Welcome to Divorce Dialogues. I'm Catherine Miller. Divorce Dialogues brings expert guests to the airways to talk through your divorce questions and fill in the gray areas of that separating. From thinking about divorce, to how to behave during divorce, to what to do after, this is Divorce Dialogues.
Welcome to Dialogue on Divorce. I'm Catherine Miller. I'm the founder of the Miller Law Group and the director for the Center for Understanding and Conflict, and I am on a mission to change how people divorce and help them divorce with dignity. And my guest today is Carl Pickard, Ph.D.
He's a psychologist in private practice in Austin, Texas, and he's also the author of 15 parenting books, and some of which are on parenting through divorce with children. Welcome, Carl. It's terrific to have you on the show. Yeah, it's good to be here, Catherine.
You know, one of the things that I'm, is that accurate that you are the author of 15 parenting books? Right, yeah, yeah. I keep finding different aspects of it to talk about, right? Well, it is, I think.
Well, parental divorce obviously being one, but yeah, lots of different issues about adolescence and only children and conflict and, you know, a whole variety of things. Well, parenting is one of the toughest, if not the toughest job on earth, I think. Oh, well, there aren't any specific guidelines, but there are a lot of opinions out there, so I just try to add my opinions to the mix, and, you know, hopefully what parents do is they look around and they try to find ideas that seem to make sense to them and incorporate that into their various deliberations about their kids, which tend to get more complicated once the kids' adolescence. Sure, and I'm really looking forward to getting your thoughts on parenting through divorce, because I think that one of the things that really worry parents about divorce is when they're going to be okay and how to ensure or at least set them up for success as best they possibly can.
Yeah, I think, I mean, the part of the problem with divorce is that it's not just one broken commitment, it's two. Obviously, it's the broken commitment of the partners, so it's a broken commitment that way, but it's also a broken family commitment to children, and I think, sometimes I think, you know, parents, you know, obviously they're caught up in their own unhappiness and wanting to resolve that, and sometimes they can get caught up in getting themselves squared away and kind of forget that this is also a very, very powerful event for kids. I mean, it's an adverse event because it's the loss of the unified family, it's a, you know, it's a watershed event because it marks the redefinition of the family going forward, now there's going to be a divided family future, and of course, it's a formative event because what happens is it all just the view of family permanence and lasting love and commitment, so it's a whole, there's a whole lot of stuff that's going on here, and I think you're right, when parents divorce, you know, they, you know, they fervently wish that, you know, their children will come to no harm, and I think in general that's true, but by the same token, that doesn't mean their kids don't have to make some very powerful adjustments, and it's in the support of those adjustments, so I think, you know, parents have a role to play. I think that you raised so many points there, Carl Pickard, and the idea of parenting through divorce and how to think about it, and as you're speaking, I'm thinking, you know, one thing that I've noticed really happens a lot with parents is that they, each parent, hold on to their idea of what would be best for the kids, right, and they can fight, you know, horrible, high-conflict arguments about what would be best, when I think that, in fact, what would be best is that they not fight, is that they come to some kind of agreement and are able to have some easiness with each other about it would be the best thing, whether or not it should be Tuesday or Thursday or this school or that school or, you know, whatever, if they could kind of get on the same page.
I think the first task of parents, you know, when they're divorcing is to essentially, you know, emotionally reconcile the differences between them, whatever difference is caused by divorce comes to terms of emotional acceptance so that they can let that go and then proceed, and it depends, you know, obviously, some divorces, you know, parents feel more hurt by the other. Sometimes, you know, if you take a look at the divorce initiator and the divorce reactor, a lot of times, the divorce initiator, you know, has issues of guilt and the divorce reactor has issues of rejection, and so there are powerful emotional issues that come into play, but if you can reconcile whatever those differences are, then what you can do is you can focus on the kids and you can recommit to the joint parenting of the kids, and it is that recommitment, at least, that I try to help parents with, and I tend to talk to them about kind of the 10 articles of consideration that I think they need to be able to come into an alliance with each other. They're not going to, it's not a question of remarrying, but it is a question of forming an alliance with each other that is founded on common concern for the common good of the kids, but they can't do that unless they have first worked through, you know, the emotional reconciliation, and that just varies from divorce to divorce. And I think what you mean by work through that emotional piece is to sort of get to a place where they can stop going over and over and over and feel done to in their heads and just say, okay, here's where I am, and now I need to move on with the rest of my life.
However, you know, I might feel like I wish things would have been different in the past, and so, okay, we've got these kids, let's figure out the best way to parent them. Is that right? Yeah, I think one of the things, sometimes it can help is parents understand the cost of an unreconciled divorce. An unreconciled divorce is where the parents after divorce remain embittered and embattled.
And that not only is hard on the parents, but it's just rending for the kids because they get caught up in all kinds of loyally conflicts, you know, and they can't be with one parent without all of a sudden feeling like they're somehow in jeopardy with the other parent. There's a sense of carrying, you know, hard emotions back and forth from household to household. And I think if parents can realize, you know, that not to reconcile with divorce causes ongoing pain for the kids, that sometimes can give them incentive to say, okay, you know, we had a rough time in the marriage, but the marriage is over. We need to let that go.
And we need to focus on the kids and working together as allies and parents for the common good of those kids. Carl Picker, do you do that work with people in Austin in your practice? Well, yes, I work a lot with parents and kids around adolescence, but I mean, a lot of times divorce is, you know, one of the issues where, you know, parents trying to come together in the wake of a divorce around an adolescent who is in various ways protesting what happens. And so really what at that point is needed is some kind of a joint cooperation to keep a stable family structure around a kid who's rattling around in the throes of, you know, being upset about the divorce that occurred.
If they can understand that it is possible to create an alliance where they can, they can talk about being reliable for each other and being responsible to each other and appreciative and respectful and flexible and, you know, intolerant of each other and trying to be supportive and committing to be involved and be responsive and around emergency situations and being reasonable. If they can, if they can commit to those kinds of articles of consideration, then I think they can, you know, they can put together a, essentially a two family structure that is cooperatively supportive of the kids. And the kids can see that. So if the kids realize mom and dad now get on better now than they did before, and that they are both there for us and that they are both working together for our interests.
And now all of a sudden, you know, the, the dialogue that you're talking about is not interrupted by divorce, but it continues now. It just continues in a different way, but the parents can still dialogue. And the kids feel like that so long as, you know, our parents can talk, you know, about us and the decisions about us together, you know, we're still in our parents' hands, even though our parents are now separated. You're listening to Dialogue on Divorce.
I'm Catherine Miller. We're here on WBOX 1460 AM on alternate Wednesdays from 5 to 530. And we're also available as a podcast on my website, www.westchesterfamilylaw.com, as well as on iTunes and on SoundCloud. And I'm talking today with Carl Pickard, who's a psychologist in private practice in Austin, Texas, and he is an author of 15 parenting books, and we're talking about parenting through divorce.
And Carl, you've talked about these 10 articles of consideration, which really actually sound terrific. Is that one of your books that talks about, where can people find out more information about the 10 articles of consideration? I first put that out in the Everything Parents' Guide to Children and Divorce. That was originally published back in 2000.
A while ago, I suppose. 2005. And I think I may, I think I probably have it in one of my, I do a blog for a site today on surviving your child's adolescence. And I think if they look up the blogs on divorce, it should be in one of those blogs as well.
I think really valuable information for people. And so let's turn our conversation talking about adolescence and divorce, because, you know, oftentimes I think people think older kids are tougher about this. But I actually think that it's really, really challenging for children, particularly in their early adolescence. And I'm no expert, this is completely anecdotal, but I've had contact with, you know, many, many, many people over the years as they get divorced.
And I think that young adolescence seems to be a really tough time for kids to experience their parents' divorce. Yeah, part of the reason for that, yeah, in early adolescence, 9 to 13, is, in fact, I think the most vulnerable age to divorce in some ways. Because when a childhood is the age of attachment, and that's up to maybe 8 or 9, where the kid wants to attach to parents and be similar to parents and be close to parents. But what adolescence does is adolescent begins the age of detachment, where the kid needs to start pulling away from more independence.
It's much easier to pull away from more independence if you are still, if you like, you have a unified family base to push off from. But when you get parental divorce coinciding with the beginning of adolescence, it creates a really hard challenge for kids. And it's like, if you think of the child, what the child does is very often they will have a, sometimes almost a regressive response to parental divorce. They will, you'll see kids that are starting to cling more closely to parents' security as the family structure separates.
And they're filled with a lot of grief over the loss, and they're wanting to be, you know, taken more special care of. But that's not what happens with a young adolescent. A young adolescent now is trying to, you know, is trying to pull away and detach. And now what happens is they find that the parents are less available for them in terms of giving them a base to push off against on.
And so now what they have is they have a more of a, tend to have more of an aggressive kind of response, instead of a regressive response, they have more of a sense of grievance and a sense of betrayal. And a lot of times that can energize some of their aggressive and rebellious energies. One of the things that kind of both positive and negative that divorce does with kids at the age of adolescence is that it tends to, I think, increase their push for independence. And that's because I think the kids look at what happened and they see the parents.
They can no longer trust the leadership of parents to run their life in the way they would wish parents had. And so now what happens is they take more leadership control of their own lives. And a lot of times divorce during a kid's adolescence increases that push for independence. And I think that's something that parents very often need to be able to anticipate.
And a lot of times what parents will say is, well, if we wait till the kid is older, it will be less of an adjustment. But in fact, I think the reverse is the case. It's almost like a five-year-old adjusts more easily to parental divorce than a 15-year-old because a 15-year-old has more family history that they have to give up and alter. And they have to do it at a time when they're more insecure because they're going through this detachment for independence.
Wow, you said a lot there, Carl Pickard. So let me just see if I can pull out some of the main ideas. I think one of them is that it is more challenging for children in adolescence as they start to form their own identity. And it could make them, you didn't use this word, but it sounds like angry or angrier to not be able to differentiate themselves from the family unit.
And now I have to sort of figure out that, well, the family unit isn't even defined. So I don't even know how to separate myself from what is, I'm not even sure what. Well, that's right. It's almost like the base that you depend on is changing.
And so what do you have to push off against now? And so now it makes the separation from childhood and the detachment and independence and individuality much more complicated. And so now what happens is very often you get kids who have peer relationships now become much more important because now this second family of peers that you would normally want to have anyhow as you move through adolescence because most kids know that adolescence is no time to go alone. But now what happens is peers become more important and more important to count on because now it feels like it's less easy to count on your parents.
And now you have to take more independent control of your life because you're not sure that your parents are going to be able to do that for you in the way they used to. And I would imagine that when kids rely on other kids for more guidance and perhaps judgment is not as good as it might be when they're relying on more mature advisors. Yeah, well, that's a good point to look at because one of the things you want to do anyhow when your kid enters adolescence is if you want to, to the degree you can increase the number of salient adult relationships in that young person's life, the better so that there's a counterbalance to the importance of peers. But when you have divorce, it becomes even more important, I think, to bring in salient other adults in the kid's life, whether they're the parents of friends or extended family or family friends that are important.
Because now what the kid is pulling away from parents to a degree, but that doesn't mean that they are alienated from significant adult relationships. It just means that what they're looking for is an important non-parent adult who can provide them with some stability and guidance at a time when they maybe are less inclined to accept that from their parents. This is Dialogue on Divorce. I'm Catherine Miller, and we're talking today with Carl Pickard, a psychologist in private practice in Austin, Texas, and the author of 15 parenting books about divorce and adolescence in particular.
And, Dr. Pickard, can you give our listeners some contact information for you or if they are interested in finding out more information? Yeah, they can go to my website, www.carlpickard.com. That's one way.
Another one is to go to the Psychology Today website and look me up on the blogs. The blog I do for such a day each week is Surviving Your Child's Adolescence, freely available to folks. So either of those ways would be, or you can go to Amazon and just look up my books. And spell your last name for the listeners, please.
Yep, E-I-C-K-H-A-R-D-T. Her name is Carl. And there'll be more information about Dr. Pickard's information on my website, also www.westchesterfamilylaw.com.
And, you know, you were saying something about other adults and the importance of having other reliable adults in an adolescent's life, and particularly if their parents are divorcing. And it's heartbreaking, actually, so often because adults or parents, when they're divorcing, will have less time with their children. It's sort of almost by definition. And they hold that time more preciously and can be very jealous of the other parents' time and jealous of extended family time also.
And it's kind of ironic, but it's a problem in terms of there's only so much time that a child has available. And as they're looking to spend less time of that with their families and more time with their friends, how do you advise the parent's structure, parenting schedules, so that kids get what they need and parents also have the opportunity to spend good time with their kids? Well, I think one of the principles, of course, is always accessibility in adolescence. And that means that no matter how busy you are or what else you're doing at the point at which your kid wants to talk to you, you stop everything and say, I want to hear what you have to say.
If you say, let's talk about it later, when later comes, the kid will not be emotionally ready to tell you at that point. So you have to be accessible. Another one is that as your kid is differentiating in adolescence and becoming, experimenting with different new kinds of interests and relationships and activities, it's really important for parents to bridge to those differences with interests. What you don't want is you don't want a parent who says, well, now my kid is interested in things I'm no longer interested in, so we have no good way of getting together.
No, in childhood, the kid bridge to the parent interest to be close to the parents. You get a reversal in adolescence. The parent with the adolescent has to bridge to the kid, to their interests, so that what the parent essentially says is, you know, can you tell me more? Can you help me better understand what's of interest to you?
Or can you show me how to do this thing or play this thing or explain this music to me? So the parent has to really take the initiative both to listen when the kid wants to talk and also to bridge to those kinds of emerging interests. And around visitation issues, very often what you have to do is you have to include the kid's friends in visitation because now social relationships are more important. That's a great idea, actually, to include the kid's friends and say, all right, have your friends over, or let's all go do this thing or whatever, so that it's not going to be just you and me or this sort of intimate time, but it's going to be just time we all spend together and me as part of your group.
Right, yeah. You're not going to have the same kind of best buddy, close companionship that you have. with a child come adolescence and if you're divorcing during adolescence you know that means the kid's going to be more pulling away from you and you know developing other kinds of relationships that matter and so what you have to do is you have to increasingly relate on terms that make sense to the kid and if the kid says i don't feel like doing that view right now not to take that as a rejection but to just say look you know what i'm going to do as a parent is i'm going to keep giving my kid positive choice points for connecting with me and so i'm going to say hey you want to do this or what about this you want to talk about this or whatever but you keep those choice points open because at some point the kid will say oh okay sure for whatever reason they're open to it so part of the job of the parent is to maintain constant positive choice points with that kid for interacting with him and not feel rejected when the kid for whatever reason you know doesn't want to feel like relating at that point or at least not act on those feelings of rejection because i think that you know it's very hard for parents i think sometimes especially in the heat of the divorce to not feel rejected not feel sort of outside the family in some circumstances yeah divorce creates a lot of loneliness in families and it's and part of what you're describing is it's not just that maybe the kid feels lonely for the parents that they lost but the parent feels lonely for the kid that they've lost exactly so you can't but you can't expect the kid to take the positive initiative right the parent has to take the positive initiative to keep throwing out one positive choice point after another for connecting that's their job that initiative do you think that there are parenting plans that as a general rule work better for adolescents than some other than others like week on week off or nesting and where the children stay in the house and the parents go back and forth do you have any thoughts about that i understand that not every family is the same but you know are there any sort of thoughts that you have about what works and what doesn't work in general the main thing is it needs to be it needs to be clear and it needs to be consistent and it needs to be such that you do not end up encouraging reunion fantasies so for example i think what doesn't work is for the divorced parents to say well yes we'll do everything separate except on say for holidays and birthdays you know we'll all get together that probably doesn't work that well because at that point what it does is it reincarnates the kid's fantasy they'll see maybe mom and dad are going to get back together at some point so you've got to be very clear that this is a permanent separation i think a lot of families do that too so that the kid doesn't you know doesn't get their false hopes up right what i was going to say is that i think a lot of families try to do that sort of family time sunday night dinners or something and they think they're doing something good for the kids but in fact i think you're right that it is really confusing that and it's a mixed message yeah i'm afraid it is if you're going to divorce divorce i think yeah and make it clear what that is but then but then the divorce arrangements you know as you described i mean they can be you know week to week they can be standard visitation i mean you know i mean i have seen somewhere that the kid stays in the same home and the parents rotate in and out and you see you can see all kinds of patterns it just needs to be clear that this is a divorced relationship and that now i have separate relationship with each parents who are still working together on my behalf and carl pickard in our last few minutes of our show if you people came to you divorcing parents and said what's the one piece of advice that you have for us going through this process what would that be oh i think another one is emotionally reconcile the differences that cause you to grow apart as soon as you honestly can because unless you do that you're going to have an unreconciled divorce it's going to create a lot of emotional problems not just for you and your ex but for your kids so that's number one you seem really clear about that carl pickard thank you so much for being our guest on dialogue on divorce