Custody and Co-Parenting, During and After Divorce

What happens when two people who can no longer be married still have to raise children together?

In this episode of Jenga: On The Record, Steve and Lorie tackle one of the most emotional and challenging aspects of divorce: custody and co-parenting.

From parenting plans and timeshare schedules to communication, conflict, and putting children first, family law attorney Steve Fatula and Certified Mediator and Divorce Coach Lorie Wood discuss navigating custody during and after divorce.

They explore common mistakes parents make, how to reduce conflict, and practical ways to build a healthier co-parenting relationship—even when emotions are still running high.

Because while marriages may end, parenting doesn't.

Join Steve and Lorie as they take a lighthearted and entertaining approach to the legal and emotional realities of divorce and remind listeners that, much like a game of Jenga, one move can change everything—but with patience, communication, and a strong foundation, families can continue to thrive.

Whether you're in the middle of a custody dispute, learning to co-parent, or supporting someone who is, this is an episode you won't want to miss.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Hello, everybody, and welcome to Jenga on the record. I'm Lori Wood here with my partner in crime as always, Steve Fatullah. We're with McCoy Fatullah. Hope everybody's doing well this morning. Morning, everyone. Today we were just kind of kicking things back and forth, and we know that in the family law realm and people going through a divorce and separation, custody and co-parenting during divorce and even after can be a very big deal. Yeah. I mean the divorce may be over, but you're going to have kids together for a very long time. So if we can shed some light on that, educate and maybe help with the emotional piece and how to move forward co-parenting successfully, we're happy to do so.

SPEAKER_02 0:46

Yeah, and I think that some of the things that we see on a regular basis fall to people not understanding what they're doing or the significance of what they're doing or the significance of the fight that they're having and and or the lack thereof, right? Or caring. Or caring. Um the the obvious thing I think that we start off with is just trying to figure out or explain to people what custody is and and frankly what custody is not. And we've talked about this a little bit on other uh episodes, but I think that it's always worth repeating or at least saying it a thousand times over, right? So with what custody is, I think the easiest thing is to understand that custody falls in kind of one of two buckets. You either have physical custody, which is kind of easily explained as where the kid lives, and then you have legal custody, which is is easily kind of explained um as making legal decisions, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:42

Health, education, welfare.

SPEAKER_02 1:44

Correct. All the all the big ones there. And I think that if you think of it that way, it at least helps you understand. Um, if you want to know the very specifics, the the suggestion would be go ahead and and read the code. But for purposes of illustration and trying to figure out what the heck we're talking about, those are the big ones. What custody is not is I think equally important. So it's not parenting time, it's not uh a timeshare, it's not that percentage of whatever's happening, it's not support, and and in theory, the one custody is not related to any of these other things.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

People get really hung up on the percentage, correct. And they get really hung up on the support. If you're not paying me, I'm not gonna let you see the kids.

SPEAKER_02 2:29

Correct. And and those things are are obviously problematic. And then you have people go to court and kind of just interchange all of these terms, and that's just not correct. Uh and it's important that I think if you're going to court that you are the most articulate one at the table. Because if the court thinks you have a clue what you're talking about, then they're gonna look to you and ask what and why anytime there's a question they they need answered. And then that helps because you kind of get to frame the conversation for the judge, and the other side's stuck with almost an offensive why not, as opposed to well, you know, what do you think too?

SPEAKER_01 3:04

Right, being articulate and reasonable.

SPEAKER_02 3:06

Articulate and reasonable uh of always always, yeah. And then I think that in the custody world, just understanding again, with legal custody, most parents, couples, whatever we want to say, should have joint custody, right? Because you both made this kid. So to some degree, you should both be involved in decisions that are that are material in this child's life. And I think the court has that exact same approach, and when people are asking to deviate from that, which there's times, you really do need to have proof and evidence as to why.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

And a very good reason.

SPEAKER_02 3:40

Yeah, you need a great reason because it's it's it's taking away what the concept is of parents should raise their kids to only one parent should effectively make decisions, and then that's that's a big deal, and so why is the issue? And there's there's good reasons, and then there's reasons that do not that are just emotional from the other parent.

SPEAKER_01 3:57

And the court, you said the court wants both parents to be involved. It and there's a term that's always used, the best interest of the child. Correct. And the best interest is to have both parents have a stable, continuous, loving, frequent relationship with their children.

SPEAKER_02 4:12

Yeah, I think distilled down that's the simplest answer, and in most cases, that's what's best. Yeah. And and of course, everybody, guys, this this is not an all, right? No, there's always exceptions. But this is the majority of things. So in situations where you have things like, you know, medical procedures, most parents should be on the same page. And when they live in the house, they tend to be on the same page. And when they don't live in the house, that's that's where we're dealing with now. And that's the kind of stuff where the courts really want to know, okay, one, why not? Why are we fighting? And two, what you know, for medical, what does the primary say?

unknown 4:46

Right.

SPEAKER_02 4:46

Because the court's not there to make medical decisions, right? They're not going to take on a life.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

I don't imagine.

SPEAKER_02 4:51

And really, you don't want that. No. Right? You do you don't want the courts that involved in your life, your child's life. I mean, the the implications were just giant.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

You'd like to have some control over the decision-making process.

SPEAKER_02 5:04

Yeah, and if you can't agree, well, then the kid can't suffer. And that's when the courts are going to really appoint a person to make the decision as opposed to, generally speaking, what the decision will be. I've I've seen courts uh more than not assign a person to make the hard decision as opposed to them making the decision on do they get a surgery or do they do this or do they go to that school or would this be an attorney for the child that the court court could appoint an attorney for the child to hear maybe what the child has to say, but usually that's not the case because people really can't afford that stuff. Uh some counties are are different, but the ones that we frequent, uh, it tends to be they'll pick a person, a parent, and that parent will be either granted sole custody, sole legal custody, excuse me, for that limited purpose, or sole legal custody, or just you know, make the decision, leave us alone, and they don't actually change custody, they just give a little bit of authority there. And that I think is is helpful in a lot of cases because most people want it for a reason. And if you go in kind of with the scalpel as opposed to a cleaver, you tend to get better results from the court if they think it's more practical than what you're asking for. So again, with medical stuff, you can't both have a surgery and not have a surgery, right? That's that the easiest understanding of why it has to be. Yeah, the vaccine was a big one, and the courts, it's whether we want to accept it or not, COVID was very political, and the courts are very much trying not to get involved in the politics of all of it, and they're trying to just make decisions for what's best for the child. So what they're gonna do is go, what does the doctor say? And then if there's multiple competing doctors, then we're having a trial over what the doctors all have to say, and then we're figuring out which doctor is better at speaking and which is the most articulate and reasonable, yep, and then how much money you want to spend on whatever this decision is. Uh, and then these decisions will last for you know, in theory, forever. And that's always something people have to understand is that this stuff doesn't go away, and you may be spending ten or twenty thousand dollars on a decision that truly is not worth ten or twenty thousand dollars at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_01 7:02

Yeah, and you have to decide why you're fighting that. Is it because you're so angry at the other parent? Because things were fine. Like you said, going back to when you lived together, you parented a certain way, you knew how the other one parented, you may or may not have had issues with it in the home. But as soon as the divorce happens, all of a sudden that other person's not fit to have the children on their own, you know. What would you tell somebody coming in? Fresh, newly separated, or or whatever, where custody is a very big issue, but really if you dig down deep, it shouldn't be.

SPEAKER_02 7:39

Yeah, so I I think that the the first thing that we ask is what is normal? What's been going on? Because the courts are always looking to like what's the last six months look like? Easy conversation starter. And it's like, well, he's an awful person or she's an awful person. Okay, great, but what are you guys doing? Because they're they're so bad. What are you doing? Well, we're doing every other weekend for that parent, and I have all the rest of the time. All right, then we probably want to maintain that. That seems important if that's been going on for a while, yeah. Or it's well, it's they're an awful parent, but we do a 223 and we are constantly rotating. It's like so they're the worst parent in the world, and and their drinking's out out of control, and they're always high and driving with the kids under the influence, right, and flying rocket ships into the moon, and the answer is but it's convenient for me. And the answer is then we're not doing this. Like, at some point it's either it's a real issue, right, or it's not. And if you kind of get flagged as the one that creates false issues, that also can follow you. So it's not our goal to just blindly run in the court and we don't take that approach with it. We need to kind of understand.

SPEAKER_01 8:46

And just one point to that: if that parent is that bad flying rocket ships to the moon, yeah, always high, always drunk, and you are choosing to put your children in child, children in their care, then you're the one who's gonna get in trouble.

SPEAKER_02 9:02

That's the so that's the sometimes that's the hardest conversation. So because there are situations where maybe for us sitting neutral in this it's not a hard call. Call the police, it's bad. Do this, do that. But for people in it, well, they're scared or or you know, they've been abused themselves, so this is less abused, so it's whatever they've factored out some type of reasonable um argument in their own brain. But you have to explain to them look, if you know the other parents doing something wrong, that could harm the kids, and that could harm your child, and you choose not to act, you could be found in neglect. And if CPS gets involved, which they tend to get involved, you both lose your kid. Right. And I've seen that happen. I've seen that happen. I've seen that as the reason that people go, Oh shit, I have to do something. And you go, Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:50

And it's like it kind of goes, Why, why is that what's making you quote unquote do something? But in the same breath, you're like, Look, I'm not here to scare you, but the reality is I have seen people lose kids that are trying to work with the other side, which is unfortunate if it's like not to lose their job because of daycare. Right, or they don't want to lose their job, yep, because that's the one the courts don't really care about, to be honest. Right. The kid needs to be protected. I've seen people where they quote unquote just love the spouse so bad. Um, usually they're victims of abuse for years. We've seen it a lot with you know prostitution arrangements and things where the kids are stuck in the middle of these situations and the courts don't care about your feelings. No, this kid has to be put first. We've seen it where new new spouses or new significant others have a history of criminal record and they don't want to lose them. Again, it doesn't matter. The kids have to come first.

SPEAKER_01 10:45

Yeah, that's one of the toughest for me.

SPEAKER_02 10:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:47

You separate divorce as an adult. You can be I don't care, you can be with anybody you want. The moment you have children, yeah, the world changes, you lose the right to do whatever you want. It's it's whatever's best for your kid. And there have been so many cases in my 30 plus years. I think I figured it out now. I've been saying 30, but two more years have passed, which is crazy. Um but where somebody marries somebody in prison that they were pin pals with and then brings them in and can't understand why the ex-spouse or former spouse is upset that these children are with this former felon, yeah. Which maybe they've turned their lives around and maybe they're the greatest person in the world. But if the ex did it and you were sitting on the other, I mean, can we it's just mind-boggling how people will pick a not so great person over their children or subject on the but I love them. I can't stand that. It happens, but I love them.

SPEAKER_02 11:56

We've explained to people, especially once CPS gets involved, that they need to end that relationship. And if they don't, they lose their kids. And we've had people that say, Well, I well, I can't.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

And the answer is Then this is the consequence.

SPEAKER_02 12:08

Then you're gonna lose your kids, and they do.

SPEAKER_01 12:10

And so they lose their kids, and maybe people need to know what that looks like. Yeah. I mean, where do they place the kids if there's if the family or if there's no family, yeah. What happens?

SPEAKER_02 12:21

They in theory, they could get it all the way to foster care and just be be I don't want to say auctioned off, but effectively provided somewhere else that you're done. Now that those tend to be extreme situations, but they're not unheard of.

SPEAKER_01 12:36

No. And once CPS gets involved, and if your children have been removed from your care, it is not an easy process.

SPEAKER_02 12:43

It's not giving back and it's not easy.

SPEAKER_01 12:46

Or if at all.

SPEAKER_02 12:48

Or if at all because they already hate you. They hate you. They you're you're the trash that always has to now prove it, even though you didn't do anything wrong in direct issues. Indirect you did because of the neglect issue, but directly you didn't.

SPEAKER_01 13:02

And it in some cases the tentacles of CPS or court involvement will last the entirety of the minority of the children. Yeah, we have to do it. If you're lucky to get them back.

SPEAKER_02 13:12

We have seen cases where not only does it last through their their until they hit 18, but because they have special needs last forever. And people just don't understand the impact of bad behavior. And even calling CBS, because a lot of what a lot of parents do is use DVs, uh domestic violence issues to to strategize in a case, which which is shit. People shouldn't do that, and there should be more consequences.

SPEAKER_01 13:39

Yeah, and there's financial reasons, there's custody reasons, there's all kinds of reasons that they're being used the wrong way to get a hand up in a case.

SPEAKER_02 13:48

A whole spiel we'll go on to in a in another episode from the custody work. This week's topic, right? Maybe the next one is CPS. People use CPS and they try to use mandatory reporters to basically uh get things, right? Like they can they can use them to put in some temporary blockades, remove a parent, interview a parent, ruin their lives, and then it tends to be then the other parent does it, and then they both do it. And then once that game begins, you you know, we've seen cases where CPS has been called 16 times. Well, guess what, everybody? You are the worst of the worst if CPS has been called 16 times. Even if no one's ever been found, the disdain the court is going to have for you and your family will last well past 18 years. Oh, 100%. And it's gonna come up all the time. And you absolutely have a right to use CPS to do a welfare check or something on your kids if something's wrong because the court's gonna say the same thing. Did you call CPS? Because we've overused that as the have to step one.

SPEAKER_01 14:51

Yeah, but there is a reason CPS exists. There is a need. There is a need, but if like everything else, there is abuse of the process.

SPEAKER_02 14:58

Oh, yeah. And that's the part where the court can remove the kids from you if you abuse the process.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

Yeah, and it's even it's one thing for the parent to make false claims to CPS to get a handout. It's it's a whole nother level of ick when they teach the children to do so.

SPEAKER_02 15:17

And that it's and man, kids what we have found through this, all this, kids are incredibly smart and incredibly absorbent and observant. They see all, they absorb everything happening around them, and they just want to make their parents happy. Like when it all just sills down, like the parent that beats the kid, kid still loves them, they don't understand. So, like when people are looking at that, yeah, it sucks. It's just the reality of where things are at. So if they have a parent that is manipulating them, they don't understand they're being manipulated.

SPEAKER_01 15:53

No, it's their mom or their dad. They just want them to be proud, they want to be loved.

SPEAKER_02 15:57

And that's it. They just want them to say, Hey, you did a good job, or this or that, or you they don't want to see their parent cry. And the the craziest cases we have involve the parents that don't care, and they are happy to manipulate these kids and use them as little little puppets to get full custody and stuff. And man, at some point these are.

SPEAKER_01 16:14

Typically, full custody when somebody doesn't care is is financially paced.

SPEAKER_02 16:18

It happens, it happens a lot. And that's so we we shift from this custody discussion into like that parenting thing, right? That's where all the money ties in. So if you have full custody, you tend to have a majority, if not all, of the visits of the time, and then the support i is inevitable.

unknown 16:39

Right.

SPEAKER_02 16:39

And people tend to kind of walk in and go bam, bam, bam, and then one parent is kind of financially destitute, and the other one is with everything, and it's kind of shitty arrangement, to be honest. Right. Like it's it's I I know some parents want that or push for that, but you also don't ever have breaks and things. Like the people don't really think of the big picture of all life, they just sometimes want to win, and winning is not real.

SPEAKER_01 17:13

And and most of the time, and we're talking in extremes, people's emotions calm down, they move on. I've seen it, you know, highly contentious cases. Over time, with some healing, reasonable people come back, you know. They're they're able to co-parent maybe in a year. Maybe more, but maybe sometimes things are just heated in the moment, but these decisions, emotions are temporary, I would say, and and decisions can be permanent. Yeah. They just can't see straight. Do you find that because I know we've talked about extremes and we've talked about CPS meeting involved, their kids use just pawns or DVs as a strategy. What about people who their spouse just came home? We have a case right now that says uh they had just had a child, there was some postpartum depression. And one day, husband comes home and says, Not only do I want a divorce, I've been seeing my ex, and he's been taking their children around the ex. Yeah, that's and she just kind of lost her mind for a moment. He took that, ran straight to court, filed a DV and all these things, and she's been penalized for that moment for years. Now, part of that is because she's been acting as her own counsel and and uh is intimidated by him, so kind of gives in. But she's not as reactive, she's accepted, she wants to do different things. What in those how do you calm or how do you make sense out of a very emotional time?

SPEAKER_02 18:59

Yeah, so the first part is one, it makes sense what you do, there is a an effect for every decision, right? Or whatever whatever whatever they're no matter what we do. No matter what we do, and there's a cause and effect in in everything. And the reality is while you may have lost your cool for a second, that does suck because the impact of that thing could be years of problems.

SPEAKER_01 19:29

It but it's awful because you can certainly understand. I mean, that's that's reality. You're not gonna be, oh, okay, that's fine, appreciate you telling me.

SPEAKER_02 19:39

I mean Yeah, it's uh the court system creates litigious behavior, which is unfortunate. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:48

Because explain that.

SPEAKER_02 19:50

Sure, everyone's looking to win once you get into if you think of court like a game and then think of it almost like an arena, when you're becoming a team or you're you're in this game and you you have to constantly think about going to court, your mind changes to look for any way to win. So then people start uh kind of from a defensive side, you're guarded, you're not gonna share things, which sucks because then the kid's information's not getting shared.

SPEAKER_00 20:19

Right.

SPEAKER_02 20:20

And you're looking for any way to interpret anything as a bad thing to run the court over. Kid says dad yelled at him, well, if you were living together, you'd be like, hey dad, what happened today? What what did he do? Because you know your kid, you know sometimes they do bad things.

SPEAKER_01 20:34

You put the cat in the dryer and it got upset.

SPEAKER_02 20:36

Yeah, something like that. He he took the phone that I just taken from him and was sneaking it in his room. You don't have these conversations anymore. What people do is they run the court and go, My child said dad beat him and all these things, and the courts are not dumb. And the courts will ask that question first of Did you ask dad what happened? Did you parent? Did you try in any way to solve what it was or know what it was or learn anything before you ran the court?

SPEAKER_01 21:01

Because kids aren't always true.

SPEAKER_02 21:02

Because kids lie all the damn time, and once the kids have figured out they end up with more power than the parents, oh, that's a bad move.

SPEAKER_01 21:10

That's a bad move.

SPEAKER_02 21:11

And that happens, that happens all the time.

SPEAKER_01 21:14

Because they're playing one against the other.

SPEAKER_02 21:15

Yeah, and it's not it's not usually even like the way I'm saying, it's not malicious. They just go, No, well, dad wants to hear that mom's a bitch. So if I say those things, I'll get ice cream, right? And it may be the unwritten rule, or that's become how they bond. And then if mom hears, I don't know, that that dad's new girlfriend's mean, then she'll be happy. Like they they do like these things, but they're again, they're just trying to make everybody happy. No. Yeah. No, and those ones, those ones, like when you see those cases, those cases drive me nuts. Financially, they're great, right? Because they're paying you money to go to court for them. For every it sounds cool on the radio, but in the same time, everything's done. And it's and like you have to go, judge, we're here because we can't act like adults, and we can't decide which doctor we're gonna pick today. Is it the doctor that the kid has had for 10 years, or this new doctor that's 30 seconds closer? Well, why why can't you guys resolve it? Because two people have to agree, and now they can't agree. Someone got a new girlfriend, someone got a new boy's.

SPEAKER_01 22:33

And you can almost see in a case when things are, you know, maybe a little volatile, but manageable.

SPEAKER_02 22:40

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 22:40

And then all of a sudden things blow up, and all you have to do is ask, who's dating?

SPEAKER_02 22:44

Yep. Oh, yeah. You can you can read the room before any words come out. Yeah. Because it's just behaviors that go, you just take that deep breath and you're just like, God damn it, what happened now? And it's like, well, this major thing happened. And you're like, that major thing happened. Do you have proof of these major things? Like, what's going on? And most people don't have proof because most of the time what you're doing is relying off what your child said. And unfortunately, if you're going to court with a he said, he said, she said scenario, from a legal standpoint, it's hearsay guy, so you can't use what the kid says anyway. Courts let most of this in, so what I'm saying almost doesn't matter. But they're going to say, uh-uh. And then you're going to have a scenario where you've just put your kid in the middle of this fight, and that's not going to go well. It doesn't matter how it's not going to go, or they're not going to say what you want them to say because they're not going to say the thing that they told you in confidence to a court or stranger or anything else, right?

SPEAKER_01 23:42

And it's just And if you take something a child or anybody says and you don't fact check or you don't go to the source. And we were talking about communication not too long ago, but it's usually not that thing, or by the time it gets to where it needs to go, it is completely misshaped.

SPEAKER_02 24:03

Yeah, I mean, we had a case that when the we had a mom and she came in saying that the kid said dad threw something at him and grabbed him and held him over uh over like effectively a pier on a lake kind of a scenario. Right, which is a she was terrifying.

SPEAKER_01 24:25

This is real. It just my heart just stopped.

SPEAKER_02 24:28

The answer is okay, and you have to empathize and be like, that that sucks. The scenario is bad, but what do you have for proof? Well, no one has proof, right? Because you weren't there. So you have your child telling you, and your child, not saying your child's a liar, I don't want you to think that way, but you you kind of have to if you're going to go to court. And it's like, okay, so what we can do is tell the court that we need to have, I think we did sole custody for purposes of one to two weeks to get the child interviewed outside of dad's care. And I told the client that if if the child doesn't repeat everything you told me, this is over. Because at some point, that's all you have. You have a kid who's saying dad threw something at me and then through effectively threatened physical harm.

SPEAKER_01 25:15

How old was the child?

SPEAKER_02 25:17

Somewhere between eight and twelve, somewhere in the younger age, but not not a baby. So, like they understand what they're saying.

SPEAKER_01 25:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:25

They still may have tendency to overreact or or embellish a little bit. Dad had an anger issue historically, but none of that matters. And then dad's defense to it, because obviously went to court, was that he did throw a soda can, but not at the child, at the trash can, and the child was between him and the trash can. And it's one of those where it's like, is it true? No. Was it done probably menacingly?

SPEAKER_01 25:52

Yeah, there's a little threat there seemed not a great parenting choice, but not a great parenting.

SPEAKER_02 25:56

But not trying to peg a kid with a like a you know a rock as they're running away.

SPEAKER_01 26:00

Or hold them over a cliff.

SPEAKER_02 26:02

Well, the cliff part came to the kid was fishing and was playing around, and dad grabbed him, so he didn't fall per per dad. So then you have two plausible scenarios, and mom wasn't there.

unknown 26:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:16

Right? So then everything is on this child's soul shoulders to tell again what he said is the truth. And they went to mediation and he didn't say any of those things. They said, Oh no, we're fine. Everything's fine. And the problem is, what do you do? You can't do anything, and you've put a scenario in play that's probably worse if he actually is being abused. And we had to have the same conversation afterwards with the client saying, Look, we explained to you, and what we told the judge was, Judge, I don't know what's going on. I got this story, and I have to act, and you did, and it was 100% up to your kid, which is the worst sit shitty scenario to be in. Right. But your child with no influence from dad didn't say the same story when some third party asked him. And at that point, the answer is we're done. We have to be done. And if not, you're gonna lose your kid fighting this battle that you can't prove.

SPEAKER_01 27:15

And I think for people listening, it sounds really harsh. It does when you are so matter-of-fact or that, but you have to be.

SPEAKER_02 27:24

Yeah, if not when you're gonna be able to do it.

SPEAKER_01 27:25

Because if you jumped on every emotion, yeah, you'd be in court number one all the time, just spending clients' money knowing.

SPEAKER_02 27:33

Correct. Losing, intentionally going to court knowing it isn't gonna work.

SPEAKER_01 27:37

Right. And you are, well, it sounds harsh and cold. You are absolutely doing a service to these clients saying, let's dig a little deeper. I understand this is difficult. I can see why if you that happened, you would be upset. Yeah. It's not that we're not empathetic or compassionate, but in order to fight or advocate for your client in court, you have to have more than my child came home and said this. Correct.

SPEAKER_02 28:02

There's there is a proud moment. There's never been a time that a judge has looked at me and went, Mr. Fool, are you serious? Where there's not a thing when I'm coming in, they know that I'm not just randomly doing things. We've looked into it, we have proof of what we're saying, and we're here to make a decision and move on. They're not over-the-top swings. We're not trying to say, never let someone ever near this person again, ever. They're awful because they didn't tie the kid's shoes. There are reputations with attorneys. My job is to go and win when it's appropriate and when it's the right move. And if I don't think it is, I'm not doing it. And go find somebody else that you just want to spend money with and go to court. If you want to go with an actual answer, then we do things that are practical. We look for the actual results that solve the problem. We make sure our story makes sense and we try to find whatever evidence we can.

SPEAKER_00 28:49

Right.

SPEAKER_02 28:49

And there are times we don't have it and we don't have an option but to do something like this because that's it. If your kid's saying they're getting beat and you can't prove it, you gotta at least try. As a parent, I understand that. Parents are crying. I go, Yes, I get it, we're gonna move forward. But if you have no evidence and these people don't falter on the stand and they're really good at lying, you could lose your kid to the abuser because of this scenario. And that's always the toughest part of it. You kind of have to go, well, then let's get this kid into therapy as well. Right. And we add that to the motion. So what does therapy do? Well, it gives the kid a place to go in case he is having these things happen, and he then feels comfortable to tell that therapist, not today, but in three to six months, then you come back and you try it again. Right? You build that into it. Or we get minors counsel where they have their own attorney, but again, they have to speak up to get anything to happen. So if they're not comfortable to do that, that doesn't work. Like sometimes the answer is you're not hitting home runs every time you go to bat.

SPEAKER_00 29:47

Right.

SPEAKER_02 29:47

You're setting up the next play because it it's what has to happen. And if you swing for a home run every time, you will strike out.

SPEAKER_01 29:54

And with the thing with a home run, it's sensational in that moment. But consistently winning over time is a much better strategy. And and and there are attorneys, like you said, reputation that don't give a crap. In fact, they will instigate wars between clients just to continue to earn the legal fees.

SPEAKER_02 30:12

That that a hundred percent correct. Or fail to respond or not engage or all kinds of crap. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:20

So while it sounds harsh that we dig and we question the clients, it's for their best outcome.

SPEAKER_02 30:27

If you are lying to me here, you will lose in court. Right. And usually we're really good at figuring out when someone's not telling the truth.

SPEAKER_01 30:35

No, there's been a lot of experience.

SPEAKER_02 30:36

There's a lot of experience going, that doesn't that doesn't make sense.

SPEAKER_01 30:40

It usually falls apart, if not the first meeting, but by number two. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:44

When you're fact-checking or when you speak out loud to the paralegal, here's what they said, and everyone goes, as you're saying that you're loud, you're like, Yeah, it sounds different out of my mouth.

SPEAKER_01 30:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:52

I'm gonna ask a couple of these questions, then we're gonna decide what to do. And that's and the reality is like, look, if you just want something to do this, then there's plenty of people out there.

SPEAKER_01 31:00

Oh, we could give you some referrals. Yeah, but like we won't, but we can.

SPEAKER_02 31:04

There are better ways to do these things, and most of the times the opposing side actually is not disagreeing with us on the decisions we're making.

SPEAKER_01 31:12

No, and that's the part of being articulate and reasonable. Like you said, it doesn't only serve the client, yeah, it serves us to be the same.

SPEAKER_02 31:19

Yeah, if you have an alcoholic other side, taking away the kid forever doesn't actually solve the problem, getting that person help and getting them sober and getting them a the co-parent is the better answer.

SPEAKER_01 31:30

So I want you to give like a closing piece of advice. Mine is um think long term. If you make these decisions now, and and let's say you sign this agreement now because either you're tired or you just don't want to deal with the other person, or for whatever the reason, in three months, in six months, in twelve months, are you gonna look back and still be okay? I don't believe there is one winner. I believe you do the best you can and it's if it's decent for both, then you've won. But are you still gonna be okay when the emotions are changed or the heat of the moment has died down, or are you gonna wish you did something different?

SPEAKER_02 32:11

So long-term thinking is is my long-term thinking when you've vetted the situation, I think, is you have to unfortunately check what your child says. And if you can do that and ask the other parent what's going on, you can at least start to figure out what is happening, and then you can go to court.

SPEAKER_01 32:32

That's my thought. So back to communication, and you don't have to necessarily speak to the other parent if it is volatile. There are many things that can happen, and we will continue this conversation. Mr. Fatila has to go off to court.

SPEAKER_02 32:48

See everybody.

SPEAKER_01 32:49

So you guys go out, have a great day. Be kind to yourself, be kind to others, and thanks as always for joining us.