Speaker 1: 0:01

Today on Co-Parenting Beyond Conflict, I'll be welcoming attorney Ron Gore. Ron is an Oklahoma family attorney who serves as a mediator, parenting coordinator and a guardian ad litem. He is dedicated to promoting good co-parenting and reducing unnecessary conflict in family law cases. He owns the co-parenting education site coparentacademycom and hosts the Co-Parent Academy podcast, which is wonderful, available on allademycom, and host the Co-Parent Academy podcast, which is wonderful, available on all major platforms. Let's dive in. Well, ron, thanks for being with me today. I'm really excited to talk to you. You're welcome. Good to see you again. So first I'd love to get into understanding a little bit about your own journey, about how you got into family law and what drew you to focus on co-parenting and mediation.

Speaker 2: 0:43

Well, I think I started off a little mercenarily, you know, in a mercenary fashion. I was married. I was 29 years old, I didn't have a child yet, but I wanted to have my own business and I wanted a business that would be able to have me be more valuable the older I got, instead of being run down. The older I got able to have me be more valuable. The older I got, instead of being run down, the older I got. And so I thought being an attorney might be a good way to do that. And my sister was an attorney and I kind of figured if she could do it, I could do it.

Speaker 2: 1:13

So I started going to law school for that and then when I graduated, keeping in mind that small business vein, criminal and family law is a good small business combination, so I've focused on it for that purpose and also it kind of has the benefit, especially criminal law, of being like emergency septic repair Someone maybe doesn't want to shake your hand, but when they need you they call you and they're ready to pay because it's a real problem. So as a just on my own, that was kind of the idea of how to get into it. But then over time I started doing JL work just because I was in a small community and they needed that work done and it really connected with me because I have my own history of childhood family problems and so over the years it stopped being mercenary and started becoming a mission to try to help kids, you know, wherever you can you mentioned a term, jl, so for our listeners that don't know what that means, what does that stand for?

Speaker 2: 2:09

A JL is a guardian ad litem, so it's an attorney who's appointed to represent the child's best interests during the litigation, and they do different things in different ways in different states. So I'm in Oklahoma and in Oklahoma, for example, you could also have a public defender who is appointed in cases of domestic violence, and the public defender is not appointed for the child's best interest, is appointed to express the child's preference for how to hold the child is. You can have a public defender and a guardian ad litem in Oklahoma in the same case.

Speaker 1: 2:41

Thank you.

Speaker 2: 3:05

Thank you.

Speaker 2: 3:06

Yeah, so in your experience, what are some of the common misconceptions that parents have about legal aspects of co-parenting post-divorce?

Speaker 2: 3:07

So it's interesting to see how people communicate when they think that the magnifying glass is on them and how they start to communicate when they think the case is done and so they will revert back to improper co-parenting techniques and proper communication techniques and stop making decisions that are in the kids best interest. They start focusing sometimes on getting back at each other, one person taking advantage maybe that person had been bullied throughout the marriage and they had the upper hand and so they decide to get a little bit of revenge, not understanding that that could quickly turn around. And then also they forget that their children are actual individuals and not their property, and so often they parent them and they co-parent about them, as if the children will forever remain under their thumb and never gain autonomy. But as the children get older, they get increasingly more autonomy as they get closer to 18. And so sometimes poor co-parenting decisions can come back to bite the parents when the child gets old enough to express a preference that the court will listen to.

Speaker 1: 4:09

Sounds to me like there's a lot of control dynamics at play, where a co-parent's trying to control their partner trying to control their children. Do you see that coming up much?

Speaker 2: 4:15

Oh yeah, all the time. Yeah, the power and control dynamics in a co-parenting relationship can sometimes be very crass, sometimes be very subtle, but they're always there, I think.

Speaker 1: 4:33

High-conflict co-parenting can be so incredibly stressful, as you know, and I'm curious, from a legal perspective, what are the first steps that you'd recommend a parent might take if they realize that they're in that type of situation, that high relationship?

Speaker 2: 4:44

So I think most co-parents who think they're in a high conflict situation will assume that they can't do anything to change the other parent, and they may be right.

Speaker 2: 4:53

They may be wrong.

Speaker 2: 4:55

So the easiest way to make some sort of change is to focus on yourself first.

Speaker 2: 5:00

So I think the most efficient thing to do is to assess your own decision making, your own communication, to shake out the kinks, to get rid of any garbage that you're doing, one that may help resolve the problem, because you may be unintentionally triggering the other party based on the relationship, because there's so much woven into that tapestry of your past relationship. Two, once you've done that, it puts you on more firm ground to go to the other parent and say, hey, I realized that these communications weren't great and so I've done these things to fix myself, and I'm wondering if maybe you can meet me halfway and then if that doesn't work. Third, you put yourself in a great position to go back to the court to acknowledge that you weren't always great at communication and co-parenting, that you made active efforts to improve yourself, that you reached out to improve the relationship, and so now, as last recourse, you're back at the court. I think too often people just willy-nilly go to court without giving any sort of due thought to their own role in the co-parenting dynamic.

Speaker 1: 6:01

So what if we're in a situation that is really challenging? You've accepted what you can, you've made the changes where you can make them, and things are just really conflicted and you're not seeing any movement. I'm sure you've heard of the term parallel parenting and I'm curious what are your thoughts on it? Is it an effective solution in some of these cases, or is it generally not something you'd recommend?

Speaker 2: 6:26

I think sometimes it can be the only solution, depending on the history of the relationship, especially if there's a history of domestic violence, especially if the perpetrator of domestic violence has not sought treatment and hasn't really internalized that change that they needed to make.

Speaker 2: 6:44

I think in those circumstances it's probably going to be necessary. Otherwise the goal would be to not get to parallel parenting because oftentimes it's not going to be in your kid's best interest. So I would do everything that I could to improve the relationship before going there as a last result. And you would never do it unilaterally. I think you would only do it with some court intervention and acknowledgement that that's what's in the children's best interest. Because if you start to on your own implement parallel parenting when you've had a joint parenting structure, sometimes you can have parallel parenting within a joint custody arrangement. You can put it in there. But let's say that you've had a joint custody situation where you weren't parallel parenting. If you unilaterally start to parallel parent, then I think it's going to wind up looking bad for you and you may actually be inadvertently giving the other parent what they need to maybe take it to sole custody.

Speaker 1: 7:38

I see, yeah, that sounds like it could be dangerous if they don't get the courts involved.

Speaker 2: 7:42

Yeah, and if you have a joint custody plan in some jurisdictions, like in Oklahoma for example, you don't have to go back to court and have a whole series of litigations to change the joint custody plan. And the statutes in Oklahoma, for example, permit two parents who are in a joint custody plan to submit an amendment to the plan. That becomes the new order of the court, assuming the judge signs off on it without having followed a motion, without having a single court hearing order. The court assuming the judge signs off on it without having thought in motion without having a single court hearing?

Speaker 1: 8:10

Do you ever find that parents are able to do that where they're in a conflicted situation and they both agree to something like a parallel parenting arrangement?

Speaker 2: 8:15

I can, because oftentimes people in that predicament think that the other person is the problem. And if you each think the other person is the problem and if you think you can resolve the problem by not having to deal with them as much, then you may both, for your own self-interested reason, agree to something that benefits you both, sort of like a laissez-faire of co-parenting.

Speaker 1: 8:33

That makes sense. You'd mentioned, Ron, about children. Obviously, you work with children and you see the impact that these sorts of co-parenting relationships can have on them. What are some signs that a co-parent dynamic is taking a toll on the child and what could a parent do to address this proactively?

Speaker 2: 8:51

Well, I think that really depends on the age and developmental stage of the child, and it also depends on the gender. So it is gendered in terms of how children will typically deal with that kind of stress. The research is pretty clear that boys will tend to externalize their big feelings that they can't handle, and girls will tend to internalize with things like anxiety and depression, and the younger they are. So a younger boy will probably be fairly oblivious to a situation, while a girl who's the same age or a little bit older in the same household will be more acutely aware of the situation. Older in the same household will be more acutely aware of the situation. So it's important for parents to look at each of their children as unique individuals who respond separately in their own ways and have different sets of information from which they're operating. But as children get older, they're going to be more acutely aware and they're going to overhear things. Especially, girls are going to tend to be more social. They're going to be outside the door, listening, trying to eavesdrop on conversations. Boys are going to be on his PlayStation or Xbox, not care as much. If you start to have an older child, you're going to start to get maybe some resist-refuse dynamics. Teenage girls very often will start to be more aggressive towards mom if she feels like mom's being unfair. Dad usually is going to be a little easier on a teenage girl. Mom's going to tend to be a little bit more tight and disciplinary on a teenage girl. So you can very often get a situation where you're going to get these dyadic alignments between maybe a teenage daughter and a father against the mother. Boys tend to be more protective of their mothers and tend to get more conflict with their fathers as they get a little bit older. So you can have a similar sort of dyad comprised of dad and son against mom, although sometimes you know it's not 100%. But those are some general trends that I think I've seen over the years.

Speaker 2: 10:41

Essentially for all ages and stages and genders, you're going to wind up seeing a baseline with your child and a deviation from the baseline in a way that's negative. And then it's for you to think to yourself this is a child who has behaved X. Now they're behaving Y. I'm going to assume that my child is the same child. There's something that has affected them that they're having trouble dealing with. So what is that external stimulus that's causing my child to have this reaction and I would start looking around for what that is. What's the need that's not being met? And just not assume my kid's just being a jerk. My kid has a need. Let me assess the need and sometimes the need is that you're exposing them to co-parenting conflict.

Speaker 1: 11:25

So an example you gave was a dyad of a father and a daughter that ally's the other parent who's turning the child against you instead of maybe his own behavior as the chicken's coming home to roost.

Speaker 2: 11:54

So the first thing I would do is reach out to the other parent and say, hey, I'm noticing this behavior in my house or you're noticing it at your house.

Speaker 2: 12:00

See if it's in both places with both parents. If so, then you can eliminate the idea that it's a dyad, especially if the other parent is being open with you about that conversation and if you have enough trust built up that you can trust their response. If you start to get the idea that it is something between your relationship with you and her, then I would get into therapy right away to have a third party who could help you address those concerns in a level playing field, because there's so much of a power imbalance in having these conversations with our kids that it helps to have a third party who can be the power balancer in the situation and your child also sees that you care enough to do this and eventually your child may say do we have to go back to therapy? We're okay, can we stop? Then you can resolve it. But I think getting angry with your child, getting frustrated, getting defensive, those are all things that are just going to reinforce the situation that has begun to develop.

Speaker 1: 12:58

Great Switching gears. For a moment, I was thinking about technology and communication and how technology is playing an increasing role in co-parenting. I know you're familiar with the Best Interest app and I'm curious how do you see apps like Best Interest and other tools assisting parents in this new modern era?

Speaker 2: 13:19

The Best Interest app is pretty interesting and I've already recommended it to some of my clients because I love the unilateral nature of it. You don't have to have the agreement to get on board that app and it's really protecting you from yourself. The incoming communications may trigger you, but it's you that's being triggered and you're the one who's going to have the response to it. That is unhelpful and so it is shielding you in the moment from this triggering communication so that you can have time to consider why you were triggered by it and how maybe to get past that with a therapist, with a good friend, with some other advisor. And in the meantime it allows you to respond to the actual substance that matters of the communication, instead of what I think some people do is they fire off a quick rejoinder that is aggressive and unhelpful, or they just don't want to look at it because they know it's going to be negative and so they don't respond and they start to be told that they're unresponsive and it's their fault. So I think it protects the user from themselves while they're able to figure out how to not meet it. The part of that app it's amazing and I love the fact that kind of inherent within it is you can always use it. It can also train you to not need it, and any app that has that inbuilt is, I think, a good thing. It's not just there to say I always want your money, it's I want you to help get better and communicate better, which is great. Other co-parenting apps, which typically are by court orders our Family Wizard, but with parents for example those apps are great. They have other tools that are very helpful having that shared calendar, having expense reimbursements, and also I'm a parenting coordinator as well. So to be able to just look into our Family Wizard, for example, as a court professional, the communication between the parties, to not rely on somebody sending you an email that maybe isn't exactly the same as it was when it was sent, or trying to put together text messages that came to you asynchronously and you're not quite sure how they went saves a lot of time and money for everybody. And then, additionally, these apps are now starting to put in these secure calling features where you can have video calls between parent and child, where you don't have the other parent over the child's shoulder, but maybe the parent you're concerned about using some inappropriate language or inappropriate manipulation is probably going to be a little bit more careful because they know that they're being recorded and if they aren't, you have immediate access to show something to the court that there was a problem that wasn't you. So there's different apps, have different benefits, but I think they're all helpful, even for some healthy co-parenting relationships.

Speaker 1: 16:00

As a co-parent myself, I know how difficult communication can be. That's why I created Best Interest, the co-parenting app that uses advanced AI technology to automatically filter out all negativity, promoting positive communication and helping you create a healthier environment for your family. Try it now and get 10% off with code BEYOND10. Link in the show notes. And now back to the show. You mentioned about the video calling and the recording. Apple recently released the ability to transcribe phone calls and, I believe, video as well. How does this come up in co-parenting dynamics, courting the other parent and their interactions? Do courts generally frown upon that or are they accepting of that information?

Speaker 2: 16:45

It's an interesting dynamic and it depends upon the judge. Some judges have had their own personal experiences with being recorded and maybe didn't like it. Some judges maybe recorded someone else and thought it would save the day. So you have to know the judge. I know what their personal dynamic is just from having been around for a while, and so it helps to know what your judge wants or doesn't want for sure, which is why an attorney can be helpful. But then also, let's assume that your judge doesn't really have a belief either way about whether it's good or bad. So what does it do to the relationship? It can make the relationship better If you're having really poor communications.

Speaker 2: 17:27

If everyone knows that the recording is happening, I think it's fair to say, hey, I'm going to be recording these conversations, I want to be on my best behavior. I hope you are too. I'm giving you a heads up that you're being recorded. That's one thing, and I think that can be helpful. If you're surreptitiously recording the other party, then you may get some good information, because maybe you don't want to destroy the evidence. There's always the observer effect. When someone knows they're being observed, it destroys the experiment. But just know that most judges, if they receive a surreptitiously recorded conversation, they're going to understand that you're an actor in that situation. You're not you, and so you really have to be on your best behavior, because they're going to say you knew you were being recorded. They didn't know they were being recorded. I'm going to have all inferences about intent and whether it's good or bad against the person who knew it was being recorded and give some benefit of the doubt to the other.

Speaker 1: 18:19

Got it, and also I'm not sure about Oklahoma, but in some states like California it's illegal to record without consent.

Speaker 2: 18:27

Yep, so it depends on the state you're in as well. Oklahoma is a one-party consent state. Now there's also different rules in the different states and this is federal case law as well regarding the ability of a parent to record on behalf of their child. So if you're not in a conversation but your child is with the other parent, you, as a legal guardian of that child, can, under certain circumstances and depends on the case law and all that have the ability to record surreptitiously even though you're not really part of the conversation.

Speaker 1: 18:55

This is bringing up some questions I have about some of the legal complexities of co-parenting can be really overwhelming for parents. What advice might you give to a parent who's feeling overwhelmed by all the legal and emotional complexities recording or not, of co-parenting?

Speaker 2: 19:13

If we're talking about legal and emotional complexities, I would say divvy them up and take them to the proper professional. So, if you have a legal complexity, don't be a Google JD. Don't think that you can Google it and find out. Don't think ChatGPT is going to be the exact, right answer. Chatgpt can send you to a statute, but it won't be able to interpret it for you and it won't be able to tell you how the judge in your case is going to be thinking about the situation. So, please, it's like having a Google MD. This usually does not turn out well, so let's not do that. In terms of emotional, you need to go get support. Emotional, you need to go get support.

Speaker 2: 19:51

If you're struggling, there is no harm in going to see a therapist to talk about what's going on, to get some tools, to get some feedback. Don't handle it on your own and don't necessarily trust that the person in your circle who's the most willing to talk with you about it is willing to talk with you about it, because they want to tell you only helpful things Lots of times. People in your circle who have gone through the situation and so you respect their experience. Sometimes those people are also bitter and nasty and they're going to tell you information that's going to be ultimately unhelpful for you. Kind of keep you stuck Right right, and it's not necessarily fair to them to put that on them and to expect them to give you unbiased information when they're not unbiased. They love you, they want what's best for you. They're going to be on your side. It's more helpful to have a professional to help you through those emotional things than someone else.

Speaker 1: 20:38

And it's really refreshing to hear an attorney promote mental health, working with therapists in these situations. I applaud you for your stance on that.

Speaker 2: 20:47

I think it's critical. There are lots of times I tell my client I'm not your therapist. I probably charge more than a therapist would charge you, and what I'm giving you is not nearly as good as what you would get. So please, please, please, go get a therapist. And in fact in lots of cases I won't work with you unless you're seeing a therapist, because it's not going to get us anywhere. I don't like to lose either, so I don't like to go into court, and my client's been the jerk. I mean that's a horrible position for an attorney to be in because it cuts our legs out from under us. So the better I can equip my client with good mental health resources, the better they're going to be.

Speaker 1: 21:22

I'm sure you've been surprised by secret communication that your client has sent out and then entered the courtroom unexpectedly.

Speaker 2: 21:29

I was surprised just last week by something I can't say, but it was horrific, one of the more horrific things I've encountered in the last 17 years.

Speaker 1: 21:38

So, yep, I want to know, from your perspective for listeners that are starting off on their co-parenting journey. Speaking of the overwhelm, what are your top three pieces of advice that you would like to leave them with today?

Speaker 2: 21:52

Someone who's starting off co-parenting for the first time. Yeah, it depends on the age and the stage of the child. You know there is a professor from the University of Virginia and his name is escaping me at the moment, but he took Maslow's hierarchy of needs, dr Emery, and he turned it into a hierarchy of needs for children in two homes. What I would say to you is I would try to find that hierarchy of needs in two homes and I would consider it your ethical obligation to go about co-parenting as if you were looking to raise your child up through that pyramid to their highest level. And the highest level that a child can attain in two homes is to just be a kid, to not be a kid of divorce, to not be a kid stuck in the middle, to not be a kid who has loyalty, binds and conflicts that they aren't equipped to handle.

Speaker 2: 22:43

Ratchet them up and if you find that you're the limiting factor in how high they can ascend in that hierarchy of needs, then to get yourself the help you need, to fix yourself so that you're not the obstruction to your child's betterment, as much as possible, so long as it doesn't affect the safety of your child.

Speaker 2: 22:58

Leave the past in the past. If your ex cheated on you, then maybe you don't trust them. Start rebuilding trust step by step by step, little things leading to big things over time. If you think that you're the better co-parent, then I think you have an ethical obligation to do everything in your power to help the other parent be a better co-parent. That means giving them the space to admit inadequacy to you and not attack them for it. To help them out when you think they're having difficulty, in a way that isn't going to anger them, that isn't looking to put them down while you're helping them. It's your job to make sure that your child reaches adulthood healthy, happy, capable of moving on with life and having a good relationship with both parents, if at all possible.

Speaker 1: 23:45

That's great. I'm curious about situations where there's a lot of diagnostic terms thrown around narcissism, borderline right and I find that, speaking with co-parents that believe their co-parent is a narcissist, they tend to be very fixed in their beliefs about what's possible, what they should do or shouldn't do, and you're talking in a way that's more expansive and understanding and maybe coming across the aisle. I'm curious what you might advise the client that is talking about their co-parent in this way. Is this a real fear or is this something for them to get through?

Speaker 2: 24:21

A vast majority of female clients who come in say that their husband or ex or the father of their child was a narcissist. A lot of the men who come in will say that the mother was bipolar or borderline, and it's not at all in keeping with the actual statistics of the population of the United States. So it is impossible for the number of people who think their ex was a narcissist or bipolar for them to actually be so. So from my perspective, it's unhelpful to deal with those labels, and I'll also just know the court when they hear you say that they think, oh, there's another one. So instead, focus on behaviors and focus on present behaviors. Even if your ex actually is a narcissist, if your narcissist ex can learn behaviors that are helpful for co-parenting, then what does it matter? Right? So the key is to focus on behaviors. That's what can be changed.

Speaker 2: 25:14

If your ex is a narcissist, that can't be changed. If your ex is borderline, that can't be changed. So why dwell on something that can't be changed? If the behaviors can improve and you can live with those behaviors and you feel safe and your children are safe, then focus on the behaviors, and a lot of it starts with you. You have to incentivize what you want to get. Whatever you subsidize, you get more of. So take every opportunity you can to subsidize good behavior by a co-parent, and they'll tend to show you better behavior than they have in the past.

Speaker 1: 25:47

Going back to the co-parent who's just starting out, oftentimes they're doing some Google searches and they're looking up what is a parenting plan, and maybe they're even downloading a template, and maybe they don't even have an attorney yet. I'm curious if you have any advice for that early co-parent in terms of a parenting plan. What are some provisions that when they arrive at your lap, you're like oh, he should have included this and this and this.

Speaker 2: 26:10

Before I forget to say this, depending on the jurisdiction you're in, you can go online and you can find examples of parenting plans. So, for example, in Oklahoma we have our OSCNnet and you can go online and you can find all of the joint custody plans or all of the parenting plans for people who don't have joint custody, and you could download some of those and look through them and see what makes sense to you and what doesn't. So you can start there if you'd like, depending on your jurisdiction. Also, I think it helps to think about it in terms of legal custody and physical custody, two completely separate things. So for legal custody, the big decisions tend to be education, religion, extracurriculars, medical, dental, psychological, those kinds of things. If you have disagreements with your co-parents that are major disagreements on any of those big things, then it may be the case that either joint custody plan isn't for you or you may need a joint custody plan that has specific carve-outs for the areas of disagreement. When it comes to that decision-making, it may be the case in your jurisdiction you have a parenting coordinator who could be appointed to help you with disagreements about those areas in which you disagree without having to go through all the expense of going back to court For physical custody.

Speaker 2: 27:21

I think it's important to think about the age of your children. Week on, week off may be better for you because it's easier fewer transitions, you don't have to see your ex as much but if you have an infant, it's not better for your infant, right? So you have to think about how old is my child? As your children get older, you may prefer to see them every day. You may prefer to see them every other day and have exchange every other day. For some reason, your kid hates it. And they have lots of extracurriculars. They've taken lots of stuff to school. They have like lots of equipment for sport or for band. They would rather have something like a week-on-week-off, something without the midweek transfers.

Speaker 2: 27:56

Think about holiday schedules, vacations. What do you do with three-day weekends during the school year? How do you align them? Is your family, does your family not celebrate Christmas? Maybe there's a different holiday you can change, exchange for that. Maybe you like to do things in the fall and your co-parent likes to do things in the spring. Maybe you always take fall break and they always take spring break. So don't think it has to be cookie cutter. Think about your life, the things you cherish, the things that you want to do. Think about the other your co-parent things that they like and they cherish and see if you can both get the most out of this plan without either one of you actually missing something that you would care about. It doesn't have to be equal. You may get less of something but more of something else that makes up for it. What?

Speaker 1: 28:45

sorts of conflicts do you see that arise out of parenting plans? Are co-parents often conflicted about schedules, or what are some of the things that come up in?

Speaker 2: 28:54

court, co-parents tend to settle into a schedule that makes sense for their lives. They'll tend to start to work together to trade things off when they can, unless it's a really, really toxic co-parenting situation. So physical custody schedules tend to take care of themselves, unless it started off with one parent getting way less time, and then you're always going to have that. Now some people like when my son was young and I was working 80 hours a week, 100 hours a week, literally. If I were to have been divorced at that time, I would have just been every other weekend and I would have loved it. I would have been the best Disneyland dad ever and that would have been okay because that's what I could have handled and I would have had a great relationship with my son on those bases.

Speaker 2: 29:36

In terms of legal decision making, extracurriculars will come up and bite you and depending on where you are I'm in Oklahoma, so tumbling turns into gymnastics, turns into travel, turns into thousands and thousands of dollars. T-ball turns into Little League, turns into travel baseball. So making sure that you're on the same page about extracurriculars, both in terms of interference with the other person's parenting time and then also with the expense, that's things that really start to come up. Also, making sure that there's some provisions that medical care that is not an emergency where you don't have a choice, is going to be done in network and that you're going to agree before really expensive things that aren't mandatory get done. So are we talking about lenses, contact lenses and glasses? Are they both necessary? Maybe not? We're talking about braces when and how are we going to do that? So there's lots of different things that can come up.

Speaker 2: 30:29

Does your child need tutoring? If so, who we going to do that? So there's lots of different things that can come up. Does your child need tutoring? If so, who's going to do the tutoring? How expensive do you want that to get? So those are the kinds of things that can start those pocketbook items. As children get older, daycare is just devastating for folks. So, talking about daycare providers, there actually are situations in which it's better for one parent to maybe work a little bit less to receive child support, but you're both not paying. You know, $1,500 a month in daycare. So just to sort of be pragmatic and be open to possibilities that may be best for you both, even though you wouldn't have thought of it before.

Speaker 1: 31:09

It sounds like the more important thing when you're first mapping out that initial parenting plan is that you perhaps work on communication and that relationship, because things over the course of your co-parenting relationship will change dramatically, especially if your kids are young, so it's hard to anticipate what might come next.

Speaker 2: 31:27

They're built to change. That's why in Oklahoma, you can just file amendments to the Joint Custody Plan. I think that you should anticipate that they're going to change and it behooves you, especially if your kids are young, to rebuild trust if you've broken it, to rebuild those ties in the relationship so that, when it comes time that you're going to need something, that you're going to need to make some changes, that you might have a relationship with your co-parent where they're happy to help you, instead of looking for an opportunity to give back for something that you did to them before.

Speaker 1: 32:00

That's really helpful. I'm curious if there's anything that we didn't cover that you would like to mention to our listeners.

Speaker 2: 32:03

Just one thing that I can think of is if you're going to make changes, get it in writing, get it filed with the court. We're going to make changes? Get it in writing, get it filed with the court. Too often people have these sort of handshake deals or they have an email and they rely on that for years and years and years and then it comes back and bites them. So some examples where someone agreed to not pay child support anymore, but they were going to pay 100% of the extracurriculars. But then, you know, down the road the person comes back and says you're not paying me my child support. You owe me $60,000. And that agreement that you made doesn't hold up in court. So just make sure that you document and you file updates to your joint custody plan, if you have one, to make sure that everybody knows that they're on the same page. Nobody sees an opening to take advantage of the other person, and just one of those good fences makes good neighbors, steve.

Speaker 1: 32:55

That's a really good point about good documentation, and it brings up another question in my mind about what makes good documentation for the courts. What do they trust? Do they trust to print out of a text message? Do they really care where it comes from?

Speaker 2: 33:09

Let's say that you're getting together with a co-parent. You're getting along, and if you have a place where you can file something in your court file I don't know how every state operates, but print out something, type it up with as much detail as you can think, sign it both of you in front of a notary and file it with the court. Nothing else has to happen with it. But if you file it with the court, no one's going to lose it. It's going to be part of the court file. You can always go back and say we had an agreement and there it is.

Speaker 2: 33:38

Having a text message isn't going to do much good because I could go online and I could fake a text message from from you, saul, in about 10 minutes in which you promised to give me everything you own. It's so easy to fake audio. It's so easy to fake video nowadays. It's so easy to fake text messages and emails that you really shouldn't rely on that. If it's important enough to reach an agreement regarding your children and you're going to rely on it for years it's important enough to put down on paper, to get it signed in front of a notary, so no one can say you forged your signature and you get it filed with the court.

Speaker 1: 34:10

That's really good advice. Ron, thank you so much for being on the podcast today. You're welcome. It's good to see you again. Thanks for joining us on the Co-Parenting Beyond Conflict podcast. To support our show, please subscribe or leave a rating. See you next time.