions. I know we’re almost out of time, but what would you say to a parent who’s skeptical, maybe that an online program for their kid. Maybe that’s even just so short, you know, as an hour and a half and $20 like that, they could that could really help their child.
Don Gordon 49:29
Well, there’s some there’s some evidence that the kids do learn these strategies for reducing their own stress, and that they are talking more to their parents about their feelings, but also that this is going to help them in the long run, in terms of being throughout their adult lives, to be able to be emotionally literate and expressive, they’re much more likely to have a good couple relationship when they pair up later on, if they’re able to talk openly about their feelings, the stereotypical strong, silent male is not a very good partner. For most women, because she feels like she doesn’t know it. So the long term effect of kids learning emotional literacy is pretty significant, and the parents have a big role to play in how much the kids remember and use the skills. So if they’re going through the program with the kids, then they can prompt them, and they get the situations and check in with them how they’re feeling. Or I said I noticed you’ve been crying a lot lately. Have you thought about that method, about how to change your thinking? So you cannot stop thinking about this thing. It makes you sad, or they remind them of some of the stress reduction techniques when they see them. So the kids will benefit more if they have a parent that prompts them to remember, remember the content. So in that way, it becomes a lot deeper than a 90 minute program.
Krista Nash 50:43
Okay, I love that. That’s great. And how do you think, I mean, obviously you’d love it if judges started ordering it right? Because it would happen even, you know, and I will say the court system doesn’t have to agree that it’s a it’s a universal program individual judges, oftentimes, at least in Colorado and in other jurisdictions with which I’m familiar, individual judges can say, I want you to go do this one thing, like we they order that all the time. So that would be a good way. I know we have judges listening to the program, and that would be a good way to start, just to test it out. And then maybe it can become something that happens within that courthouse, that all the judges are trying it, or multiple judges are trying it. Certainly it’s worth it. It’s a pretty low barrier to entry, because a lot of these other programs are way more expensive than what this is, so that’s something to think about. And how would you like to see maybe attorneys using it? I mean, I gave you some ideas of how I thought it could be used. Are there other ways attorneys are using it?
Don Gordon 51:37
Well we don’t have, I don’t have good information on that. They’re using it. Well, I think that they have the way you’re using it, you know, they would say, Here, here’s the program that’s going to help you and your children deal with this stressful situation better. You know, go ahead and use this. It’s only an hour and a half, you know. I would even say, Can youthink of sometime in the next week where you could sit down with your child and use the program? Will you encourage them to think, pick up the date and the time that they’ll do it? They’re more likely to do it than if it’s just a general do this when you have time. So I think it is encouraging to do that. That’s great. If the attorney has looked at the program, then they can say, I’d like you to take a look at the program, and then when you come in next week, let’s talk about it. That makes it much more likely the parent will do it, because it’s sort of like the attorneys checking up on when they did their homework.
Krista Nash 52:20
Yeah. And I think good lawyers are, like good doctors, like a good doctor isn’t going to just say, you know, let’s go to surgery. You know, they’re going to say, you they’re going to give other tools, right? So, I mean, good lawyers should be in the family law context, should be trying to help people beyond just the litigation and the process of getting divorced. You know, these people are suffering, and we have, I had one very esteemed attorney in Colorado call us first responders. You know, we have a privileged space, truly privileged, actual privilege, but we just have a seat of honor to walk a parent through this kind of situation and give a little bit of help. That isn’t just in that lawyer blinders on, but is like, give people that help, that might actually help them in other ways. It’s just such an important thing for us to do, I think, as attorneys. So I hope people will take that to heart and really start using it. And it really is such a small cost, low, low cost of entry. Tell us about your podcast. I know I will get to go be on the podcast at some point. So I will let people know when I do that, but tell us a little where we can find that. And what you talk about on your podcast.
Don Gordon 53:26
It’s on our website, divorce-education.com, and there, we’ve got probably about 20 podcasts now. And parents can pick out what you know, what parents are divorce. Professionals can pick out what interests them for the one I’m going to do with you, you had suggested some topics. I’m real curious to know about how you’re different from a typical family law attorney. I want to ask questions about you. You offer guardian ad litem, you know how? What do you do with really difficult, high-conflict cases like parental alienation? What do you do with domestic violence allegations, you know, how do you sort through this stuff? How do you calm parents down? So I’m really curious about all the methods that you do when you’re working with clients and is it a cost to you for settling cases? Because, you know, you can make more money if you don’t settle.
Krista Nash 54:20
The answer to that is definitely yes, but yes, like any other attorney, you know, again, if you’re it’s not like you’re going to run out of families to help. So you name the type of economy going on, we still got economies up. Divorce is high. Economies down. Divorce is high. I mean, there’s a constant flow of people, so you really, my theory is you don’t need to overdo these cases. There’s for your own personal profit. It makes no sense. It’s right.
Don Gordon 54:43
Plus, Plus, you probably have a lot of word of mouth from satisfied clients.
Krista Nash 54:49
Oh yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Well, I’m going to really look forward to doing that podcast with you. I think we’re pretty soon. But Don thanks for being with me here. I really appreciate it. Anything you want to say in our partying moments?
Don Gordon 55:00
I’m glad you’re doing the work that you’re doing. It gives me more confidence and hope that the legal profession can be, you know, seriously helpful to families, and I’m glad I’ve been able to partner with attorneys over the years, because quite often we have the same goals and just different methods. So absolutely, you give me some good ideas, and I appreciate that. But yeah, I guess the parting thing is that children need a voice, and their parents need to learn how to listen to their voice when going through this important, stressful process,
Krista Nash 55:28
Absolutely. All right. Well, Dr. Gordon, thanks for being with us, and I will look forward to seeing you soon for the next go round. Okay, looking forward to a good all right, I’ll see you soon.
Don Gordon 55:37
Thank you so much.
Intro/Outro 55:41
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.