Divorce Diaries: Lessons From the Trenches
Welcome to Divorce Diaries, where host Cary Jacobson, attorney and mediator brings you real stories, hard truths, and practical advice on navigating divorce and family law. Whether you're going through it, considering it, or just curious, this is your place for clarity, confidence, and resilience.
Divorce Diaries: Lessons From the Trenches
EP #34: Co-Parenting with Purpose: Creating Healthier Dynamics for Children with Rita Morris, Co-Parent Coach & Mediator
Host Cary Jacobson, attorney and mediator with Jacobson Family Law, is joined by Rita Morris, Co-Parent Coach and Mediator. Together, they explore the challenges of co-parenting after divorce and share strategies for creating healthier family dynamics. Discover how to stay anchored in your values, manage differing parenting styles, reduce conflict, and prioritize your child’s peace for a stronger future. .
Ready to transform your co-parenting relationship? Visit thecoparentspath.com or call 781-492-6082 to schedule a complimentary consultation with Rita Morris.
Visit jacobsonfamilylaw.com to learn more.
Visit jacobsonworkshop.com to learn more.
And really, what it came down to was they're each acting in a way that they believe is in the best interest of the kids, and so, instead of finding themselves frustrated by the other parents, parenting it's remembering OK, this is, you know, this is what they believe to be in the best interest of the kids. That being said, they are not putting their kids in danger. Their kids are not unsafe. It's just a difference in parenting styles, and that's an important distinction to make.
Intro/Close:Welcome to Divorce Diaries, where attorney Cary Jacobson brings you real stories, hard truths and practical advice on navigating divorce and family law. Whether you're going through it, considering it or just curious, this is your place for clarity, confidence and resilience.
Cary Jacobson:Welcome back to Divorce Diaries Lessons from the Trenches, where we share real stories and expert guidance to help you navigate divorce and life after separation with resilience and clarity. I'm your host, Cary Jacobson, divorce attorney, mediator and advocate for out-of-court solutions, and today's episode is all about one of the most important and most challenging parts of divorce, which is co-parenting. Our guest today is Rita Morris. She is a certified co-parent coach and mediator. Rita helps parents co-parent from the inside out, anchored in their why and focused on protecting the child's peace for a calmer, stronger future. With her background in mental health and conflict resolution, she blends emotional insight with practical strategies to help families move beyond the conflict and create healthier dynamics for children. Rita, welcome and thank you so much for being with us today.
Rita Morris:Thank you so much. I'm really excited to be here.
Cary Jacobson:Well, I would love for you to share what you mean by co-parenting from the inside out. What does that mean to you?
Rita Morris:So I've been doing this work for a long time and one of the things that I noticed is that you can talk about behavior change from now until the end of time. You can talk about communication skills and conflict resolution skills and all the things right, but if you're not anchored in what's important to you, it's really easy to get caught up in all of the what I like to call the emotional muck that was your marriage. So parenting from you know, co-parenting from the inside out is why do I want to do this? Well, I want to do this. Well, for the sake of my kids and really anchoring in that, and then asking yourself, you know, with every interaction am I parenting? Am I co-parenting from my values and from my why am I parenting? Am I co-parenting from my values and from my why?
Cary Jacobson:That's amazing. We often hear you know that we need to know the why behind doing something, and so this is just another example of that and really making sure that these parents are focused on the children being the why and what it is that they want to come out of that co-parenting relationship.
Rita Morris:Yes, one of the questions I ask all the time is in 10 years, how do you want your kids to describe their childhood Right?
Cary Jacobson:Yeah, and I'm sure you get a variety of answers to that.
Rita Morris:And then the next question always is so is your behavior now in line with that vision? And if not, that's OK, because we're all human, it's just how do we get there Right, Then what?
Cary Jacobson:what changes can we make and tools can we use to make that a reality? Yes, so what tools do you give parents who may not be exemplifying? You know their goals yet.
Rita Morris:So it's grounding them in their values of like. Okay, let's do a values clarification exercise, and it's a values clarification exercise that's really designed for parents and co-parents and then, reminding you, when you are triggered, ask yourself that really important question like, am I acting in my kid's best interest? And it's really a big part of the work that I do is really shifting mindset. For example, I had a client that I was working with this morning and these parents have very different parenting styles and we were sort of teasing it out this morning and really what it came down to was they're each acting in a way that they believe is in the best interest of the kids and so, instead of finding themselves frustrated by the other parents, parenting it's remembering okay, this is, you know, this is what they believe to be in the best interest of the kids. That being said, they are not putting their kids in danger. Their kids are not unsafe. It's just a difference in parenting styles, and that's an important distinction to make.
Cary Jacobson:Absolutely, which actually leads me to another question, which is how do you help parents who do have differing parenting styles? Because that's something that I see often. You know, when I'm working with a couple is. It's not that they disagree on, you know, the schedule or that sort of thing. It's some of the nuances of that have not really a legal. There's no legal solution, right, it's really. How are we going to parent these children? And you know, so many divorces happen because there is a difference in parenting style. Yes, how do you help parents address that?
Rita Morris:So what I do is I like to invite parents to, as I say, step out onto the balcony and take a long term view and ask yourself the question of how can my child benefit from this? I often use the example of every single year, our kids go to a different teacher and that teacher has a different style of teaching. And are your all of your kids needs going to be met by that style of teaching? No, are some of those styles of teaching going to be difficult for your child? Yes, but what are the benefits of that? Right, and I think the benefit is is that you're teaching your kids to be well-rounded, you're teaching them resilience and you're teaching them how to cope in different environments.
Cary Jacobson:That's a great analogy, because I've never really thought of it in that sense. But we all have to deal with different peoples in our lives who have different personalities and different approaches to things, and so that is. It's the same thing, even if they're your parents.
Rita Morris:Absolutely.
Cary Jacobson:Yes. What are some of the biggest challenges parents face when they're starting their co-parenting journey as a separated or non-coupled you know, after a divorce or a separation?
Rita Morris:What I see a lot is that people are stuck in the grief, in the anger, in the resentment, and it's really hard to break free of that. And that's one of the things that I really love about helping people to get grounded in their values, because then we say you can use those values as your armor. Because people often think, oh, I'll never be able to process through all of those feelings, and is it ideal if you can process through the sadness and the grief 100%? It's not necessarily a luxury, as you're learning how to co parent right, there's not the time, there's not the money, there's all the things. So it's coming back to what's important to you and what you want your outcome to be and being able to say, okay, I can protect myself from this and that will enable me to co-parent. It's like really essentially, it's setting healthy boundaries.
Cary Jacobson:Right, and do you recommend parents use any sort of tools as far as like setting boundaries, whether that's co-parenting apps to communicate with one another or any other? You know tools that that they could use.
Rita Morris:You know what I do often recommend tools, but what I really try to work with parents to do is to create their own system that works for them, right? So people will say you know only communicate, and you know I don't know our family wizard. It's really figuring out what works for you. You know I talk about. You know every workplace operates on an operating system, right, employee operating system. So really what we're trying to do is to develop our co-parenting operating system and so it's whatever works for you. You know, like people say well, they say that we should have dinner together once a week as a family, and yeah, that's an ideal. But if you hate each other and there's going to be tension and conflict, that doesn't help anybody, right? Absolutely not. And it's giving permission to be human and to say nope. That doesn't work for us, you know.
Cary Jacobson:Yeah, you have to definitely find what is going to be the best fit for your particular family, and that so varies, you know, from situation to situation.
Rita Morris:Yeah, one of the tools that I work with going to communicate like what method of communication? How often? What's the understanding for a response time? So everything is very clear. So, like once a week before we transition, here's kids news and and we even outline like OK, social, emotional, academic, extracurriculars, like it's very structured academic extracurriculars, like it's very structured, right I?
Cary Jacobson:I very much appreciate those types of communication tools so that everybody's on the same page, everyone knows exactly what to be looking for, and some people need that structure a lot more so than you know the random or text messages or emails you know some people just need to have. I find that when I'm working with some couples, each person has differing opinions as to how much communication. There's some people that want communication constantly, like an update on all of the things, and there are others that want the high level, like give me the, give me the brief update, and so I think helping parents figure out what's going to work for both of them is critical.
Rita Morris:Yes, yeah, absolutely Helping them to figure out what's going to work for both and maybe each one bending a little bit towards what the other person needs, because that's what's good for their kids, right.
Cary Jacobson:Yeah, absolutely. Now, how does ongoing conflict between parents impact children, both emotionally and psychologically? This is something that you know. We hear about often, and often you know it's some people will choose to stay in a marriage because they, you know, want to do it for the kids, because they, you know, want to do it for the kids. But what they're not necessarily recognizing is what the conflict, how that is impacting their children.
Rita Morris:Yes, I say probably every day. It's not your family structure that's going to really determine how well your kids are going to do, it's your family dynamic, right Right. So if you're stuck in a dynamic where there's conflict all the time, whether you're married or you're not married, it's, you know, your kid's self-esteem is going to suffer, their level of anxiety, their level of depression, their ability to establish and maintain relationships on their own and not just romantic relationships, friendships, because every day, with every interaction, we are modeling for them how to do this.
Cary Jacobson:Right.
Rita Morris:Right. And so again, it's sort of brings you back to that question of how do you want your child to describe this in 10 years? Yeah, you know. So the conflict, it's, in essence, it's the conflict that's really going to hurt your kids, right, yeah, and it, you know, it'll affect school, it'll affect every aspect of their lives emotional, social, spiritual, every single aspect of their lives.
Cary Jacobson:Yeah, and I think that's what people miss often, is it like you said? It's not the structure of your family unit but the dynamic between between everyone and how that is truly impacting the kids.
Rita Morris:Yeah, and how the kids can become vehicles for that dynamic.
Cary Jacobson:Right, so tell me more about that.
Rita Morris:So kids will learn to navigate the dynamic and they're going to learn to to bend and stretch in order to keep the peace, in order to appease both sets of parents. You know, and you don't want kids to have to do that because they're kids, they're. You know they shouldn't have it Like, they shouldn't have to take the emotional temperature of either parent when they walk in the door and figure out okay, how do I navigate this?
Cary Jacobson:Right yeah, is that what you mean when you're talking about putting the child's piece first?
Rita Morris:Yes, yes, that's exactly what I mean.
Cary Jacobson:Okay, so what are some of the practical ways for?
Rita Morris:parents to do that. So it's funny. There are some things that you wouldn't even think about, right, like you know, people talk about. You don't want to bad mouth your ex in front of your kids a hundred percent but you also want to be really careful about what you say to who. But you also want to be really careful about what you say to who.
Rita Morris:So say, for example, you're at a soccer game and you're sitting next to a friend and talking about your co-parent in a negative way and that friend's kid hears, overhears this conversation, because they're sitting on the other side of their parent Right now. They're going to go back to your kid and say this is what your mom said about your dad, or this is what your dad said about your mom, right? So it's the smaller kind of nuances that we wouldn't necessarily think about. So it's really choosing and Z Well, kids are kids and they're going to go into your text messages and they're going to see what you just said about their other parent and then they're going to shift their behavior based on what you say and what they think you need. So it's being it's really important to be really clear about the boundaries of who and when you have those conversations with. It's not realistic to say only have them with professionals, because we all have needs. But it's again, it's the timing and the placement.
Cary Jacobson:Right, right, yeah, and it is an obvious one, but not necessarily using your children as a sounding board of our grievances.
Rita Morris:It's in. People do it in ways that they don't even realize. You know, like it's a? It's a very simple like oh, so I had a. I had a situation a couple of weeks ago where a little girl had a school project and the mom forgot to get the school supplies for the school project. And the dad was like your mom is so forgetful, like not even thinking right, what's the seed you're planting here? About the mom? You know, I wish your mom could be more responsible and just get these things done. Okay, how about mom's human? Let's go get some poster board. Right, right.
Cary Jacobson:Yeah, and I would also stretch it because I know that generally, when we're talking about co-parenting, we're talking about younger kids, but this, in my opinion, even goes to those older kids and adults, because they're still your kids and they're still feeling like they are being pulled between parents, even as they're older.
Rita Morris:It's especially risky when your kids are older, because it's easier, because you think developmentally they can handle this, they have the knowledge, they have the skills, but at the end of the day, you're still their parents and they still deserve to be able to have their own relationships undiluted by each parent, you know. And older kids become equally as unmoored by a divorce as younger kids do. We tend to think that they don't, but they really do, you know. Imagine you have a kid who's off at college and now their parents are getting divorced and, like now they're coming home and having to navigate holidays between two homes at a time when they're trying to differentiate anyway. And now, now they're having to figure out how do I manage this? And both my parents really want to see me, but really, quite frankly, I just kind of want to hang out with my friends, so you know. So it's equally, as you know, disconcerting for older kids as it is for younger kids.
Cary Jacobson:Absolutely. What role does being a co-parent coach play in supporting these families?
Rita Morris:What do you do with families to help support their co-parenting relationship? A lot of things, you know. It's a lot of mindset work, it's a lot of teaching skills and it's it's, I think, the most important piece is really being able to help people anchor into keeping the focus on what's. What do my kids need? Am I making this decision based on what I think my kids need, or is this some kind of a revenge plot? You know, really being able to ask yourself those hard questions and then celebrating when you do it well.
Cary Jacobson:Right, absolutely. I think that's something that, for lots of places in our lives, we don't necessarily do celebrate when we do something well.
Rita Morris:Yes, yeah, yes. Part of what I love about the program that I have is at the end we bring the kids into the program and what is part of the program? We have the parents create what we call a co-parenting commitment and they share. That comes over their faces when they hear their parents make this commitment in writing and out loud to each other and to them that we are going to do our best. That's awesome. Yeah, yeah.
Cary Jacobson:That actually leads me to another question, which was going to be obviously, at least it feels obvious to me, so correct me if I'm wrong. Co-parent coaching works better when you are working with both parents, but are there scenarios where you also work with an individual parent, maybe because the other person is just reluctant or not unwilling to participate?
Rita Morris:All the time, and I do. You know I do see improved outcomes either way. As you said, it's definitely ideal if I have both parents, but even a simple shift in terms of like a boundary that you can set will will change a dynamic Right. So, yeah, I absolutely can work with just one parent.
Cary Jacobson:Okay, that's helpful to know because you know there again in my work and working with couples, you know, in mediation there is often in a scenario where one parent may be willing and the other parent may not necessarily be as understanding or as willing to participate, necessarily be as understanding or as willing to participate, but you know they want that one person wants to improve things as much as they can. Obviously, you know it helps if both people are on board with making those shifts. But I do agree that you know, even when it's just one person shifting the mindset, if nothing else else or setting that boundary can improve the reaction even from the other person.
Rita Morris:Absolutely. And you know, it's funny because I what I see a lot is I'll have one parent that I'm working with and then the other parent will sort of start to see some of the changes and then they'll want to come along and do the work as well. So it's I I love when that happens. It's sort of like proof that it's making a difference. So I do see that a lot, but absolutely I can I have, you know, many, many times, work with just one parent.
Cary Jacobson:Yeah, when you're working with parents, how do you help them reframe conflict so that they can work towards solutions? How do you help them reframe conflict so?
Rita Morris:that they can work towards solutions. So there's a couple of things that I do. One of them is to ask them to really think about what is this really about? Is this really about your kid? And digging into that. I had a couple that I worked with a few years back where the daughter was going into kindergarten and the mom was very insistent that she do half day kindergarten. The dad was insistent that she do full day, and when we pulled it all apart, it really was. Dad was going to be feeling really left out because mom would have more time, right, so, okay, so, so this is not really about kindergarten, right? So when we figured that out, we were able to come up with a solution. So it's really trying to figure out what is the heart of this conflict and once we get to the heart of it, okay, so what's the solution?
Cary Jacobson:Interesting, yeah, and sometimes it takes a little while to get to that. What really is at the heart of that?
Rita Morris:Sometimes it takes, yes, a couple of sessions, and sometimes it means I work with one parent for a couple of weeks and then I work with the other parent, and then we come back together, yeah, and figure it out.
Cary Jacobson:What advice do you give a parent who is feeling hopeless about having a peaceful co-parenting relationship? You know, maybe it's been high conflict work for a while and they're not. They're doing the work, but they're not seeing a shift in the other person.
Rita Morris:Then it's really anchoring in. And again it sort of comes back to anchoring in your why. Why am I making these shifts? I'm making these shifts because I want the best for my kid and holding on to the understanding that we can't, for better or not, or better or worse, change other people. And it's really important to know, even as you go into co-parent coaching I can't change that other person, but I'm still going to work with what's important to me and I'm going to stay in that and I'm going to accept. It's working on acceptance right.
Rita Morris:You know this is how my co-parent operates in the world and I'm not going to change that and that's a really hard piece to accept. But once you kind of say it out loud enough times and you know, I say to people just like sort of fake it till you make it like I'm accepting you as you are. I'm accepting you as you are. I know this is how you and the piece that they gain from that is amazing.
Cary Jacobson:Yeah, recognizing that they're not going to be able to change the other person and, honestly, if they had been able to, then they may not have separated to begin with.
Rita Morris:And that's what I say all the time. You know and I also offer you know you got divorced because you wanted the conflict to stop, right, and if it doesn't stop, what's the point of putting everybody through this Right?
Cary Jacobson:Right, yeah, a hundred percent. Yes, right, right, yeah, a hundred percent. Well, how can parents reset if maybe they've already made some mistakes in their co-parenting journey? We kind of talked about that a little bit, but maybe they're trying to make another shift.
Rita Morris:What types of things can they do? Do you mean with their kids, or with their co-parent, or both either? Okay, um, you know, I would say honestly with your kids. It's kind of about owning it, you know, like owning your mistake and connecting with them on emotional level.
Rita Morris:You know, I did this and I feel like I pulled you into the middle of it in that way and I'm really sorry. And here's what I'm going to do differently next time, okay, yeah, um, and, and in many ways the same with your co-parent, like you don't. You know there's a lot of vulnerability in the apology, so it doesn't have to be that deep, but it's like, hey, can we just can we start looking towards the future and doing things differently? You know this isn't working for us or for our kids, so let's just try to do this a little bit differently. That's wonderful, yeah. Also, I say to people all the time you don't have to engage in every argument that you're invited to.
Cary Jacobson:Absolutely yeah, that's one of those boundary setting right Like and only responding to those things that need a response.
Rita Morris:There's no need to go back to three years ago when X, y and Z happened. That doesn't benefit your kids in any way.
Cary Jacobson:Yeah, Absolutely Well. Rita, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and your compassion with us today. I greatly appreciate it. How can our listeners learn more about you and the services that you provide?
Rita Morris:They can go to my website it's thecoparentspath. com. Or. People are always welcome to reach out and call me, schedule a complimentary consult. I'm happy to do that. My phone number is 781-492-6082. And I'm always happy to hear from people.
Cary Jacobson:Awesome. Thank you so much. We'll be sure to put your website in the show notes and for our listeners. If you or someone you know needs legal support through divorce, custody or co-parenting, we at Jacobson Family Law are here to help. Make sure you schedule a consultation on our website, which is JacobsonFamilyLaw. com, and if you found this episode of Divorce Diaries Lessons from the Trenches helpful, don't forget to subscribe, share this episode with a friend and leave a review. Thanks for listening and until next time. I'm your host, Cary Jacobson. Thanks so much.
Intro/Close:Thanks for joining us today on this episode of Divorce Diaries. Remember every journey is unique, but you don't have to navigate it alone. Visit JacobsonFamilyLaw. com or call 443-726-4912 for support and guidance.